A Personal History of Reading
This is my personal homage to a habit that has played a crucial role in my life.
On the one hand, it was a challenge to write because I was forced to take a step back and think about what the practice of “reading” has actually meant for me and how my relationship to it has evolved over the years, something I have never actually given much thought before.
On the other hand, it also gave me a great deal of pleasure because the more I wrote, the more I unearthed some memories that I forgot were there.
I hope I could do justice to a practice that helped me to become who I am.
My earliest memories of reading were recounted to me, so I don’t know if I really remember them or simply think I do.
I grew up as an only child in a small town in Turkey. I remember my mom being an avid reader, as she continues to be to this day. Since both of my parents were working, however, I was mostly raised by my grandmother, in a household that included my uncle and my aunt-in-law, as well as two of my cousins.
My grandmother used to enjoy recounting my childhood "adventures” (to use a euphemism) and one particular story she kept going back to was how I used to memorize the books that she and my aunt-in-law read to me (obviously more than once) and how I would correct them when they missed a part or made a “mistake.” One of their favorite episodes was about how one time, when my dad came to visit, I picked up a book and just started “reading,” probably shocking my dad into thinking that his son was a child prodigy. I must have been 3 or 4 at the time.
It was my cousin, though, who was my first guide into the world of words. She was six years older than me and growing up together, she taught me how to read when I was 5, before I started school. Not surprisingly, she went on to become a teacher in her adult life and we can say I was her first ever student.
It is quite sad to say that I do not recall any of the books that I read at the time. It was not even something I thought about until one day one of my friends asked me what my favorite book was when I was a kid. When I said that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t remember, she had a hard time believing me. I was telling the truth, though. I simply could not remember. I was actually shocked myself that she could remember what she had read when she was a child.
I do remember, though, what truly propelled me into the world of the written word (let’s stick with clichés here). I must have been 13 at the time, two years after I moved to Istanbul with my parents. I don’t exactly know how I came across them but one day I picked up Christian Jacq’s series of novels on Ramses II (they must have been recently translated into Turkish at the time) and I was hooked. I devoured pretty much everything that he wrote after that which was available in Turkish. His books not only gave me my first true pleasure of reading but they also made me fascinated with ancient Egypt
When I started attending an American high school in Istanbul at the age of 15, my interest in ancient Egypt was in high gear. Now, I had the opportunity to delve into more resources in English since my English proficiency was improving. At the same time, I discovered another author, whom I credit with helping me improve my English as well as solidify my taste for reading fiction: Stephen King (too bad he has no idea).
Misery was the first book I read by him. I remember sitting in my room and being completely transfixed by the story. After that, I read almost all of his novels in English. One of my fondest memories from high school is also partly related to Mr. King. My friends, who knew I was a huge fan of his, gave me a set of his The Dark Tower series as a gift in my last year of high school, before I left for the United States for college. They remain one of the most meaningful gifts I have ever received in my life.
All this time, my interest in reading grew. I could spend hours by myself, simply reading. During high school, I went to visit my uncle in London twice, and each time I was there one of my favorite things to do was to go to the Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road and buy tons of books, for which I would need a separate duffel bag to carry with me back to Istanbul.
My father, however, was not too happy with my reading habits, and not because they were a drain on his financial resources. Being a skinny kid, who did not have much interest in playing sports and who spent most of his free time reading by himself (although I did have a core group of friends, with whom I loved spending time), I did not really conform to his idea of what a young male teenager was supposed to be like. I think he was also worried that simply reading books would not prepare me for “real life.” One of his favorite phrases he kept saying to me was: “Life is not as told in the books.” It drove me insane. Absolutely insane. And not only he would say it, but he would also ask my uncle to do the same whenever he called from London (I feel anger rising in me even now while I type these words).
The summers were the worst. Whenever we went for a family holiday on the west or south coast of Turkey, I would just want to read my book on the beach, having no interest in going for a swim. My parents, however, would have other ideas. They would relentlessly push me to go into the water and swim, which I would eventually do. Not surprisingly, I hate going to the beach to this day (talk about trauma).
Regardless, though, I continued to hang on to the pleasure I derived from reading. In the summers of 2002 and 2003, I went to Germany and Spain respectively for language programs, after which I could, for better or worse, add those languages to my reading arsenal. One thing I regret, however, is that I never had a true mentor at that time, who could guide and lead me towards a more structured reading practice. I was, for instance, aware of the importance of reading the classics and I did end up reading a bunch of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, but it was very sporadic. I was trying to find my way in the dark. I cannot help but think what would have been different if I had someone who would open up new vistas for me as far as literature went and introduce me to books or authors, whom I discovered much later in life.
In 2004, I graduated from high school and started college. My academic journey was beginning. Over the years, my interests expanded in different directions, and I started to delve into different fields. As I progressed with my academic career, I also learned that there were other ways to read than I had known and practiced until that time.
That is whole another story, though, which I hope to continue to tell in the future.
Until next time!
I enjoyed reading this. Everyone should stop to write a piece of their reading history today. I think the world IS so often as it it told in the books! Whether it's the actual facts or the emotional landscape, books, especially good literature, reveal something we need to know about living in the world.
Here's a tiny piece of my own reading life. In college at about age 19 I started tearing through D.H. Lawrence's books--starting with Sons and Lovers--soaking up so many aspects of his writing, but really following the long and sometimes contradictory conversation from novel to novel about LOVE. Love in many forms, often outrageous, often painful, self-absorbed, self-sacrificing, chafing against the "real world," expansive, reductive, all the ways we recognize and negotiate this feeling. Love may only be an emotion, but the world outside is certainly shaped by it again and again.
Last summer, 30 years later, I was in crisis, and the center of it all was love and my own relationship to it. I instinctively returned to Lawrence, re-reading and listening to four favorites--Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover--and picking up a couple of novellas I hadn't read before. Did these books, written about 100 years ago, contain some answer or plan my adult self could apply to my somehow suddenly complicated life? Of course not, but beautiful literature opens those channels of thought and those "dark passages" (re:Keats) we all need to explore sometimes. The pace of language, for me, allows reflection on my life even more so than evocative music. There was definitely some kind of internal process happening through all this re-reading I did last summer, some kind of space created to let me stand still for a minute--or let's be real: many, many hours when I should have been "working"--and look at love's prism, and the beauty of the natural world that persists around all our crises, in Lawrence's beautiful prose.
Amazing story, Doga! Thanks for sharing. I remember avidity reading fairytales as a child, from the Grimm Brothers to Romanian folktales, Nasrettin Hoca stories, and A Thousand and One Nights. I still enjoy reading fairytales from all around the world. But my heart will always belong to Latin American writers and Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my favorite. Write more! I love reading you.