Bookworms and bibliophiles of the burgh
routinely make their downtime beeline to their habituated bookpoints that adorn
the megapolis’s mall-lines, on their lovely TGIF sojourns!
Once they land on their port of call, they
disembark with delight, and strut straight towards their destined stacks, on their albeit ostentatious
prances – to the good ol' stacks that are so neatly arrayed through the hugeyyy aisles
of this broadyyy bookstore!
Seductive stacks of all hues, that cater not only to their addictive tastes and whims, but also to their impish, impulsive inclinations that happen on the spur!
It was on one such habituated yoo-hoo call, from
one such yonder port-of-call, that me alighted at Starmarks, Chennai, for a
random survey of the stacks eagerly rummaging through the shelves for some unputdownable
weekend reads!
And hey presto! The Gods musta be
real gracey! Gracey enough to grant you your heart's desires!
The stacks were quite favourably disposed
towards their addictive worms! Stacks that churned out a cheerful cocktail for
us all!
What with a Bryan Adams or a Billy Joel, or a
Beatles, to give you that added mellifluous company!
That makes you float above and beyond the
proverbial cloud nine, passaging your way to the staircase of heaven!
One such book that caught my particular attention
at the Starmark stack, while still afloat, was titled, The Gift!
Browsing through its 342 ‘gift’ed pages, my eyes
alighted first thing on the Introduction part, that we all quite do, by
default, alley?
And this Introduction was extra-special to me,
as it’s been written by one of the most amazing writers of our times – the legendary
Margaret Atwood!
Twenty pages of such awesome, astonishing literal
treat doubling up as an Intro, on the divers gifts that lay in store for the
curious eye, the observant eye, the keen eye and the passionate eye, within the
pages of The Gift!
By now, the book, this amazing all of a sudden, got
for itself quite a redemptive high on my eyes and heart with added lustre and
sheen, added grace and gleam to its matter and to its content, when it met up
with Margaret Atwood’s prelude to the book!
We litterateurs know for ourselves, with a full
ascertain, as to how Atwood has real got the amazing knack of taking her reader,
gently at that, by the hand, through each word and each line of her astonishing
pieces of writing - across genres!
This delightful introduction ain’t no exception
to this credo!
Atwood begins her Introduction to Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, vouching strong to its
credence and its traction!
To Atwood, this is a book “about the core nature
of what it is that artists do, and also about the relation of these activities
to our overwhelmingly commercial society. If you want to write, paint, sing,
compose, act or make films, read The Gift. It will help to keep you sane!” she
quips!
She adds,
If you’ve lifted a song or a film off the Net
without paying – if you’ve got something out of it, as we say – if you’ve
treated it as a gift, which by its nature has spiritual worth but no monetary
value, being priceless – what do you owe its creator, who has been the instrument
through which it has arrived in your hands? Your gratitude, via a word of
thanks? Your serious attention? The price of a latte deposited in a beggar’s
bowl e-tip jar?
She continues,
A gift is a gift when the giver exercises his or
her choice; if something is taken against an owner’s will or without his or her
knowledge, that’s called ‘theft’.
And yes! The
Gift does full justice above and beyond, to Atwood’s awesome introduction
to this one-of-its-kind enlightening read of our times!
Coming to the breathtaking nitty gritties of The Gift, and to the awe-inspiring
ensemble enshrined within its exciting pages, one could sum it up in one word,
one longyyy word, one longyyy fancyyy word, from the wonderland-world of Mary
Poppins, as ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’!
‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ it is!
By all means!
Now, why did I in the first place take to
deshelving this delightful read from off its stacks at this bookpoint?
First, the name Atwood on the cover page, which attracts
us to its phrasing, done in quite an unassuming font, “A Masterpiece” –
Margaret Atwood!
Second, Lewis Hyde has been quite an
acknowledged inspiration to Zadie Smith, on whom we’ve woven wondrous reams on
our blog! And that’s hence she swears upon The
Gift, in such gripping words as, “A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes
art and cares for it.”
Third, Lewis Hyde was an authority on Henry D Thoreau,
the legendary naturalist who lived on the shores of the famous Walden Pond!
These are the top three of any many reasons for
singling out The Gift for my
vacaystay!
This 1983 book by Lewis Hyde is aptly subtitled,
‘Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World’ which goes on to explicate the
proposition that, inspiration comes to the artist much in the same way as a
gift does!
Or in other words, gift-giving is dexterously equated
with the artistic experience in general!
Well, as usual, it’s not my intention or desire
to hack into the storyline and give ya’ll the spoilers! Nay! Nayver!
But I can bet on The Gift to vouchsafe an exciting, exhilarating and enthralling read
for y’all on the cards!
And for this, I would convincingly certify with such
reassuring certitude to its credo!
Hyde’s discursive range within the rubric of
this astounding read is equally enamouring!
He takes you off tangent, on an amazing ride,
through an awesomyyy array of fables, anthropological accounts, economies down
the nations, commercial transactions down the ages, scientific pronouncements
across continents, didactic stories, literary illustrations et al et al, all at
one go, full throttle, without bell or brake, anywhere, anytime to this safari-an
jaunt!
The majorly premise of the book to the first
half, is on the theory and practice of gift-giving in past primitive economies!
Hyde adds to say that, gift-giving was and has always been bound up with
gratitude!
A gift is something that has the capacity to
contagion! It’s got the capacity to contagiously impact and influence others
much more than it could possibly be imagined!
That’s one reason why, he’s adapted from the famous
Rites of Passage stance of Arnold Van
Gennep, to reformulate it as ‘Gifts of Passage’! (in page 42 to the book!)
To put it in a nutshell, he says that, the
transformative potential latent within a gift is immense and beyond measure!
In our layperson terms, if for example, I share
a gift with my friend, and my friend in turn shares it with his friend, who in
turn shares it with his friend, the gift thus shared has a transformative,
therapeutic appeal to it, whose measure is beyond compare, enriching and enlightening
both the receiver and the sender in the process!
Thus, an artist takes his inspiration from the
world, transforms it through his art, which in turn, transforms the world, and
all that therein is!
But wait! There’s more to The Gift than meets the eye!
Let’s discuss on that and more in our second
post on the tri-part series on The Gift!
So for now, that’s all for y’all, dearie folks!
image sourced from free images at pixabaydotcom
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