| Sunday, 29 September 2024 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Good morning, dear reader. When did we stop buying highlighters?
The thought occurred to me on a Sunday morning a few months ago as I was sitting on my balcony, reading David Nicholls’ novel ‘Us’.
Us is a terribly good novel. Perhaps one of the best fiction books I’ve read in a few years. Page after page filled with prose, situations, dialogue, and observations so good that you wonder how Nicholls managed it. It was one of those rare novels that made me want to be a better writer.
After smiling to myself for the nth time, I wondered, should I not be highlighting the best of these sentences?
“But with what?” I countered myself. I own numerous whiteboard markers in pristine condition, a few pens that may not work, and even an iPad “pencil”. But no highlighters.
Sometime during the last 10–15 years, I’d stopped needing highlighters. And sometime shortly thereafter, I’d stopped realising that I’d stopped needing them.
“Why?” I wondered back.
Perhaps because we stopped reading books and switched to reading stuff on the Internet.
Hmmm, that theory made sense. Why would I buy highlighters if I had nothing to highlight?
Should I buy a few on Amazon right now, then? Let’s start highlighting again.
But why not just underline? All it takes is a pen, and I’m sure you don’t need to order one.
Which made me think about highlighting versus underlining. Which one was better?
Would the highlighting ink be worse for the paper in the long run? Would its ink fade and blend with the yellow paper over the years, thus defeating the very purpose? Would it scream “left-brained” to anyone who happened to borrow the book from me?
Underlining, in contrast, seemed more deliberate. If you came across a few underlined sentences in a book versus some neon highlights, you’d definitely think the underlining was more intentional.
Perhaps. But then, why really was I even interested in highlighting (or underlining)? If I’d already enjoyed the prose, was that not enough? What would I gain by marking them out?
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