Literature Blows
Literature has wings? Or is it Classics?
The sight of it put me past my patience at least three times last afternoon. I had to revise my Arabic language lessons. Except for the Achaeans, one of the Greek tribes, which currently piques my interest. Yesterday, I wasn’t even sure I was reading it. Because this ‘human’s mind’ and ‘laptop’ run with numerous Ideas and Window Tabs at once.
October ended magisterially, and a classic began in one of these Window Tabs. Loud and bitter, both — mind and tab — joined the wrestling ring. Imagination ran loose, and a fair-complexioned doppelganger asked me, “Are you ready for Wuthering Heights?”
Before my neurons could even interact, I was put behind the bars of imagination. This sudden shift of thought owed its existence to my love and dedication to the Classics collection. On the left is Michel de Montaigne, French essayist, and on the right is Emily Brontë. My desk feels enchanted by Brontë and honoured with Montaigne.
From the name alone, you can imagine the atmospheric and mental tumult its reader is exposed to even today. But that’s what makes it a classic. Pure, brazen, and best-worded pieces of Literature. At times, it gets so overwhelming that I, as a reader, have to brace for ventilation. Intellectuals carry heavy lungs. You may now guess the power of this wind that Literature blows.
I call them “Literature blows”. They are ferocious, blustery, and tempestuous. Before I could decide any further, Shakespeare came for my bail. He signed the bail bond on the condition that I spend enough time reading Julius Caesar. I foreswore before the ‘guards of time’ and came out of the cell. Nevertheless, Montaigne’s epistles and essays occupied my mind. His work is a fair revision of History and Philosophy in a manner that will leave you in high spirits always.
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Amid this tussle of life, I sat on the chair completely removed from the stir of society. You can hardly imagine how my heart warmed towards Montaigne while my brain wanted to open Chapter Six. My fingers rose, and I made a jealous resolution to follow my mind. This time, “Mind” and “Fingers” were in the wrestling ring. Shakespeare’s oboe players at work, characters leaving the stage with a dark stare.
“Dark stage or times?”
No worries, Montaigne will save us! By now my reader will be curious about this immediate digression. It’s nothing but probably the aftereffects of being behind the bars of imagination. Salvaging my reputation as a lost reader, I finally landed above the chimney where sundry villainous old guns and horse-pistols with gaudily painted canisters waited along its ledge. It was Heathcliff’s world. In no less than ten minutes, our worlds merged, forming a Black hole.
Welcome to my world of Classics; I call it a Black hole. My desk serves as the Event Horizon. And I keep falling, falling and falling for it. I truly see Shakespeare as the master of emotions, Montaigne as the master of words, and Brontë as the queen of creating worlds. Isn’t it astonishing how sociable I am with this Black hole?
Once, when the depths of depths were reached, I found Plato waiting there, who said
“Do thine own work and know thyself.”
