I had started reading a book by the name of "Enchantress of Florence" by my hero of the literary world Salman Rushdie a few days back. I don't remember buying the book and I absolutely have no idea how it come onto my possession. I did pinch a book from some room mate of mine a few years back thinking the fellow would never in his straight mind read a book, and that too one which was above 100 pages, but if it indeed was this one I don't quite remember! Karma was working its way as I read the book;it must this book that I flicked.
It started with a scene where a man was travelling into a city and is awed by the lake outside the city gates that took the form of a molten gold in the rays of the setting sun. I remember this part of the book well for a reason, I had started the book a minimum of ten times before I progressed beyond this scene! Imagine the joy of finally crossing a barrier! It was a short lived joy, for once I had crossed those few initial pages, the incipient complexity of the words that Mr Rushdie used to describe his mental world began to take its toll on me. Incidentally the word "incipient" that I used in the earlier sentence was one that I picked up from that book and it means - "on the verge of appearing" for eg - incipient obesity, meaning obesity that had just started, or oncoming obesity. Every sentence that I read was rife with new words that made my head reel and my mind crouch in a corner in the dawning of the awareness of my ignorance!
Pulchritude, puissant, ordure, mandrake, regicide, suzerainty, renege, - these were some of the words that I had to look up meanings for. These are a preponderant few of the enormous number of seldom used, but extremely expressive words utilized by Mr Rushdie. It is a writers nightmare to be stuck in mid sentence for want of a word that best describes his mind, the word that portrays the world hidden in the space between the writers ears; and this book was a joy on that count, also a tedious task master with reference to the dictionary. I referred to the dictionary after every sentence and then later understood it was not serving any purpose to just refer and let go because a lot of these words were repeated further on and my mind sat there staring blankly wondering "Hey I saw this word in the beginning, what does it mean ?"And then to pacify me, "maybe I didn't see it before, this is deja vu".
An old diary was pressed into service, a pen was found from the deep recesses of the house, for pens seem to have a way of getting themselves lost in whatever junk can be found in the house, no matter how little the junk itself is! Mobile dictionary apps were downloaded in my mobile and the wife's as well, so as to ensure there was a dictionary at hand always. A web version was downloaded just in case. The original book version of dictionary however was abandoned for its archaic method of use, cumbersomeness and excessive consumption of time which was already becoming a rare commodity with all the complex words needing constant attention!
Unlike most of my other resolutions which I painstakingly plan for,set goals for and decide to stick to and certainly fail, this whim of a moment one stuck on. In fact it became a habit,it clung on resolutely even when not reading a book. Watching a movie, the protagonist would be in the throes of passion with his lady love while I was stuck with a word that he had used just before the passion scene began, looking it up earnestly on my mobile. I would be intently reading a newspaper article about the atrocities of "religious" groups (actually political parties in dire need of some publicity using the garb of religion to attain this free publicity - a stunt used by Al-Queda, IS and Boko Haram, now being taken up by our Hindutve groups) against an intellectual writer when a word used to describe his fate would take precedence over the article itself!
There is another person who bears the brunt of all these antics of mine, my better half. I would infuse all my newly learned words in our daily conversation, sometimes even contriving desultory conversations to suit this purpose. She would hear my lengthy discourse and then rephrase it in a simple sentence sans the adjectives. Like for example my previous sentence would have been - "I used the new words I learnt in daily conversation, sometimes even making up ones to suit my purpose." And then she would go on to say I was shamelessly using her ignorance to use words that in all probability didn't even mean what I intended to convey!
I would be busy speaking with someone at the office, and as we come to point that I know I can express well, I would be left for a moment wondering - is "dejected" the right word here or "disappointed" the right one? And then I'd go ahead and use one word or the other, get back to my seat and look up both words to see which one would have had the impact it should have had, with scant regard for the fact that neither word didn't have any impact upon the listener anyway!
It may sound trite, but what has to be said has to be said - all the small trifles brought about by this addiction to vocabulary is compensated by the exhilaration one experiences in using the right word at the right time.The satisfaction in engenders in one when a word sits perfectly in a string of sentences crafted to convey a message without loosing the emotions with which it was crafted in the first place!
And so my journey into the world of complex English words continue - to evoke emotions, to stoke the fires of passion and inspiration,to let the world feel what I feel through my words, until it is cloyed by it!
PS - the word cloy is special to me. It is the translation of the Tamil word "Thegattarthu" meaning something that feels unpleasant after some time of it being very pleasant. For eg : too much of mysurpa has a cloying taste.
It started with a scene where a man was travelling into a city and is awed by the lake outside the city gates that took the form of a molten gold in the rays of the setting sun. I remember this part of the book well for a reason, I had started the book a minimum of ten times before I progressed beyond this scene! Imagine the joy of finally crossing a barrier! It was a short lived joy, for once I had crossed those few initial pages, the incipient complexity of the words that Mr Rushdie used to describe his mental world began to take its toll on me. Incidentally the word "incipient" that I used in the earlier sentence was one that I picked up from that book and it means - "on the verge of appearing" for eg - incipient obesity, meaning obesity that had just started, or oncoming obesity. Every sentence that I read was rife with new words that made my head reel and my mind crouch in a corner in the dawning of the awareness of my ignorance!
Pulchritude, puissant, ordure, mandrake, regicide, suzerainty, renege, - these were some of the words that I had to look up meanings for. These are a preponderant few of the enormous number of seldom used, but extremely expressive words utilized by Mr Rushdie. It is a writers nightmare to be stuck in mid sentence for want of a word that best describes his mind, the word that portrays the world hidden in the space between the writers ears; and this book was a joy on that count, also a tedious task master with reference to the dictionary. I referred to the dictionary after every sentence and then later understood it was not serving any purpose to just refer and let go because a lot of these words were repeated further on and my mind sat there staring blankly wondering "Hey I saw this word in the beginning, what does it mean ?"And then to pacify me, "maybe I didn't see it before, this is deja vu".
An old diary was pressed into service, a pen was found from the deep recesses of the house, for pens seem to have a way of getting themselves lost in whatever junk can be found in the house, no matter how little the junk itself is! Mobile dictionary apps were downloaded in my mobile and the wife's as well, so as to ensure there was a dictionary at hand always. A web version was downloaded just in case. The original book version of dictionary however was abandoned for its archaic method of use, cumbersomeness and excessive consumption of time which was already becoming a rare commodity with all the complex words needing constant attention!
Unlike most of my other resolutions which I painstakingly plan for,set goals for and decide to stick to and certainly fail, this whim of a moment one stuck on. In fact it became a habit,it clung on resolutely even when not reading a book. Watching a movie, the protagonist would be in the throes of passion with his lady love while I was stuck with a word that he had used just before the passion scene began, looking it up earnestly on my mobile. I would be intently reading a newspaper article about the atrocities of "religious" groups (actually political parties in dire need of some publicity using the garb of religion to attain this free publicity - a stunt used by Al-Queda, IS and Boko Haram, now being taken up by our Hindutve groups) against an intellectual writer when a word used to describe his fate would take precedence over the article itself!
There is another person who bears the brunt of all these antics of mine, my better half. I would infuse all my newly learned words in our daily conversation, sometimes even contriving desultory conversations to suit this purpose. She would hear my lengthy discourse and then rephrase it in a simple sentence sans the adjectives. Like for example my previous sentence would have been - "I used the new words I learnt in daily conversation, sometimes even making up ones to suit my purpose." And then she would go on to say I was shamelessly using her ignorance to use words that in all probability didn't even mean what I intended to convey!
I would be busy speaking with someone at the office, and as we come to point that I know I can express well, I would be left for a moment wondering - is "dejected" the right word here or "disappointed" the right one? And then I'd go ahead and use one word or the other, get back to my seat and look up both words to see which one would have had the impact it should have had, with scant regard for the fact that neither word didn't have any impact upon the listener anyway!
It may sound trite, but what has to be said has to be said - all the small trifles brought about by this addiction to vocabulary is compensated by the exhilaration one experiences in using the right word at the right time.The satisfaction in engenders in one when a word sits perfectly in a string of sentences crafted to convey a message without loosing the emotions with which it was crafted in the first place!
And so my journey into the world of complex English words continue - to evoke emotions, to stoke the fires of passion and inspiration,to let the world feel what I feel through my words, until it is cloyed by it!
PS - the word cloy is special to me. It is the translation of the Tamil word "Thegattarthu" meaning something that feels unpleasant after some time of it being very pleasant. For eg : too much of mysurpa has a cloying taste.
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