Take a Journey of Your Own!

Adit Chaudhary
Nov 6 · 13 min read

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Books.

As children we peered into these stacks of paper, befuddled by the scattered symbols and lines forming rows upon rows of script, these symbols seemed so ubiquitous — appearing in mum’s recipe book and dad’s manual. Little did we know, that behind the enigma of words lay worlds of mass imagination, where you can cast spells with your bare hands, lift objects with your mind and teleport using a portkey. These stacks of paper allow us to travel to distant places, sail the seven seas and soar above the highest of clouds — it is because of books that we are allowed to travel as many journey’s as we can read.

This year my reading journey has been focused on books with melancholic themes accompanied with adventurous/redemption story plots — which in fact have some significance to me.

Photo by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash

As a child I grew up in a small rural city situated to the south-east of Melbourne — Horsham. Being the only Asian in an all-white school my father had high expectations of me, my brother was seen by his cohort as a smart, caring and semi-athletic person who always knew how to make people laugh (although he would annoy the hell out of me!). Compared to my adroit brother I was seen as a bit of a rascal and a disruption (some teachers still argue I am). Now I know what you’re think I’m going to say — ‘my childhood was tough’ — ‘my family could barely afford the essentials’ and ‘all the other kids bullied me’ but this is somewhat true.

My parents as immigrants were struggling to earn money, the Indian rupee didn’t convert at a high rate of the Australian dollar and both of my parents came from poor backgrounds. On top of this they had two children one of which was iron deficient — because of these circumstances my father did everything in his power to reduce our expenditure (ironically he wasn’t earning money in this time period but was studying in commerce).

Photo by William Navarro on Unsplash

On my first day of primary school, I remember catching gazes from onlookers as I passed by trying to find my way through the labyrinth of people. Due to my brothers presence before me most people didn’t mind my colour, but I still remember being shunned by others as I passed or tried to ask them a question.

As I entered my classroom (yes I made it) I was met by my teacher who was a little too overzealous to meet me (kind of creepy) — apparently she had taught my brother and couldn’t wait to see me. For the next few weeks I spent my time in the library reading the fabled Mr and Mrs collections, in this time period I felt alone, isolated and alienated — like no one wanted to talk or even look at an outsider, someone who didn’t belong. I remember riding back home crying, I tried to hold my tears back but when I did my throat felt like it was being strangled by barbed wire (no it was not my helmet straps, I didn’t have one). Over the next few weeks I left my safehouse (the library) and decided to socialise with others — eventually I secured a spot in the legendary four-square line. By the end of lunch I played so well that I had not returned to the back of the line. Due to this sudden urge to socialise, I had bonded and made new friends with people who I thought would never talk to me, since that day I have learnt that friends have great importance to me and I should always encourage myself to talk to others and explore their culture.


“I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.”

― Andy Weir, The Martian

My reading journey started off with The Martian by Andy Weir. This novel is a mix between sci-fi and drama entailing an impossible mission for one man to survive on an arid planet by himself for over a year and a half.

The Martian incorporates a variety of themes that are heavily displayed in the text — the author Andy Weir makes it clear in his writing how much Mark’s emotions are affecting him.

Isolation is one of the major themes in this text, Mark feels abandoned and alienated — and coupled with this prolonged isolation, he craves another human sole to talk to or see, for a sense of hope and connection. Although Watney tackles with life or death situations on a daily basis he learns to adapt to this and make changes, however being alone “[He would] give anything for a five-minute conversation with anyone. Anyone, anywhere. About anything”.

Humour is another theme that Mark seems to be able to grasp onto even in his current situation — however this humour is not so much pure as it is a mask to disguise his true emotions and to pull himself up from the edge when he slips in. “Mark Watney, Space Pirate” uses humour as a sense of hope and a way of telling himself everything is ok, “when I get back home, I want all the praise to go towards me”. The audience understands that Mark is in the toughest situation possible and when he records these bad situations that occur he uses his humour to water down the fact that he is constantly being put back down to square one.


The Novice by Taran Matharu is an illustrative piece of work when it comes to outlining the events of the story. Instead of making the reader interpret the themes and understand the underlying meaning, Matharu tends to focus on creating more of an image rather than a message. Furthermore, The Novice is quite a complicated novel in terms of how unexpected plot twists and events fall out — this could mean that the reader is required to review their previous knowledge/assumptions in order to predict what events might fall out later in the book. Personally, I think Matharu uses an excellent technique to ensure that his readers are perpetually engaged into his writing throughout the novel.

The Novice takes us through a journey of a commoner in the summoner world, Fletcher the protagonist finishes the annual buyers’ market in the small village of Pelt situated in the Beartooth Mountains. Fletcher gets left behind a mysterious piece of parchment that bares mysterious symbols and words — phonetically these words have somewhat of a ‘do,re,mi’ structure.

Fletcher reads out the scattered text before being thrusted back by a flashing blue orb — a dazzling light blinds him, until suddenly it diminishes only to reveal a demon! After finding out he can summon, Fletcher enrols into Vocans academy a historic yet renowned summoner school. Throughout his semester he realises that Nobles are treated with high honour whilst Elves, Dwarves and Commoners are overlooked — a tournament takes place to see which student is the strongest summoner, Fletcher comes out triumphant and his name is widespread amongst summoners. This popularity leads to Fletcher’s demise as his past catches up with him.

The Novice mostly contains themes that are prevalent and ongoing in everyday society such as: violence, class (hierarchy) and economic value.

Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

Class in society is represented clearly in this novel — Matharu even admits to creating fantasy races based on privilege and a social scale due to his childhood racism. We see a clear outline of societal-hierarchy throughout the book — “there aren’t many fires or torches here […] ‘no the budget is strained as it is. When the nobles arrive, we will warm the place up’”. The Nobles are first on the societal-hierarchy as they hold the most power, wealth and economy, the Elves are next followed by the Commoners and lastly the Dwarves. The Dwarves are the makers of the musket (gun), however since their last rebellion against the Nobles they have been seen and treated with disgrace often getting beaten and apprehended.

Violence is what makes all of the races question whether or not they can trust one another, the dwarf rebellion is they key factor into what started this internal war. “The false war we pretend to fight has created so much hate between our peoples, what would a real one do?”. Whilst the people in Corcillum (nobles and commoners) feel that their own allies the dwarves are fickle they will not be able to unite and fight the war against the orcs together. Fletcher is somewhat of a bridge between this issue in the novel, whilst at Vocans academy his best friends are an elf and a dwarf — Fletcher represents how strong all three forces can be when they unite and is predominantly what he stands for in this novel. Whilst in war and hardship Fletcher beside his two friends overcome any challenges that they encounter, I feel Matharu wished for us to see this connection to ensure we understand that although we are different we can still thrive together.


The Outsiders by S.E Hinton is classified as a bildungsroman and a coming-of-age novel, similar to The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. Socio-economic status diverges two gangs, the upper class “Soc’s” (pronounced so-ses) formally known as the Socials and the working class “Greasers”. The Greasers are tighter than family “if we don’t have each other we don’t have anything” , most children in this gang have divorced/deceased parents or are constantly abused.

Ponyboy (protagonist) and Johnny (Greaser) are ambushed by a band of Soc’s which ends with Johnny lacerating Bob Sheldon (Soc) to save Ponyboy — Dally (Greaser)than helps Johnny and Ponyboy escape by shrouding in an abandoned church to ensure they don’t get arrested. The abandoned church lights on fire enveloping several children inside, Ponyboy and Johnny successfully extracts all of the children. Johnny suffers intense burns and lacerations as well as spinal injury. A final rumble occurs in which both the Soc’s and Greasers fight, in the end the Greasers are triumphant — soon after, Ponyboy and Dally rush back to see Johnny who later dies surrounded by friends and parting wisdom.

The Outsiders unlike The Novice has a lot of underlying messages and themes that we can see and connect to by the end of the novel. The themes in this book are fairly prominent when it comes to the text, meaning that quotes and evidence can be found easily to support a statement or argument.

Hinton did an excellent job of keeping the book simple, so the audience was able to pick up on the themes and messages clearly instead of making them question themselves at every turn. However what Hinton did not include was how this rivalry between the two gangs sparked in the first place.

Violence, Rich vs Poor, Identity and Loyalty are the major themes present in this book. Violence is the nature of the Greasers, their whole life they have battled with the loss of loved ones and the constant threat of death looming upon their heads. Furthermore, the Greasers don’t fight one another, they protect and respect one another — “we had all frozen. Nobody in my family had ever hit me”, when Darry smacked Pony a certain bond of loyalty and trust broke, he felt abandoned like he didn’t belong there and is why he took Johnny and fled to the church. In this novel, both the Soc’s and Greasers briefly realise that the cycle of violence, this “born grudge” between the two classes is pointless as it inescapably results in people being injured or killed. Ponyboy comes to the same realisation but does not try and persuade the others as his loyalty is to his gang.

Loyalty is what binds the Greasers together, “Our one rule besides Stick together is Don’t get caught.”. In a place where children don’t have any sense of hope to live, no one to care for them and no one to feed them, they stick together as a family, provide those who need help and feed each other when in need. This bond allows the members of the Greaser gang to have that hope to survive in the tough times that they live in. When a member refuses to help another they are considered “ a traitor to [their] own kind and not loyal to [the Greasers]”, being a part of this gang isn’t for the looks, it’s a symbol of camaraderie a place where you won’t be harmed, you won’t be forced to do anything but if “you’re in [this] gang, you stick up for the members”.


“There is a way to be good again…”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is often perceived to be a true story, when in fact it is a fictional autobiography. Hosseini claims that a majority of the events did in fact occur however the character names and a minority of the events are spurious — overall this novel has a deeply personal overtone.

Hosseini mainly focuses on themes that portray themselves through events in the book rather than basing this novel on a few themes as a whole. This gives each event a level of anonymity as the reader must guess the mood/emotion of a scene based on the last.

Amir is the main character and plays both the protagonist as well as the antagonist, this level of technique is rare and is quite hard to use. Personally this is the first time I have seen the main character play both roles and is one of the reasons why I got sucked into reading it.

Themes that arise in this book are based around what Amir encounters — such themes include: betrayal, redemption, guilt, violence, family and friends and hope.

Redemption — Amir struggles to make his father proud throughout his childhood “after all, [he] had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess”, due to Amir’s birth his mother had passed away, something that Baba (Amir’s father) regrets throughout his life. “I could have at least […] had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him”, Amir’s thirst to prove himself occurs due to the death of his mother, he needs to show that he was worthy to take his mother's life and become half the man Baba is. Baba gives Amir a plethora of opportunities in his adolescence to make him proud all of which Baba excelled in, soccer, academics and public speaking, Amir can’t seem to enjoy any of the subjects/sports that his father does and is hence constantly seen as a failure. One day Wahir Akbar Khan district in Kabul an annual kite flying competition was held, Amir was competing with Hassan (best friends), by the end of the tournament Amir managed to slice the opposition kite down. Hassan managed to “run” the opposition kite down (chase the kite that has fallen), Amir finds Hassan in danger of being walloped and must make a decision to save his best friend or finally receive the praise he craved from his father. “I’d bring it home and show it to Baba. Show him once and for all that his son was worthy.” in the end Amir’s thirst for redemption overcomes his emotions, the ability to be seen and praised upon by his father clouds his head. Later on he finds out that this one decisions ruins a life long relationship and forces him to carry out terrible deeds.

“I had one last chance to make a decision […] I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan […] Or I could run. In the end, I ran. Guilt consumes Amir, after he choses that his craving for his father’s praise and consolation for his mother’s death takes over. On the day of the annual kite flying tournament (before Amir abandones Hassan), Hassan articulates about his dream — a lake is believed to be the home to a monster, Amir and Hassan jump in to prove that the water is safe and luckily they are right. Amir soon comes to the realisation that “there was a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom. [Amir] was that monster”, his betrayal to Hassan brings upon the same guilt that he has lived with his whole life (the death of his mother), this makes Amir miserable, everyday he see’s Hassan and the constant reminder of guilt breaks him up, he soon tries to break away from Hassan in an attempt to become innocent again.


Books.

The journey’s we take whilst reading about these magnificent adventures ponder through our minds as we dream at night, the imagination that spirals through our minds allows us to feel connected with the heroes we have read so much about.

After reading a vast amount of genres throughout this year I realize that in the break which I took from books throughout my highschool years could have been filled with exciting adventures entailing impossible missions, vast exploration and growth. I have learnt that a world without books would be monotonous, books allow us to escape a constant world of logic where things go according to Newton's law and gravity, but the ability to break free from logic allows the mind to explore and adventure endless journeys that all come to life from simple, scattered, symbols.

“Be awesome! Be a book nut!”

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