I've just awoken from a peaceful night in "Melbourne", reading Paul Theroux's "The Happy Isles of Oceania", gazing at the slowly burning flame of the kerosene lamp, occasionally listening to the sounds of nature outside the door, and finally answering the call of nature before tucking myself under the doona for the night.
As I was reading by the slowly burning flame of the kerosene lamp, it gave me the strange feeling that this was the way people had read for almost all of the time that people have been reading: in darkness, slowly, and with full concentration. They didn't end each paragraph thinking it would be a good time to check their emails. Their phones didn't ring. The ambient hum of fridge and television was gone.
There was no distraction whatsoever except for the occasional pause to angle the book to catch the shifting shine of the light from the flame. The words themselves seemed less fixed and self-evident, as if I could read the same sentence countless different ways just by tipping the book forwards and back. It all had a curious and lovely intensity.
Reading by the light of the kerosene lamp is an experience of strange reverence. It is how I would like to read all my book all my nights.
