Yesterday, I started to listen to a new book, written and read by an Iranian-American writer.
(The writer: Azar Nafisi)
***
She was halfway (actually less - but I did not know this yet) through the first sentence of the introduction, when the thought she was expressing reminded me strongly of Rushdie, and something he had said - and which resonated with me.
(The incomplete first sentence: When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him)
(What I was reminded of: I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, that the act of falling in love with a book or story changes us in some way)
***
And even as the sentence continued - and it was clearly one I had not heard before - and much longer than I had expected - I found myself marvelling at hearing this stranger expressing, in different words, so closely the sentiment that reminded me of Rushdie. Perhaps it was not so unique - what he had said, and how he had said it - it shouldn't be, after all, he had been expressing something that happens to many people - but yet, I had never heard anyone else express that thought very articulately - until now. But hearing this writer express that thought - perhaps it was more common, more frequently and widely expressed and articulated, than I had previously realised.
***
All of these thoughts went through my head, even as she continued her first sentence. Finally, she finished. And here, I became aware that those had not in fact been her own words, but a quotation. And having concluded her quotation, she said the name of the author of those words. Salman Rushdie.
(Full quotation: When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.)
