My passion for books might have dwindled down after I had read what was available for me to read: the popular classics and the famous contemporary novels, some good and some bad nonfiction, and some definitely bad poetry. But discovering Eric’s channel (Eric Anderson, on YouTube) became a way for me to not only keep in touch with books, but also develop more of interest and love for reading them. Eric introduced me to the term ‘Booktuber’ and to an endless number of new books and authors that I continue to love reading.
In today’s fast-moving world, where there is always so much to do, so much to consume, so much to earn, so much to travel, so much to live – reading has become counter-cultural, in that it requires you to slow down and listen, and feel, and care for lives other than your own, worries different than yours. And while it is rewarding in the most beautiful ways, reading can be difficult to champion at times. You would rather get lost in the never-ending hustle of life, getting degrees, finding a good job, pursuing a career and then a family - reading amidst all these seems like a show-stopper, an escape from the realities of life, a refuge into a you-less world.
Nonetheless, whether it has become a habit for me, or if I can still name it passion, reading remains the fuel that helps me move through my days. Days that are often not kind; sometimes it is the external world that puts too much of a pressure of my weak muscles of resilience and thin patience, and at other times it’s an inside displeasure, a melancholy that is not soft, a bitterness of living, an inability of to keep myself, if not happy, just afloat – for I sink back into the river of sadness and worry before and after the very short episodes of happiness that I wish never came about.
So yes, books are meaningful to me, even if they’ve failed to make a pragmatic person out of me, or has been unable to provide me a source of income as people think books should – they are meaningful because I am alive from the inside, I can feel sadness, kindness, pain, joy and love. And as long my inside shall live, as long books remain beside me. Maybe I am too young for the life’s wisdom that I’m after, but I’ve also earned pains, through the expansion of my consciousness, that don’t suit my age either.
And now, I’ve barely enough space for the review; ‘but a review is also a memoir’ (John Greene) and mine are a good example of it.
McCrae’s novel has a most appealing plot where Lizzie Burns, a supposed lover of late Mr. Engels, the famous co-author of ‘Communist Manifesto’ and best friend of Karl Marx, plays the protagonist and we see her life both before and after Fredrick Engel’s arrival. Before, Ms. Burns works with her sister, Mary, in Manchester at one of Mr. Engel’s mills. After, she moves to London as Mrs. Engels where they live a posh house alongside the Marxes.
This transition from a working-lady to being a misses of one of that time’s great men is beautifully captured by McCrae, in which he mostly writes about the domestic lives they lived and shows the sacrifices women had to make for a good life. In what reads like a classical work, McCrae’s novel is a triumph of vivid imagination, poignant story telling, and an overall wonderfully touching tale of love and revolution, wherein lies both joy and wisdom.
Ratings: 5/5 ***** July 27, 2021_