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I am unable to recall the first book that I ever fell in love with, there have been so many over the years Although I do not remember it at the time, I do remember my mother later telling me that I was always asking her to read the study book of time and clocks to me. Why this book, I do not know. I can picture it now, a thin, square hardback book, no more that thirty pages at the most. It was (is in fact, as it still has a place on my bookcase, and ever will) the vilest of brown colours, and must have been fifty years old, even then.
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It did have the most wonderful smell, the smell that only old books can have, the smell of knowledge, of discovery. Why liked it, I have never known, but I did, and it is still, even after all these years, a very important book to me.
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Later on, when I must have been about eight or nine, I fell in love with the works of Margaret Mayhey. To be fair, that might not have been her name, but it was something like that, and it was a long time ago. I do know why, but I always had the idea that she was from New Zeeland, and anyone who knows me well enough to know will know that New Zeeland has always had a certain appeal to me. Perhaps it is the mountains, or the fjords, or the zorbing.
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I also remember the day that I was introduced, by my uncle, to three other books, books that have gone on to, if not actually change my life, than at least change the way that I think about it. Although it only happened three times, I have always associated my uncle with good books, and always been slightly disappointed if I ever had a gift from him that was not a book. He did once give me a rather cool lava lamp, but the bulb blew out after a year or so, and, what with one thing and another, I have not yet got around to getting another one.
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I am not sure what came first, but I do know that my uncle, at Christmas, I assume, as he has never been very good at remembering birthdays less that two-thousand years old, gave me a two books. Not at the same time, and, as I said, I do not know which came first, but the result was the same, so it does not really matter. One of the books was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the other was The Subtle Knife, by J.K.Rowling and Phillip Paulman respectively.
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I also remember, one birthday, I must have been a bit older by this time, that he gave me The Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. Now, some of you may have noticed something that all of theses books have in common. If you can not see the connection, then I am afraid that you are out of time, it really should not take that long to spot. All of these three books are part of a series (or something similar); Harry Potter, His Dark Materials; and Discworld respectively. Further more, they are none of them the first book in their respective series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Subtle Knife are both second books, and The Thief of Time is something like the twenty sixth discworld book.
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There are a few reasons for this. The first is that my uncle had assumed that I had already read the other books, and would welcome a continuation. The second, and, unfortunately, most likely reason, is that he did not realise that they where all part of a series. But the reason that I like to believe, despite the fact that I know for a fact that it is not the right one, is that, by buying me the second book, my uncle was encouraging me to read the first, just so that the second would make sense, or something like that, anyway.
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I fell in love with all three books, and the rest of their series. It is discworld, I think, that will stay with me for the longest, I will read them as long as Pratchett is alive to write them. But it is His Dark Materials that meant, and still means, the most to me. To make this easier for me to write, I will assume that you have read them (if not, why not? You really need to read them ASAFP (if you do not know what the F stands for, then you are to young or naive to be told)).
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If you have read them, then you will know just how powerful they are. They are books that I could read forever, except for the small problem of them coming to an end. To be honest, I did nod read them as such, rather, I listened to the audio books. These, in my mind, where far better, and the use of a full cast, as if they where plays, not books, made them something spectacular. If only more audio books made use of full casts, then life would be that much better.
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But my point is this. Although I have read the books many times, they have never been as good, and never will be as good, as they where the first time. Over the years, I have come to realise that the sense of disappointment that I feel at the end of any good book is not a result of the book being over, it is something more than that. It is caused by the realisation that I will never be able to read the book again for the first time. Never again will I be able to, in the words of the Floyd, “Feel the warm thrill of confusion”, because I will always know what is going to happen next.
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A very good example of this can be seen in The Chrysalids, by the late great John Wyndham. Those of you that know me well enough to know (or, as Robert Rankin likes to put it in his absurdly brilliant books “it is a fact well known to those who know it well…”) that for many a year I claimed that The Day of the Triffids was my favourite book. Those of you at the meeting where we discussed the book will, I hope, remember my undying enthusiasm for it. I believe that it has one of the biggest pages on the wiki devoted to it, mainly as a result of me pasting in the entire Wikipeadia entry into it, along with about three different book covers.
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I loved that book. The fist time I read it, I listened to the audio book, whilst going out for long walks in the rain. I loved nothing more than to plod the streets, in the rain, and in the dark, with the orange glow of the streetlights making everything seem so much more interesting. But then, at the meeting, my world changed. Harry lent me a copy of The Chrysalids.
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I knew, as soon as I read the blurb, that I would love this book, as I loved all of Wyndham’s work. But I did not know at that time just how much I would love this book. A few days later, I assisted at a scout camp for a few days. The scouts all went home on the Sunday, but a few of us stayed over until the Monday. On Sunday night, I sat by the campfire, and began to read. I do not know how long it took me o read, not long, I would think, The Chrysalids is only about two-hundred pages long, but I do know that I read it all the way through, sitting by that fire, and then, when it got really cold, lying in my tent.
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““This time, darling, we’ll forgive you,” Rosalind told her. “It is.””.
And as I read that last line, I felt a great sadness. Not with the story, it was a happy ending, although, like all Wyndham, and all good books, it left me wanting more (if you get to the end of a book, and do not want to know what happens next, then the book was not worth reading).
No, I felt sad because I knew that, as long as I lived, I would never again be able to read this wonderful, uplifting book again. Oh, I could re-read it, but what would be the point in that? After all, I would know what was going to happen.
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The only way that I can think of stopping this gut wrenching feeling is to never read another book again. And that is why I say this: if you truly love reading, if your life is empty unless you can “Feel the warm thrill of confusion”, if you need to read to live, then there is only one thing to do
You must never read again.
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But that is no good, because then, what would be the point? And so, if everything must come at a cost, then the cost of reading is the pain of never being able to read a book again.
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