Maz Enjoys Trashy Novels

My love affair with reading began when I was in primary school. I started with the Sweet Valley Twins series in Primary Three, after a friend lent me his book. After that, I was hooked on similar stories written by ghost writers – The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I liked reading them because they presented a different world to me. I thought, “Ah, this is how the American kids live their lives!” Towards the end of primary school, I was enamoured by Enid Blyton’s stories. The Naughtiest Girl in the School, Malory Towers, and The Famous-Five series were my favourite reads then. I was quite a voracious reader; I preferred to read instead of watching television, although I did squeeze in some time on Saturday mornings to watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fight crime. When I was sitting for my PSLE, my mother had to confiscate a book because I simply refused to put it down and study for my Science paper. I suppose that was when books became a basic need in my life; even if it did increase my myopia to 500 degrees in each eye (reading in the dark is apparently bad for your eyesight).

In secondary school, I was exposed to literature in only in the first two years. I recall reading Charlotte’s Web and Sing to the Dawn, learning how to appreciate poems (well, sort of). I did relatively well in the subject, but couldn’t take it for the O-levels because it meant that I couldn’t take Additional Mathematics, which was an option favoured by my parents. Looking back, that was one of the silliest mistakes in my life. I would have probably been happier reading literature in school. I mean, when else do you get to go into class and learn about something you really like and enjoy, right? I decided to make up for it by reading books in my spare time. My favourite authors at that time were Jeffrey Archer, James Patterson, and J.K. Rowling. Like many others, the Harry Potter books appealed to me because I could relate to the themes that the novels presented. I was also starting to get hooked onto ‘chick-lit’, thanks to my sister, who would read Belinda Jones’ books every now and then.

When I entered junior college, I decided, on a whim, to pick literature as part of my subject combination. Having not taken the subject for my ‘O’ levels, I had to catch up with my classmates, who were clearer more knowledgeable than I was at dissecting the texts. It was during this period of time that I fell in love with reading again. However, this time, I was exposed to a wider variety of texts as part of the curriculum. I was reading Shakespeare for the first time, The Country Wife, and had to read Gothic novels for one of the ‘A’ level English Literature papers. I found the Gothic a fascinating genre to read; it wasn’t as morbid as I thought it would be, and it amuses me that I find something like Matthew Lewis’s The Monk comedic at times. I was still reading other books for leisure; I think I was going through a James Patterson phase then – I would go to the library and borrow nothing but his books. His plots were all pretty much the same, but I enjoyed reading the books anyway because they were easy to read after all the Shakespeare and Angela Carter stories I had to read for school. One day, a friend lent me one of Haruki Murakami’s books, which led me into a Murakami phase. His novels were intense, they were like nothing that I’d read before, and I was intrigued by his style and the way he presented his characteristics. This good friend also lent me his copy of The Chronicles of Narnia, which I somehow devoured during the ‘A’-level exam period.

I spent a year working before I entered university, during which I spent a lot of time (and money) invested in books. I would read more chick lit, books by Jodi Picoult/James Patterson/Murakami, and the occasional classic like The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In 2008, I began reading English Literature in NTU. Here began my most intense four years of reading. Read fifteen books per semester? Challenge (gladly) accepted! I loved most of the texts that I had to read, the poems that I had to dissect, but I hated the compulsory stack of theoretical readings that came along with them. Nevertheless, I have to admit that those academic articles did help me read better, and I understood more – not just the texts, but also about society and its history. I’ve always felt that reading literature accumulated to a greater awareness of the world; each time I left class, I felt that I had acquired more general knowledge, in a way, and a better appreciation of the writers and texts that I had studied.

These days, I still read my semi-trashy romance novels (closet Nora Roberts fan), and books by my favourite authors (Picoult/Murakami/Patterson), but I also throw in the occasional John Banville and Kazuo Ishiguro for a bit of variety. I currently have about ten books waiting to be read (book sales ought to be banned, really) and I bravely attempt to finish a book over the weekends (recently rendered impossible because of assignments and bad time management).

This is pretty random, but I once went for a scholarship interview and was asked by the interviewer who my favourite writer was. I answered unhesitatingly,“ Oh I love James Patterson!” which earned me a frown from him. “That’s a bit… low-level isn’t it?” he replied. His question felt like a reproach, as if my reading preference wasn’t fit for someone who reads literature. After that interview, I thought about his question and wondered if what he implied was really true. Did I, as an English major, have to read canon-worthy books only? I don’t think so. I feel that as long as a novel has a message to share, and if you enjoy reading it, then there’s nothing wrong with what you want to read. So yes, I will continue reading my collection of seemingly tasteless popular fiction, because it makes me happy and allows me to escape into another world where I can laugh and cry with the characters that have captured my imagination.

I would still stay away from Twilight, though. :P