"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

I was practically born into a world of fairy tales. Being the only girl in the family, I naturally endorsed gender stereotypes of femininity that my brothers and cousins didn't. There were Disney classics, and there were the others like The Three Little Pigs and Hansel and Gretel. I hated Snow White, because she got to meet the dwarfs and sing with the animals before I did. I loved all other princesses though, because they had pretty dresses. Evidently, the illustrations in the books were crucial in shaping my responses. I thought reading was about deciding which characters to like or hate, and which places were nice to live in. I really wanted to build a gingerbread house and host parties for my dwarf friends.

Along came Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl when I progressed to Primary School. My mother had read to me their works before this, but I never really appreciated them in the way I did until I achieved the literacy level to read them independently at my own pace. My older brother was a huge fan of Dahl's, so I had the privilege of helping myself to his collection. The Witches and Matilda and James and the Giant Peach are titles I remember most vividly. I guess Dahl has a way with imagery, and fat or ugly people. I was terrified of The Witches, I didn't really enjoy that book. I wondered what it was like to live in a place where witches preyed on little children. I mean, why would anyone hate children?! Enid Blyton taught me that we shouldn’t make funny faces, because your face would get stuck like that forever if the wind suddenly changed directions. And that magical creatures lived in our midst so they could play pranks on unsuspecting children. So I progressed from princesses and witchery to pixies, elves, and fairies. But I never quite outgrew the fairy tale phase. Not even until now. (I was also briefly hooked to Pascal's Sweet Valley High at Upper Primary, but that’s a memory I’d like to bury.)    

I was thirteen when my teacher taught me to approach a text critically. I still remember very fondly the text I read in Sec One: Minfong Ho’s Sing to the Dawn. That was when I fell in love with Literature as a subject. That first exposure could have awakened the inner feminist critic. I guess I’ve always approached texts with a somewhat-critical perspective, but I was never conscious of that process until I was formally introduced to Literature in school. We did Merchant of Venice too, but I don’t think I had the maturity level to appreciate the text. Why the fuss over a piece of flesh? I loved Macbeth though, it was my ‘O’ level text. But my favourite Lit text has got to be Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club. The quotes were very relatable. On hindsight, I see why my teachers had chosen that text. We were convent girls who could appreciate a text on mother-daughter bonds.  “Your mother is in your bones”, says Auntie An-mei. JLC formed the basis for my study of Asian-American texts and diaspora writings in NUS.

Those teenage years also saw my move from fiction to non-fiction. Dahl's books made way for Reader's Digest, The Economist, and Times Magazine. Looking back, it seems as though the joy of reading outside the lit syllabus came from learning about the real world. My reading vocabulary consisted of boring words like "sanctioned" and “bureaucracy". So, while other teens were hooked on to fantasy fiction like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, I never finished any of those. I would read the first 100 pages and go back to my Times magazine. Somehow, Tolkien and Rowling's worlds could not sustain my interest. There was nothing there for me. This lack of interest for fantasy worlds as such has persisted even until now. People tell me it's strange I loved fairy tales and that kind of girlish, "childish" fantasy, but not the "real deal" like Rowling's work. I also had my first brush with Victorian literature in my teens. I think I was thirteen and my aunt had just named her newborn child Charlotte after her favourite author, Charlotte Brontё. So she lent me Jane Eyre. It was an “okay” read. I didn’t quite appreciate it – or Brontё, rather -- until I reread it NUS. As a Lit major, I appreciated her persistence in writing in an era of oppression. But I sure didn’t appreciate Mr. Rochester, especially having read Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea soon after, and nodding in approval at Rhys’s portrayal of Rochester.

The Economist and Times were still my faithful companions in JC, but they began to take a back seat to Mitch Albom's works, thanks to a friend's recommendation. Perhaps I was becoming more human and less student. Albom is a controversial figure, and I love any kind of controversy. Tuesdays with Morrie got me thinking about death. The Five People You Meet in Heaven had me reflecting on life. That was perhaps also my first memory of conceptualizing existentialism, except I wasn’t conscious of that. I also read For One More Day and Have a Little Faith. I didn’t study Literature at the ‘A’ Levels, so I was deprived of many good works that I found only as a lit major in NUS. 

                I read a variety of literature texts in NUS, and my reading list was predominantly British. (I could have read more local works though. It’s a pity I didn’t get the opportunity to explore the local scene. I’ve begun to get acquainted with more local writers after graduating, and hope to include that in my next reading biography.) In NUS, apart from Asian-American authors like Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, I was engaging with Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, the Brontёs, Jean Rhys, Jeanette Winterson, and Katherine Mansfield. My favourite is Hardy! Poor Tess, she deserves better. Oh Jude, what a wimp. I fell much more in love with Hardy while writing my thesis, and still recommend his books to my friends. My reading options were largely influenced by my favourite profs and we would rave about those texts together. Ah, life was all about reading and writing; life was good.

                I still revisit Disney classics and Dahl’s work now. They sit alongside Hardy and Rhys on my bookshelf. Everytime I reread them, I discover something exciting. I guess children’s literature aren’t written for children; they are written for “grown-ups” who think life is beautiful. Like what Dahl says, “Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”