The problem with readers like myself is that in our
eagerness to share our reading experiences with others we readily lend our
books to them. I have learnt through experience, painful ones, I might add, not
to lend books to teenagers. They have a tendency to treat them pretty much the
same way they treat everything else in life: with extreme carelessness.
If my comment has come across as if I am stereotyping all teenagers,
then I apologize for it but refuse to take it back. Like I said I have had some
pretty painful experiences in this area. One classic, “Great Expectations” was
borrowed by a much younger cousin for his English class in school. That was the
last I saw of it. Since it has been nearly fifteen years since the date of
borrowing, I can safely say that the chances of it ever being returned are next
to nil. My only consolation is that it
was a mere paper back, though I do wish that someone in my cousin’s English
class along with discussing the eccentricities of Miss Havisham would also have
taught him the difference between “borrowing” and “Keeping”.
Well, I guess that
is water under the bridge now.
A more recent “borrowing” was of the Elif Shafaq Novel,
“Forty Rules of Love”. Determined not to wait another 15 years to lament the
loss of my book, I asked for this one back somewhere within a one year period.
After some reluctance the book was handed back to me and I was happy to have it
back. It wasn’t until a few days later as I flipped through the pages of the
book did I realize what kind of torture it had been put under.
About nearly one third of the book (I am guessing that is
about as much as my young reader managed to read in that one year period) was
underlined with markers. Apparently the book had been used as an English learning
tool by underlining the difficult words.
I am not in the habit of turning the corner of the page when
I put a book down. I always remember where I had left off, no matter after
however many days I get a chance to go back to whatever I was reading. To someone
like me, even turning the corner to mark the page in a book is a sign of disrespect.
To have a book of mine violated in such a way nearly made me want to weep. Admittedly
this was another paper back but that is no reason to subject it to such brutal treatment.
Though nowhere in the same league as Elif Shafaq’s Forty
Rules of Love, I too have developed a couple of my own rules for lending books.
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If possible never lend books to teenagers. if it
cannot be avoided out of courtesy then the lending should be accompanied by
full set of instructions on how to treat the book. (wouldn’t be a bad idea to
give the instructions to anyone who borrows and not just teenagers)
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No book should be lent beyond a two month
period. Anyone who has not managed to finish the borrowed material in the
aforementioned period is unlikely to do so ever so one might as well ask for it
back.
That reminds me.
My assistant borrowed a hard back copy of
William Dalrymple’s “The last Moghul Emperor” and his two month period has
already expired. Time to get that one back from him.
