Squills 6/24/13

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When it comes to entertainment, tear-jerkers is not a category that I frequent much, meaning not at all. It consists mainly of star-crossed lovers and could-have-been romances that I find excessively whimsical and impractical, not to mention not at all as depressing as they seem. However, there is one author who has finally gotten the better of my stoic, uncaring self.

Khaled Hosseini, in my opinion, is highly skilled in the art of Opening the Human Floodgates. If you can find a person who has read any one of his books without losing their composure even once, I would like to congratulate them on having the emotional range of a rock. I have read two of his three books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I intend to order his third book sometime today.

What is so extraordinary about his books, you may ask? Well, Hosseini is quite wonderful at developing his characters, which he does unobtrusively and almost cautiously so. He also has a fondness for getting rid of the characters I liked the most, a quality I both love and hate him for.

But the glaringly obvious tragedy in Hosseini’s work is that it is so painfully nonfiction. None of his works are based on true stories, yet his readers know that his books could be true stories of thousands of civilians living in Afghanistan, give or take a few specifics. And personally, I feel that this makes his books all the more heart-rending.

Hosseini builds up the angst in a particular character’s life until at the climax, the reader would have to be made of stone to not be moved in some way. His books are as exquisitely put together as a masterful painting or an exquisite, five-star dish. But as neither of those objects has reduced me to a piteous state of tears, I believe that some paper, ink and a handful of words are superior to both.

I have spent one and a half of a weekend immersed in Khaled Hosseini’s And The Mountains Echoed, and Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. I confess that afterwards, my mind was reeling with the tragedy and emotional stress the two books created. I could not have chosen two less ill-suited books to read simultaneously, as I am wont to do. Not being satisfied with that, I have also made my way through most of the fourth book of ASOIAF. Nevertheless, in my literature-devouring eyes, this was time more than well spent, but others around me seem to think differently.

“Do you intend to become the world’s most voracious reader?” my mother wanted to know. “You’re certainly not going to get anywhere else with the amount of studying you’ve been doing.” This is rather typical of my mother, but even my classmates thought that this was not very prudent of me. “Where did you find the time for that?” one of my fellow bookworms marveled. “I spent my weekend with Rutherford, R. K. Narayan and Stalin.” Another remarked, rather unkindly, that it was no wonder I was somewhat lost in Physics class.
All this criticism on my voracious reading habits forced me to brood on what defines something as productive. I personally thought I was spending my time rather gainfully, though there is always an opportunity cost to time. The hours I spent reading those books could have been invested in brushing up on my dwindling knowledge in Physics. (I blame the excessively boring teacher.)

I could also have read a course-related book in Literature, or I could have enjoyed the monsoon weather. I could even have spent time with my beloved canine, a fearsome Rottweiler who is overly fond of climbing on my jeans. And I have a sneaking suspicion that any of these would be deemed more constructive than what I did spend my weekend doing.

And yet, spending my time reading, watching TV, going to parties or simply doing nothing is not entirely counterproductive either. Reading or watching TV enables me to get a more broadened outlook and feeds my overactive imagination. Going to parties would help me develop my nonexistent social skills. Even kicking my feet back and sleeping in till noon is helpful in conserving my energy for important tasks.

All this rambling has brought me to the conclusion that, truly, there is no such thing as wasting time, unless you have divided your time into neat little cubicles that leave no time for the follies of human nature. Time can be spent in countless fruitful ways, depending on whom you ask and what stage of life plagues you at the moment. Being a student, using my time for too many things other than studying is probably not wise, but neither can anyone say that it is wasted time; it is simply being productive in a different way.

And besides, I quite liked those two books.

Sidebar Area
The sidebar area of SB is now almost completely customizable. SB managers can add rules there, a summary of the storybook, and you can also see the list of participants if the storybook is closed.

Storybook Managers
The owner of the SB can now optionally appoint other people to help him with running the storybook.


Character Pages
Participants of the SB can add pages for their characters, which are linked to via the sidebar. If the SB is open, anyone can potentially add a storybook page.


Open vs. closed
If you make your SB closed, it really is closed: only people approved by a SB manager can post in it (of course, this doesn't apply to moderators!).

When your SB is closed, you can choose to allow people to request to join. When someone requests to join, you'll see their name pop up in the participants section of the SB with the words "approve" and "deny" next to them.

All SB start with a default of open. To save time, if you switch from open to closed, anyone who has previously posted is automatically added as an approved poster. Of course, you can remove people if you like.


To read more, click here.