Books I was afraid to read
it's almost spooky season after all
In my side of the world, celebrating and dressing up for Halloween is relatively new. We do not mark October 31 as a trick or treat day in our calendars. It’s only fairly recent that people organize Halloween parties and trick or treat events for kids.
But it doesn't mean we have no spooky season. Filipinos celebrate November 1 and 2 as All Saint's Day and All Souls Day respectively. On November 1, families visit the graves of their deceased relatives and stay late up until the following morning to welcome November 2nd. People bring food that should last up until the next morning because that's the only time we go back to our homes. It seems like people bring their own portable bright lights too because the graveyard becomes as bright as an operating room. The cemetery becomes a place of catching up. People who live in big cities come back to their home town for these days. You meet up with old high school friends or catch up with the cousins. It's like a big town party. And with these graveyard visitations, come ghost stories.
Several days leading up to November 1, TV programs and other media are full of haunted tales. I could go on and on about the ghost stories I have heard over the years but I wanted to talk about something else that’s been scaring me. Big, thick books. Books that center on political history. Books tagged as serious highbrow literature.
Thankfully, over the years, I overcame some of them.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children is the story of Saleem Sinai who was born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the exact same moment when India became an independent country. Therefore, he is exactly as old as independent India. Saleem was born with telepathic powers and his mind serves as a link between all the other "midnight children" of India. Like Saleem, the midnight children of India were also born around midnight and had been endowed with magical gifts.
Saleem's life is tied with various events in India's post British rule. Over the course of his life, he experienced several migrations with his family because of war, became a political prisoner, meet some of the other midnight children, had an amnesia but regained his memory, saw a mass murder, and many more.
I wanted to read this book for a very long time because I wanted to learn more about India and plan to visit someday. At that time I was also looking for other magical realism books having just read 100 Years of Solitude. Then I learned it won The Best of Booker prize twice! Winning that prize once speaks so many volumes, but winning it twice? Now that's another level. I got so intimated but I pushed on. It took me so long to finish this book, a month maybe, and I got a huge reading slump after. At the same time, I had so much fun reading this. It's funny and I learned a lot of things about India. Because it's heavy on magical realism, some things were ridiculous and absurd but at the same time fun to read!
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A book that needs no introduction. I kind of find it strange however that I didn’t know much about this book’s story despite seeing it everywhere. I didn’t know there was a Levin. I only knew about Anna.
I don't know how many times I've read that this is the greatest book of all time. I just kept on postponing reading it because of it's length (800 pages!!) I finally decided to slow read it last July. I read Books 1 -3 in July, 4-6 in August, and 7-8 in September while reading a different book in between. I am down to the last 150 pages and it has been a wonderful reading experience so far. I am so sad that this journey will be ending but at the same time I am glad that I will almost be done with this mammoth book.
If anyone else reading this is intimated by Anna Karenina, I'm telling you that it is so easy to read! I think you can probably finish 1 book in a day if you don't have to do basic human things, like go to work, or eat, or do laundry. Really, I was just intimated by the book's length.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
A book that I was truly afraid of. There’s an actual ghost and there’s actual haunting. And also because I was so afraid of misinterpreting what I read in this book. However, I think this is one of the most cleverly-written book I have ever encountered. Even though I didn’t understand all the symbolisms in this book, I understand that it might take several readings to peel all its layers.
I didn't have a good reading journey with this book though. It's uncomfortable and demands a lot of emotional investment. I dreaded finishing it but I still wanted to finish it. What I’ve realized though after reading Beloved is that I think I’ve just gone through a mental exercise (like a physical exercise but for the brain). I think I’ve just built mental endurance.
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
I only mentioned Bring Up the Bodies because it’s the only book I read in Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy. I picked up the book not knowing it was a series. I read the blurb at the back of the back and it pretty much read like a stand alone book. I later on realized it was not. But I believe you can still read it as a stand alone.
I picked this up because I was curious about Henry VIII’s six wives and Bring Up to Bodies leads up to Anne’s beheading, his most interesting wife (IMO). When I went home after buying the book, I Googled about it and saw there was a published companion book to the series. Knowing that somebody felt the need to publish a companion book meant it was not a very accessible book. It intimated me but I pushed on.
Bring up the Bodies immediately follows the events from Wolf Hall (Book 1). Henry is tired of Anne and wants to end the marriage which Cromwell agrees to do. Cromwell then starts talking to people close to Anne. The more he investigates, the more he finds evidence of Anne’s unfaithfulness.
I love all the conniving and I loved reading about Cromwell's plans. I loved picking up his brain. However, I found this book hard to read sometimes. It took me a long time to finish this book and left me with a huge reading slump which I talked about here. But overall, I’ll say that this book was worth my time. Will I be reading the other books in the series though? I don’t think so.
What do you think about the books I mentioned above? Have you read any of them and what was your experience reading them?
Other mammoths in my TBR that I have yet to conquer are The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. How about you? What books are in your TBR that you’re scared to read?
Let’s Read Asia
A couple of weeks ago I published a new page in my Substack called Let’s Read Asia. This page will serve as my tracker for my reading challenge to read every book set in Asia. This page will also serve as a recommendation page for anyone wanting to read book set in Asia as well. You can read all about it here.
In case you missed this..
Everything in this newsletter is free for now. And so, every open, like, comment, or restack means a lot to me and I thank you all for your support. If you’d like to further support me, buy me a coffee so that I can continue this work.
I've been wanting to read The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, but it's just sooooo long and heavy in all meanings of the word. It's been staring at me from my bookshelf. I'll get around to it eventually, I hope!
The only book I've read from this list is Anna Karenina, or, to be more accurate, I am currently reading it. After reading War And Peace last year, I no longer feel intimidated by chonky books, except Moby Dick, I simply cannot convince myself to get into that one 😂
Also, it's so interesting to learn about All Soul's Day, I find it very interesting that so many cultures around the world have a spooky festival around the same time of the year.