BOOKS | White Sands: Experience from the Outside World

The best things about deleting Pokemon Go from my phone was that I finally found myself reading again. Granted, I am still not reading as much as I would like to, but some reading on the bus is still better than nothing; still a lot better than wasting it trying to catch Poke stops to refill my Poke balls, and catching Pokemons. Yep, I was one of those people.

I finished Geoff Dyer's White Sands eventually. I was still one day late to return it to the library. What can you do about it, right?

The thing that caught my attention in the beginning (the Author's Note part of the book) was how he stated that the book was "a mixture of fiction and non-fiction". He explained, or maybe just stated, "The main point is that the book does not demand to be read according to how far from a presumed dividing line--a line separating certain forms and the expectations they engender--it is assumed to stand. In this regard 'White Sands' is both the figure at the centre of the carpet and a blank space on the map."

A little cheeky, and it reminded me of the time when we had to do Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines for a literature class, and some of us were a little perturbed at the idea that while the narrator is known as Bruce Chatwin, Bruce Chatwin the narrator might not be Bruce Chatwin the author; Bruce Chatwin the narrator might just be a fictional construct of the author, and the book might not be meant as non-fiction. Now Geoff Dyer seems to be doing something similar, subverting the expectations of the readers, or just simply refusing to play by the conventions of genre or classification.

So what exactly is this book about? Well, I'm not totally sure. It's about going somewhere else, and not necessarily always somewhere geographically somewhere else. He wrote about going to China, to Tahiti, living in Los Angeles -- but along the way, he also ruminated on his childhood, thoughts on looking at certain pictures and art. I guess ultimately, this is a book about how we see: within and without.

From White Sands:

What is the difference between seeing something and not seeing it? More specifically, what is the difference between seeing Tahiti and not seeing it, between going to Tahiti and not going? The answer to that, an answer that is actually an answer to an entirely different question, is that it is possible to go to Tahiti without seeing it.

This quote drew a nod from me, because it is possible to look at a piece of art, and not see it - not understand it. It is also possible (and it happens a lot of the time) to be somewhere and not see what surrounds us. To be talking to someone, and not be communicating. To know something, and not see them.

Or I might be wrong. Either way, it had been an enjoyable book.