Can the kind of book you’re reading at the moment affect your mood?
For the past few weeks I had been reading a book by Naipaul called Magic Seeds.
The protagonist of the book, Willie Chandran, is a guy who goes through life like driftwood, being swept around by the will of fate or of other people. It is a sort of depressing read. Middle-aged, he is coerced by his sister to join a revolution in India, which ultimately fails, then ends up in an Indian jail for several years and finally lands up in London with nothing on his hands but endless time. I thought the book was going at an incredibly slow pace but I persisted nonetheless because I love Naipaul and the dark way in which he manages to be accurate. I think that darkness transferred itself from the pages of the book and into my head for I felt sad for many days after that. I couldn’t actually pinpoint what the cause was and for a moment wondered if I was suffering from depression. Then unable to continue any longer with the book, I decided to start afresh. I began reading Bridget Jones’ Diary, a book I’d never imagined I would read simply because I thought it would be full of the usual girly stuff like office crushes and wild sex and fashion dilemmas and the rest. And I was right by the way. But I’m surprised that the way in which all this was presented wasn’t so obnoxious as it usually is. At least I’m glad that I find myself looking up from the book to giggle and not to go into those long, pessimistic flashbacks of my life as I used to with Magic Seeds. Of course I still love Naipaul but I feel much better now.