On Reading Gorky
Before Maxim Gorky discovered books, he had already learned the language of hunger, cruelty, and loss. Orphaned at the age of 11, he was raised in an extremely abusive and impoverished household by his maternal grandparents. He started working at the age of 8 – as dishwasher, longshoreman, baker’s apprentice, and railway porter. He lived among ‘social dregs’ like thieves, tramps, and crude labourers. The discovery of books and reading changed his life radically. Soon he learnt that books could transform human beings. They open the doors to a world of magic. They reveal the human potential for goodness and greatness. “Books taught me to believe in man,” as Gorky wrote in one of his essays (which I read this morning just by chance). He once wrote that books enlarged his mind and heart. That is perhaps the finest description of what great literature does. It stretches our imagination beyond the narrow boundaries of our own experience. We begin to see lives we have never lived, cultu...
