Eric Tian

Last week, I wrote about how I met a stranger while reading Murakami in a cafe. Today a similar thing happened.

I was reading The Great Gatsby in the corner of a coffee shop when I felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked up and came face to face with a man. He seemed as though he could be anywhere from 30 to 70 years old; his back was slightly hunched forward and his face showed a few wrinkles, but wore a brilliant head of black hair with no signs of greying. I was sure I had never seen him before. His face was too unique. In our brief moment of eye contact, he pointed at my book, then took out something from his suitcase.

It was an identical copy of The Great Gatsby.

As I stared at him, half in disbelief, half in amazement, he shared with me a little wink. It then occurred to me that I should say something when the barista called out an order: a large long black. The man turned towards the counter, and collected the drink with his free hand. He didn’t even look back as he left the little shop and strolled into the street. As I watched his figure growing smaller and smaller until he was finally engulfed in the sea of Melbourne, I looked back down at the book and remembered that line I had read last week.

“Well, any friend of Gatsby is a friend of mine…””

Eric Whitacre tweeted this yesterday:

Sometimes I imagine a sleep deprived, burnt out writer, that on the verge of tears and giving up, finds a copy of a wonderful book like The Little Prince or The Great Gatsby lying around and begins to read. And through it, they rekindle the love they once had for books, stories and beautiful sentences. They notice quirks in a character or flickers in a scene that make their imagination soar and heart race, to which they realise that it was this feeling through reading that inspired them to write in the first place, all those years ago.

I think this is part of the reason why writers read books, musicians watch concerts and painters attend exhibitions. On one practical hand, these activities equip one with the latest trends in literature, music, and painting, that they can use to enhance their craft.

But crucially, these moments of quiet consumption remind one of the beauty in their uncertain craft and rekindle their fire for creating good work. For it is sometimes not enough to work all the time – we forget why we do it in the first place. These moments of respite, in times of confusion and frustration, remind us what it is all about.