I’ve always been interested in reading. I could read a few novels a day when I was in primary school if I didn’t have much to do. Books were my companion and a library was my safe haven.
When I was 11, my father received a scholarship to study in the USA. My family and I followed him abroad and I went to Frick Middle School in Pittsburgh. As reading is my passion, I found that the library had a vast selection of storybooks with themes that were new and sometimes strange to me. Upon my return to Malaysia when I was 13, I felt a bit disappointed over the selection of novels and storybooks in the school library. I felt that they somehow paled in comparison to the choices I have had overseas. I didn’t read many novels from the library, then, and I couldn’t afford to buy on my own.
My best experience of reading a fiction would be on a book I’ve read in Frick Middle School. I can’t remember the author nor the book’s title since it was 22 years ago. It’s very hard for me to recall. But the storyline was so intriguing that it remains in my memory up till today.
Basically the story was about a family of four that moved from one place to another until they reached the city where the narrator lived. The narrator was a girl/boy (I can’t remember specifically) who was about the same age as the children of the family. From time to time, the narrator noticed certain strange remarks from the family especially the children. They would sometimes mention an event that they have experienced but the event actually happened 50 or 100 years ago, which was way beyond their age. The children, one boy and one girl, who were teenagers, also behaved as if they were somehow older than their age. Finally, the narrator discovered that the family was actually trapped in time and have been at that age for a hundred year or so. They were actually somewhat depressed since they could not grow older even though they have experienced many things in life. They were upset that the society would only treat them according to their biological age and they could not reveal otherwise.
The children also felt tremendous pressure since society would always treat them as 12 year old or 14 year old. The teenage girl could not experience the life of a girl evolving into womanhood nor experience the normal life cycle of an ordinary woman. The boy also felt the same way. Biologically, they were young and immature, but in truth, they were socially developed yet, could not advance beyond their age. In the end, the whole family committed suicide.
The story changes the whole outlook I had on life. As a young girl, just reaching my teenage years, I would have thought that immortality is a great idea. To be young forever also has many plus sides. I thought that you could have seen many changes of the world with the energy of a young person. Never did it cross my mind that seeing the world evolves around us but we, ourselves, remain static is disturbing and quite challenging on our personal identity or personality. Change is perhaps an essence of life.
In today’s society which constantly strives to maintain youth and searches for secrets of immortality, I began to see those issues in a different light. The author of the story clearly challenges the notion of what-if we are immortal. Maybe, God has created death for a reason. You can actually experience so much and sometimes eternity seems to be too much. Forever could be more than we could handle.
When I was 11, my father received a scholarship to study in the USA. My family and I followed him abroad and I went to Frick Middle School in Pittsburgh. As reading is my passion, I found that the library had a vast selection of storybooks with themes that were new and sometimes strange to me. Upon my return to Malaysia when I was 13, I felt a bit disappointed over the selection of novels and storybooks in the school library. I felt that they somehow paled in comparison to the choices I have had overseas. I didn’t read many novels from the library, then, and I couldn’t afford to buy on my own.
My best experience of reading a fiction would be on a book I’ve read in Frick Middle School. I can’t remember the author nor the book’s title since it was 22 years ago. It’s very hard for me to recall. But the storyline was so intriguing that it remains in my memory up till today.
Basically the story was about a family of four that moved from one place to another until they reached the city where the narrator lived. The narrator was a girl/boy (I can’t remember specifically) who was about the same age as the children of the family. From time to time, the narrator noticed certain strange remarks from the family especially the children. They would sometimes mention an event that they have experienced but the event actually happened 50 or 100 years ago, which was way beyond their age. The children, one boy and one girl, who were teenagers, also behaved as if they were somehow older than their age. Finally, the narrator discovered that the family was actually trapped in time and have been at that age for a hundred year or so. They were actually somewhat depressed since they could not grow older even though they have experienced many things in life. They were upset that the society would only treat them according to their biological age and they could not reveal otherwise.
The children also felt tremendous pressure since society would always treat them as 12 year old or 14 year old. The teenage girl could not experience the life of a girl evolving into womanhood nor experience the normal life cycle of an ordinary woman. The boy also felt the same way. Biologically, they were young and immature, but in truth, they were socially developed yet, could not advance beyond their age. In the end, the whole family committed suicide.
The story changes the whole outlook I had on life. As a young girl, just reaching my teenage years, I would have thought that immortality is a great idea. To be young forever also has many plus sides. I thought that you could have seen many changes of the world with the energy of a young person. Never did it cross my mind that seeing the world evolves around us but we, ourselves, remain static is disturbing and quite challenging on our personal identity or personality. Change is perhaps an essence of life.
In today’s society which constantly strives to maintain youth and searches for secrets of immortality, I began to see those issues in a different light. The author of the story clearly challenges the notion of what-if we are immortal. Maybe, God has created death for a reason. You can actually experience so much and sometimes eternity seems to be too much. Forever could be more than we could handle.
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