Everyday Canvas

On Reading

Prompt: Reading stories by your favorite authors, living or dead.
As you read their stories, do you feel like you have a friendship with the author? Write about this in your Blog entry today.

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This is a huge subject that I could write volumes on. As to a friendship with the author? I don't know, but I love to see or to glimpse at how their writing mind works; therefore, since they let me in through their writing, some kind of a friendship is formed in a way, be it one-sided.

Reading itself is a delightful and deeply absorbing experience that transcends the boundaries of time and space. Reading classic authors, as a general rule, offers an intense exploration of the human condition and timeless themes, while contemporary stories provide a mirror to the present.

What I love about reading is that when I read an engrossing story or a novel, my own reality becomes an alternating reality. Take the 13th century poet and story-teller Rumi's stories in verse in Mathnavi, for example. I find inspiration and solace in his timeless words and thought because they address the humanity's quest for meaning and connection to the world and the divine.

Then, Dostoyevsky's novels, my earliest literary loves during my teenage years, delve deep into the human psyche, with characters in existential dilemmas, psychological torment and moral contradictions. I can't forget that Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov invited me into a world where the battle between good and evil is waged within the human soul.

On the comical side, the first Dostoyevsky book I read for a seventh-grade book report, Notes from Underground, made the teacher get in touch with my mother, warning her to be careful with me because for a young teen to be so involved with such a gloomy book signaled emotional danger. The other students' reports were on books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, etc. In my present opinion, Notes from Underground is a great book, still, and I think my seventh grade teacher acted on the zealous side.

Charles Dickens, the Victorian novelist, is another author I have enjoyed reading for he paints vivid pictures of social issues and human conditions of his time and place. In Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, he masterfully shows the injustices of his time and the harsh realities of class divisions, with memorable characters. The way he writes of the society of his time probably influence contemporary writers to reflect on disturbing social challenges of our time.

Talking about our time, I have to mention the magical worlds crafted by J.K. Rowling, and Haruki Murakami's vision of his world and his unique story-telling. Then, others like Dave Eggers and his other contemporaries provide a mirror to the present, reflecting the complexities and challenges of our modern era with different themes and story-telling styles.

I am absolutely sure that I left out quite a few authors I would have loved to mention but this is only a blog post and not an entire book. Needless to say, I'm a reading nut and most authors are my sources of emotional connection as if they're my best buddies, due to their personal and intellectual effects on me.

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