CHANGING INTERESTS

I like the word proclivity. I don’t hear it often enough but it explains so many things all at once. According to the Merriam-Webster thesaurus, it is synonymous with affection, affinity, aptitude, bent, bias, disposition, leaning, partiality, penchant, inclination, and tendency.

I used to be able to read anytime, anywhere. Not any more. When I bring a book with me to bed, I only manage to finish a few pages before my fingers reach out for the bedside lamp and I float off to dreamland. This routine is repeated the next night, the only difference being I would have forgotten who is who in the book, how they are related and why they are all gathered in the country manor house in the first place. Re-reading to find the connections is arduous.

I thought that with retirement I would be able to read War and Peace, cover to cover, several times over. How strange that getting past the daily newspaper or the occasional magazine has become a great achievement.

I am surrounded by a reading culture. The library is nearby and the helpful librarian will bring in the books that I request if they are not on the shelves. The charity shops and flea markets are overflowing with pre-loved books.

As a child I would re-read my favourite books. So recently, I purposed myself to set aside every Sunday to read a novel before I miss all the good stuff that is trapped between the pages. It is the chance to reclaim something pleasurable.

Firstly I re-visited Roald Dahl’s books. 2016 marks 100 years since the birth of the story teller. Running though his books are the themes of loneliness, abuse, friendship and kindness. The child in me identifies with the unlikely hero or heroine. My favourite is Matilda.

But what next?

I find that my interest in fiction has waned. I’m no longer captivated by plots of mystery or love. I tear through best sellers and they have come up short. In fact the first ten pages can tell you how the book will end and how the characters are all related. There is a lack of originality in the themes.  There is a lack of depth as sense that these writers are trying to squeeze in too many modern day concerns between the covers. These modern day popular writers are a poor comparison to yesteryear’s Charles Dickens or the Bronte sisters.

So I’m more attracted to non-fiction particularly memoirs, culture and history.

My latest favourite is Elie Wiesel’s Night. All 116 pages of it.

The same can be said of television programmes. Gone are the days when I would wait for serial episodes and the like. Now I mainly record documentaries or travel pieces and watch them at my leisure, fast-forwarding all the advertisements in between. As for movies, nothing beats the big screen whether it is Disney’s Polynesian princess Moana carving out her adventure trail in 3 D or Tom Hanks following a trail of clues connected to Dante.

Even the taste for food differs. Sweets and chocolates used to entice me as a teen but now I prefer anything home-cooked and the more authentic the recipe the better. I re-discovered an old recipe that I had written down for savoury pumpkin cake where ingredients were measured in katis and tahils! Needless to say, I quickly harvested the pumpkins from my garden. I never understood why my mother liked the miserable looking bittergourd either but now I can snack through crispy bittergourd fries (pavakkai varuval) with relish!

My taste for clothes too changes with the seasons. Wouldn’t it be nice to have four wardrobes, one for each season?

With time, our proclivities and prerogatives change and I’m ok with that.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW STRAITS TIMES, MALAYSIA
13 NOVEMBER 2016

http://digital.nstp.com.my/nst/books/nstnews/2016/20161113nstnews/index.html#/23/