I buy too many books. And they go relatively unread on my overcrowded bookshelves. In my attempt to avert this problem, I bought an e-book reader. The logic being that I would be saving the trees, I wouldn’t need to build more shelves, and an e-book is much easier to handle. But guess what? Both the e-book reader and the shelves, are struggling to keep up with my need to own literature.
And this problem was compounded, when Arundhati Roy released her much awaited second work of fiction, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. My Facebook feed was littered with references to this book, pictures of its cover, and then I saw it at my favourite book store. I was first introduced to her form of narrative and activism nearly a decade ago, in a post-9/11 world. It was her speech, Come September that had opened my mind to the possibility that a soft-spoken idealist in a world full of bombings is necessary. Her speech drew on the contexts that had led to the Twin Tower attacks, and the paranoia that had been borne out of it. And yet, the speech ends in hope.
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”
So naturally, my breath caught in my throat when I spotted her latest work of fiction on the New Arrivals shelf. I dared to pick it up, and read the Prologue.
Such writing is rare.
The narrative made me want to finish it right there, while standing at the New Arrivals shelf, hunched over a book I hadn’t bought, but that I knew I’d love forever.
But I put it down. Instead, I made a mad dash for a place of safety, away from the temptation of reading something that would probably jolt me out of complacency.
But after about a week, I gave in. And now I am the proud owner of not one, but two Arundhati Roy novels (the other being The God of Small Things). And yes, I have not read them. Yet.
So here I sit, at a desk with barely any space for my laptop, as the growing tower of books looms over me, guilty that I have accumulated more things that I have yet to complete.
Roy took two decades to write “The Ministry…’ so I’m not too disheartened by my submission to the grips of procrastination. Her activism, love for humanity, and her writing, exist in a world where the Kardashians are important, and movies are made about emojis. Her skill and the necessity of people like her are drowned out by reality television, self-documentation, and the need to accumulate the most likes on social media posts.
Perhaps it stems from despondency about the world that we’d rather focus on the trivial, because the bigger issues are just too overwhelming. But we all want to show that we care, that we’re doing something, so we click the angry face on Facebook when we see a post about war, corruption, or human rights violations. And if we feel especially angry about something, we share it on our preferred platform. But it’s only a handful of people who take it further than the ‘click-activism’. These are the Do-ers who picket daily, who make written submissions to government, who actively attempt to change the status quo.
I also want to effect change, and my skill is writing.
I often battle with whether I’d be adding to the chaos. Would I make a positive contribution by publishing the various thoughts and half-baked theories that cross my mind?
Will it be enough?
Maybe just doing it will let me know for sure?
I was shocked out of my self-deprecation, when I watched a Letters Live video of actor, Andrew Scott reading Sol LeWitt’s advice to sculptor Eva Hesse.
Please do yourselves a favour, and watch it; its only six minutes long, and if it doesn’t shock you into DO-ing something, then at the very least, you’d be impressed by Scott’s performance.
And so, with Sol LeWitt’s advice ringing in my ears in the voice of Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott), I will DO something, and attempt blogger-activism.
Here’s to DO-ing something.