Reading has long been a favourite pastime activity for many. I, for one, enjoy the experience of holding a true page-turner paperback in my hands while getting lost between the lines, but even more importantly, I firmly believe that every literary work we come across adds something to our lives or personalities. It is easier to support this statement by personal experience rather than general examples. The most influential books for me have been Dead Poets Society by N. H. Kleinbaum, A Blind Hope by Zsuzsa Takács, and Oracle Night by Paul Auster.
Firstly, even though I have many acquitances who have controlling parents, I could previously never truly understand the problem Dead Poets Society revolves around, since I have the most caring mother, who would never disagree with any of my ambitions. After I had finished the story I was finally able to realise how terribly heartbreaking it must be for anyone to decide between the two things they love the most - their family and the dreams they have always wanted to achieve. The people in this checkmate situation are oh-so extremely well aware of their happiness being on the line, as though it were glowing in the distance as a constant reminder of how unachievable it is. Reading about this topic with the tragic outcome the book has to offer has definitely made me more empathetic and considerate after meditating on its ideas for weeks on end. It taught me what not to do. Ever.
On the other hand, A Blind Hope also required a long time for me to digest, the issues in its focus still pop up in my mind every now and then. It is a compilation of the selected poems of a contemporary Hungarian poet from all her life. It deals with losing hope and how it still never quavers, grief, and all kinds of love, be it the traditional heterosexual attraction, a mother-daughter relation, or, in very few poems, how one may feel the curiosity to try their toes in same-sex attractions, which was shocking from the pen of an elderly woman who is known to have been happily married - societal norms still surprise me sometimes. Overall, most of the poems were about looking for Remény with a capital ’r’ - our hope - to scold it, beg for something or see what it does behind the scenes. Those were the most relatable among all of them. Only then did it come to me that hope truly is blind, and that is exactly why it can be so annoying, that I have no control over what it wants, however foolish it may be. Regardless, one poem in particular about a dying mother saying what she wishes for her daughter, e.g. for her to finish the story that she couldn’t still haunts me. It changed my life forever, in just a few lines it taught me to spend more quality time with my mum and appreciate her more, which I am forever grateful for.
On the contrary, I am yet to finish Oracle Night, but it has already affected me a great lot. As a wannabe artist, the story about an author who comes back to writing after neglecting it at the hospital helps me improve as a writer.
As it may be seen from the aforementioned examples, books are great food for thought. I believe reading a variety of different kinds of literary works makes us humans gradually change for the better, because we will have a more open-minded approach to life in general. That is why it is crucial for people to keep reading.
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