Reading between the lines

"Read between the lines",  I heard our professor say. We were in midst of a Victorian text. I looked at her point blank. She had spoken about something which I had no clue about.

"Ma'am,  would you please elaborate? ",  I tried framing this sentence in my mind but my introverted  self overpowered my inquisitive soul like everytime. I hopelessly waited for an explanation.

Ma'am started explaining about how beyond the surface meaning of any written text, there lay a wide plethora of meaning which wasn't explicitly stated.

She talked about finding a void between the written words and our imagination, that void which shapes our interpretation. That explanation opened doors to my perception of reading a text. It wasn't that I had never considered about the possibilities of meanings that lay coated in words until then, but, what perhaps I lacked was to look for that void where I questioned the layers of meaning, where I put myself in those layers of words to find my own way.

As a child, I had a very bad habit. I couldn't resist the temptation of reaching out to the last page of my story books. I lacked the patience. Once assured of happy endings which the last pages promised me of, I went back to the initial pages to resume my story. I wanted comfy closures.

Flash forward today, I no more look out for those last pages. I no longer believe that the last pages promise me of endings. I want the books I read to never have any ending. I love it if the books end in uncertainties. I have finally understood the concept of "reading between the lines" that ma'am had implied. She had asked us to reflect as the story within a book progresses, to pause as the story catches motion. To look for closures within the narration without necessarily relying on the ending. For, any ending is just a myth conceived by a writer and as readers we may not necessarily borrow it.

Happy reading!