the mountain is young

the book I'm re-reading, by Han Suyin.

I discovered her as a teenager. I read The Mountain Is Young in my last year of high school. It hooked me from the first chapter. I copied passages from it into my notebook, where I collected favourite poems and quotes, drunk and dizzy with her words and the world she painted, of inner and outer awakening.

I hadn't thought of her in years. Even though, if I had to list writers who have influenced me, she'd be near the top. Then, a few days ago, I found this book, on the dusty shelf of a sparsely-stocked second-hand bookshop in Adam's Arcade, Nairobi.

I was up until 1am last night reading it. Ingested whole chunks of story I have no recollection of from the first time. Some of her passages are a little tedious to me now. She slips into philosophizing that doesn't serve the story. But I caught my breath when I rediscovered the parts I do remember, the lines and passages that flung open dazzling doors for me, years ago. Still there. Still powerful. Still throwing the shutters back in my head, to gusts of icy-champagne mountain air.