I love books. I also love food. For me, books are automatically graded unconsciously by their ‘taste’ they leave in the end. And also while consuming, too. For example, when I read through Alistair MacLean’s works, I had the feeling of binging on french fries. They’re pretty much the same flavour in all his books, the variations are minor, some are ‘saltier’ than the others, but it’s nigh impossible to stop after a few. You have to have the whole lot of ’em. And they’re pretty much a guilty pleasure in the end! Or Dickens’ ‘Nicholas Nickleby’. That would be a seven-course meal when you’re feeling half-full before they have brought in the appetizers. It’s a sensory overload in every sense. You get what I’m trying to say here.
Now, for me, ‘The White Marble Burzi and Other Stories’ would be akin to the dessert bebinka. Not the Filipino version, but the Goan one. And I’ll tell why.