From Eça to Lovecraft
March 19 | 365 Days of Writing Prompts | Bedtime stories: What was your favorite book as a child? Did it influence the person you are now?
My parents do not have a higher education, neither (were) are book readers. We had some books at home, but anyone has books even if they don’t read them. When I was a child I hated to read, I wrote with typos everywhere. Everyone had told me if I become a book reader I would write better… I’ve never done it. Of course, at the age of 11–13 I’ve read some books that usually any kid would read: Lua de Joana (about a teenage girl that becomes a drug addict) and even before I’ve read only one of the collection “Uma Aventura…” (a group of five kids and two dogs that are always on adventures and solving minor crimes). Besides these two, I’ve read some comics like Asterix and Obelix, Calvin & Hobbes and stuff like that.
I can say that the first book I’ve read with enjoy was “A Cidade e as Serras” by Eça de Queirós. I’ve read it with 13–15 years old or so. Eça is considered one of, if not the one, great Portuguese writers of all time. His writing is perfect, everything is in the right place. I’ve had an amazing experiencing while reading “A Cidade e as Serras,” it is about two cousins one from the city and another from the countryside. I’ve born and live in Lisbon (Portugal’s capital), and I was — as usual — spending my summer vacations at my grandma’s house, in the countryside. Although I’ve enjoyed the book I was yet a reader.
Only some years later I’ve become a real reader. It was a Christmas present, why in hell I would like to have a book for a present? It was from an author I’ve never heard of about. H.P. Lovecraft compilations of some of the best horror tales. In the cover, there were a lot of those “must read” sentences from Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, etc. I don’t know how much time it takes to start reading it. The only thing I know it was a fantastic reading experience, and it definitively changed my life. Since that day I’ve started to read with real enjoyment.
