Choosing what you read with an open and discerning mind
Lau Guan Kim  Updated: 2004-07-09 10:02

I took some time to respond to a thread by Mark Wu in my Photo Essay on flowers and birds because to talk about myself has the danger of being an egomaniac without realising it. As his thread would seem incongruous in that essay, I hence start this new thread in response.

Back in the seventies, I often dropped in to the NTUC (National Trade Union Congress) to visit and talk to an Indian teacher whom I admire and respect very much. He was then holding the powerful post of Secretary General, more powerful than cabinet ministers except the Prime Minister of Singapore.

C. V. Devan Nair was my teacher from 1948 to 1949. But even then during this short span his impact on me is tremendous. If there is any man who taught me to love English literature and poetry, Devan Nair will be credited for the formative years of my political thinking and a love for writing in good King's English.

Well, event moved fast and he was to become the third President of Singapore, and during his term had to resign under bizarre circumstances - a move demanded of him by Lee Kuan Yew. I could sense then, and now, the parting of ways of political comrades in arms was more painful to Lee Kuan Yew, upon whom Devan Nair sacrificed his standing and friendship with other communist forces to put Lee in power.

Just a few days ago my wife remarked that Devan Nair was 80 now, and the Chinese press mentioned he is suffering what Reagan was suffering - Alzheimer's disease.

One writer whom Devan Nair introduced to me was Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), a Syrian-born American mystic poet and painter best known for "The Prophet."

But English literary writers influence me, and to this day I love English poetry. Just only last night, I served an impeccable English gentleman I know as Allen Keats OBE (Order of British Empire). When I alluded to John Keats, he recited one of the long and lovely poems Keats wrote.

It was indeed a good way to end the day with beautiful poetry.

But then, I have had enough of bigots and zealots in my voracious reading. As I avidly read many authors I soon learn to discern and to avoid those in the extreme spectrum. In later life I was to change my reading habits to mainly politics and history of China, and like most iconoclasts, I became an insufferable radical, at least to the people in power.

Choosing authors would mean to me a form of literary straightjacket that is adversely a path to rigid thinking and intractable dogmas. Hence I choose to read what I like best, notwithstanding the authors unless they went over the fringe of the spectrum.

Most importantly, I reserve an open and discerning mind.

I believe a good writer must develop a style that is pleasing and comprehensible to readers. Not only that, he has to have original and thought-provoking ideas to hold his reader's interest.

And now back to good wholesome English literature and poetry.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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