With every turn of the last pages of one book, I come closer to choosing the next. It must be said that I don't fully enjoy the feeling of concluding my journey through a book. I become attached to the characters, the ideas, the setting, the intrigue, and the psychology that a single human being conjured up at the stroke of a creative hour of power. I wish for another turn to experience this mysterious realm, an alternate universe of sorts, that engages me and holds me captive for the few hours I have time for such a privilege. Somedays I even wish for that special element in nature that consumed Don Quixote and imagine myself possessed by the indefatigable intelligence of seeing what might clearly not exist at all...at least in the everyday reality we've created.
Speaking of Don Quixote, I'm presently engrossed in the book having heard much commentary from others of its humour, complexity, and pages of unnecessary digressions. Since there are several renditions of the original, I'll be pretentious like other literary snobs and write here that I'm reading the version translated by Tobias Smollett (if that makes any impact on your intellect), an 18th century Scottish poet and writer, who was educated to be a surgeon, actually.
I'm only on page 108 of the one-thousand-and-ninety-page tome (I thought spelling out the page number would be that much more alluring). There were several editions at the bookstore, but I settled on this one because of the cover, which depicts two travellers on horseback (well, one on a horse and one on a mule, and after reading up to page 108, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who these personages are) etched in shadowy form with yellow-brown hues. I've included it here:
I'm sure you already know the story, so I won't bore you with my lexically-challenged summary. What I will write is that somedays I too wish I could view the world through the lens of a profoundly imaginative gentleman who lives with masterful devotion in his world of illusions. With a will of steel, he dons his stately armour, clutches his lance, and mounts his unsteady steed, Rozinante, all to declare to those who are foolish enough to cross his path the majesty of his title and the passion with which he will defend chivalry and his fair Dulcinea, the woman born out of his delusions (Oops! I think I just wrote a partial summary here). Even the windmills are giants with spinning arms that he must subdue with knightly courage. In his eyes, he sees the fantasy as depicted in all the tales he ever read of armoured men of valour. He doesn't see people as they are in this fictionalized reality, but as they are in his fictionalized reality!
What's the problem with that? Plenty, to plenty people, who I trust are quite reasonable and practical about all things associated with life 'as we know it'. But I wonder if all reality is just a figment of our unified imaginations. We start believing what we perceive as something believed by most. Like this Higgs boson thingamajig - the God particle (scientists detest the label) - that acted like a kind of crazy glue to bring all these floating particles together. How did the Higgs boson guide this profound birth of our solar system? Was belief attached to the entity? The more real something is depends on how many people believe in its existence in the way they are dictated to believe in it.
What if we were to take the version dictated to us from the time we were born and turn it upside its head and believe it as something entirely different? What if our version of reality includes an alternate result that the mainstream world could never entertain? There were and are many great thinkers and activists in our world who have challenged the norm and envisioned a more just, equitable, and accepting society. Unfortunately, these thinkers and doers who want to change the system have often faced persecution and in many cases, death.
But at least this is what literature has the power to do.
It creates alternate realities by extraordinary and talented writers who take risks and imagine beyond binaries, dichotomies, norms, actualities, and who push against mainstream notions of science, biology, psychology, and society. They create with passion and conviction what they know to be true in their characters' worlds. How convincing these netherworlds and unconventional characters are depends on the craftiness of the writer. Then we can choose to believe in the realness of their proposition. Does it make sense to us however far-fetched? In believing, we allow ourselves to dream. And in dreaming, we open ourselves to the possibility of acknowledging difference in our world.
I read books for that very purpose. A chance to escape but also a chance to connect with humanity. To dream of impossible things. To admire impossible characters. To explore the 'what ifs'. Just have to remind myself to take off the armour before leaving home.
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