Bibliotherapy

Of the three vices – wine, women and song – my duck has happily succumbed to only two. A third weakness, however, plagues me and will probably do so til the end of my days. This evening found my rather disturbed duck browsing at Kinokuniya, seeking emotional release in the selection of suitable volumes. An irresistible 20% discount to cardholders and the luxury of a weekday crowd led to my entirely non-impulse purchase of a book on pterodactyls, a study of pre-Malaccan Indo-Malayan civilisations and a complete set of prose and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe.

For all my gripes, I must count it a blessing that my early days were surrounded by tightly bound albums bestowed by well-meaning uncles and welcomed by my parents, who doubtless preferred to see me plunging into the safety of lettered pursuits than getting down and dirty in the great ditches of life. My ducklet quacked to the now-maligned Peter and Jane series by Ladybird and pondered what manner of songs were sung by the quadrupedal minstrels of Bremen, a town I knew nothing of and which I have yet to tread.

Somewhat later, I devoured tales of Golliwogs and Wishing Chairs, and explored alternative realities in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" franchise. At a church youth group meeting, I recall the disapproving caution of an elder who thought a fantasy paperback rife with East Asian godlets unbecoming. The Hardy Boys and a certain Ms Drew rumbled in for a brief fling but I found the stock Americanisms and formulaic repetitions a lesser draw compared to the more quaint and idiosyncratic yarns of secret sevens and famous fives, with their quirky team members and faithful canine companions. And dare my morbidly male duck (I shan't dwell on the fact that male anatids are called drakes) confess to a softspot for the naughtiest girl in school and boarding school life at st. clare's?

Once the bookworm infected my duck, I sought every opportunity to tire my eyes with fine type, scanning and re-reading every book in my possession with methodological order (a series should never be read out of sequence!) and undiminished delight. Droning periods on the pineapple industry in Pekan Nenas were made tolerable by livelier readings from beneath the desk (we had squarish wooden school desks with a convenient compartment at waist level – by the end of every term, the desks were as good as firewood, thanks to their use as diving platforms and removal of panels for classroom duels). Open volumes would be propped up by my morning porridge laced with Bovril and during tedious hours of scales and arpeggios, I would have a tome placed on the score stand to render some novel meaning to the mindless sequences between C-major and F-minor harmonic. I have even tried to read while cycling but this attempt failed miserably for some reason – it's simply not possible to balance some tasks...

It's worth noting that back in the 1970s and early 80s, our little town had bookstores that actually warrant the name. Many of my books were heirlooms and discards by relatives and friends of relatives who had outgrown the childish habit of pouring over mysteries and meaningless adventures. There was, however, a lone outlet crammed with mildew and second-hand books, which I frequented on Saturdays. It even had an Atari console that used audio cassette tapes to load primitive games in glowing green. I still have one book from that shop, with protective covers that are now falling apart and pages stained and wrinkled from years of abuse and torturous thumbing. As for the bulk of my juvenile hoard, when I left for junior college in Singapore, they mysteriously vanished into the cesspool of my former life.

During that time, Times Bookshop also bravely opened a small outlet, with a pharmacy as a co-tenant. When I was back home during term breaks, I probably bought up every book that was worth buying in the tiny store and browsed through everything else. The store lasted for about two years. In the next 13 years or so to the present time, readers of English books would have had no choice for their crespular cravings other than out-of-town sojourns or perhaps e-books.

Singapore was to my ravenous duck a wetland of nosebleed-inducing libraries and bookstores that actually stocked wares other than textbooks and revision guides. I quickly took up membership at Times – after all, a 10% discount means my duck could get 11 books for the price of ten. When MPH opened its three-storey tribute to local bibliophiles at Stamford Road, my duck could be found there on many weekends, sneaking by the shelves and crouched in a frantic perusal of worthy paperbacks. More than once, I am sure mrs miss budak found me amongst the aisles deep in the study of Papua New Guinea rites of copulatory initiation, prompting indignant ejaculations of academic quackery.

The Book Chamber then beamed down on my duck during my days in the faculty where the monkey now roams. Dorothy and her husband (I'm sorry I can't recall your name; you were always rummaging at the back while I was chatting with your wife on the latest Anaïs Nin collection) were clear converts to the cult of bibliophilia and afternoons spent in their tiny unit on the third floor of the Adelphi resulted in choice pickings in literary erotica political science and music history, as well as early editions of Tolkien. Alas, this labour of love fell prey to the cold logic of economic imperatives, and I have had no inkling of their whereabouts since then.

Now, the economies of scale granted by Borders and Kinokuniya (I note with some frowns that the science and ecology section at the latter is deteriorating) fulfil much of my need for mental masturbation. With certainty, I know that every launch will eventually land on these shores, first in glorious acid-free hard bounds, followed by matt editions for the less affluently literate and mass paperbacks in poorly impressed serif fonts and mass transit dimensions. But in every city that my duck descends upon, I seek out the ageing corners that harbour out-of-print treasures and proprietors who prize the joy of serendipity over the efficiency of order, whose establishments reek with history and overflow with the clutter of minds and memories that will not give in to the dictates of those who regard books as merely a tool for profit and quantifiable utility. 

Comments

[Aydin]

Borders in Singapore? Heh, heh. I remember when we first moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan way back in September of 1987. The only Borders in existence-the only one in the entire universe-was in Ann Arbor. I was quite impressed by their store.

Now, I do all my book shopping on the Internet.

[monkey]

gosh so many things i wanted to comment exclaim and empathize about in this post. dammit i'll be succint.

bremen is great you should try to go i love st claires too gawd scales and brovil that sounds familiar i read crossing the road and everywhere and damn book chamber is where *I* get my literary erotica lol although i doubt i'll ever succumb to any mental masturbations. all in all i dont like the big bookstores. nothing rocks my boat these days. i went to the bookstore at chulalongkorn uni and i come back with a sgd40 white lotus book. everybody says ive been ripped off. but u will like the uni if u into SEA books. better if you read thai but there are english books. theres a whole shelf for white lotus alone. went to asia books here too and bought 3 books. books. i even worked at borders before. but thanks for introducing me to that ecologist book. lol. end.

[budak]

Ja, the net's good for rare editions. But not for instant gratification...

monkey got verbal diarrhea ah??:P must be drink too much river water....