Dust and Rubble

I am a cursed being. I love books. I always have. I have completed the book a day challenge, all 365 of them à la Shashi Tharoor.

I am also old school. I cannot stand a book's e-counterpart. I refuse to buy a Kindle or use any kind of e-reader. I have always found the concept insulting to the idea of reading. Reading a paper book means curling up with a friend -- old or new -- and discovering joy, mystery, and intrigue. Every page has a memory even if most wash off. When I open my eyes in the middle of the night I glance at my book shelves taking in the warmth they have exuded ever since I've been a child.

My curse is not that I love books. It is far more embarrassing and chastening.

I am allergic to old books. The sort of book that makes ardent readers excited. That makes them sniff the pages and relish its dusty smell. That sends them down involuntary detours of fantasies about the book's previous owners; about the history elapsed from the time the book was published through the rollicking journey it may have had to ultimately reach the present owner. The annotations in the margins. The inscriptions.

It's not that I haven't resisted. Every once a while I pluck up the courage and get myself a battered yellowing old book to read. And though I have failed almost every time the allure of conforming to the habits of my brethren refuses to perish.

*************

Neuromancer is a famous book. As the first novel to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick awards it stands out as the mighty Sirius in the star studded map of Science Fiction literature.

"How far you’ve come, to do it now, and what grotesque props. . . . Playgrounds hung in space, castles hermetically sealed, the rarest rots of old Europa, dead men sealed in little boxes, magic out of China. . . ."

Neuromancer is widely considered to be one of the first major works of cyberpunk (the dystopic genre of Sci-Fi that is described by Wiki as high tech and low life). The story follows the exploits of a delinquent wasted individual, Case, who is a has-been cyberspace thief (a "hacker" for lack of a better word). Case lives on the edges of society as an outlaw doing petty crime and dragging out his existence in a hell-hole in Japan all the while scraping the bottom of the barrel to make ends meet.

Things take a dramatic turn when he meets the samurai shotgun Molly (a memorable and awesome character) who offers Case a way back to health and, more enticingly, the work he reveled and excelled in. There is a price, of course, setting in motion an exciting chase as the protagonist and his rag-tag associates seek answers to a deepening mystery.

Case's skill is to jack himself into the Matrix and find ways of breaking the ice -- Intrusive Countermeasures Electronics -- of organizations. The Matrix is a world removed from the normal world and allows Case to switch between personalities and locations at will. His targets eventually lead him to an AI which controls the mercenary guiding him. Matters deepen as the AI wants stuff that promises to wreck havoc with the usual order of the world.

I found the book in one of those cardboard boxes hastily labeled with a marker-ed "FREE BOOKS" that are reasonably common in any university. There it was, lying between a Dover classic by Le Corbusier and a ragged old book on the Economics of Crime. I had heard enough about Gibson's masterpiece to lay claim to the book. As well as its neighbors.

The copy was dangerously old. This was going to take effort. And some skill. Most definitely some pain too.

The reward to reading Neuromancer is perspective. Neuromancer makes The Matrix trilogy and Inception look like derivative works feeding off the incredible imagination of William Gibson. In fact, in the novel, one can enter a deeper state than the Matrix where time flows more slowly for the outside world even as weeks pass by in the innermost state. It's that familiar.

Iacta alea est.

*************

My own journey began with trepidation. The first two days of reading ended with angry rashes on my hands and chin. My body was rejecting the old book with astonishing ferocity. I had to regroup. Use my unreliable brain to figure a way out.

A tissue box. Aha.

Two pieces of tissue carefully enclosing the fingers on my left hand. Another two guarding the right. And thus began my painstaking quest to read the book. No archival scholar, no Egyptologist and certainly no surgeon ever paid more steadfast attention to the movement and exposure of their fingers as I trying not to touch the ruinous substance on the pages. (Apparently it's the acid used in curing that causes the reaction.)

Thankfully, I do this at home. My parents are used to my eccentricities. My sister rolls her eyes. Visitors think I am delving into the depths of eternal knowledge. Our domestic help, Valli, doesn't understand what I am up to but she gives me the benefit of doubt.

It worked. Barely. I could see I was reading large chunks of the book in one go stopping only because the smell of the book ultimately irritated my nose and made my scalp itch.

Four days like this and the deed was completed. I sent the book on its way, hopefully, to an owner who doesn't share my vulnerabilities.

For all the praise I've bestowed on the book, it is written in a faintly clunky manner. The writing quality has its moments but one struggles to find reading flow.

But maybe it was just the clunky way I read it. Mission accomplished.