Friday, March 5, 2010

on books and a proverb


"My home is where my books are," says writer and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk (I wrote an essay on Pamuk after he won the Nobel Prize). His collection of thousands of books are in Istanbul. Istanbul is his home. I certainly do not have as many books as he has, but my book collection is evenly divided between Amsterdam and Bandung. I am divorced from a large part of what constitutes a home. I am divorced from what has constituted my self. Is this abortion necessarily a bad thing? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

(And here the New York Times essay "You are what you read" by Leah Price.)

1 comment:

Lida Handayani said...

”Buku adalah temanku. Buku-buku menjadi temanku dan pastilah (penjara) ini merupakan tempat tenang untuk belajar. Selama aku memiliki buku, aku dapat tinggal di mana saja.” Moh. Hatta, Wakil Presiden Indonesia yang pertama.