63 pages • 2 hours read
Sara Nisha AdamsThe Reading List
Fiction | Novel | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Reading List
Naina’s list symbolizes the ability of books to teach, heal, and connect. The list is something of a miracle; Naina scatters copies of it around her community, in places where they could easily be lost, ignored, or thrown away. However, against all odds, the list finds its way to various strangers, right when they need it the most.
Aidan is the first character to encounter the list; his rejection of it symbolizes a rejection of healing and connection. The next person to find it is Aleisha; unlike her brother, she engages with the list. At first, she dismisses it as nothing more than a way to pass time at her boring summer job, a way to make up for being rude to the old man—Mukesh—who asked for her help. As she makes her way through the books on the list, however, Aleisha realizes that she has gained so much more: “The list wasn’t a distraction for her anymore. She’d learned how to fight for something you believe in from Atticus Finch; she’d learned how to survive with a tiger like Pi; she’d learned never to stay in creepy house in Cornwall, maybe just go to a B & B” (240). The list has become an instrument for emotional redemption, a way to explore herself and open up to others, like Mukesh, Zac, and her mother. For Mukesh, the books on the list symbolize a way of connecting with and understanding Naina after her death, even before he learns that she left the list. Furthermore, every person who encounters the list itself adds to its symbolic web of community; those who engage with it are connected to each other, even if they don’t know it.
This is actualized at the library’s open house, when Mukesh gives his speech. Looking over a crowd of people, joined by a love of reading, a love of each other, or both, he imagines Naina herself, surrounded by the characters from the novels on her list. This is the ultimate representation of the bond between reader and story—and it only occurs because of the reading list.
Intertextuality
Can a person not familiar with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness sufficiently understand Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now? Can a fan of West Side Story appreciate it without knowing Romeo and Juliet? Can James Joyce’s Ulysses be defined without Homer? Does a parent who knows Hamlet see the same Lion King as their children?
Writers referencing characters, themes, plots, and symbols from other writers is as old as literature itself. The term for this is allusion: textual references that assume a reader’s prior knowledge of an external source of content, like another book. Knowledge of these other sources is often not vital for following a plotline, but it does add sometimes-critical depth to the story. Allusions are often part of intertextuality—in other words, the interplay between and among books.
The Reading List uses nine books to shape the novel’s organization. Mukesh and Aleisha read these books, discuss them, and explore how the books’ characters help them understand the problems and challenges of their own lives. These discussions create the friendship between Mukesh and Aleisha. At critical moments, Aleisha and Mukesh draw on their readings to shape their perception of the world. The characters in the novels speak to them at critical junctures, making them relevant within the context of The Reading List.
However, Adams also uses these books to shape her own novel, outside of their influence on Mukesh and Aleisha. Adams provides enough detail about the books on Naina’s list to ensure that readers of The Reading List will not be confused when the titles are discussed. However, readers unfamiliar with the novels on the list may miss the layers of Adams’s references. Readers who know the stories will understand, from the sight of their titles alone, the shape of Adams’s plot; The Time Traveler’s Wife hints immediately at a bittersweet lost love, while Beloved foreshadows death, tragedy, and the ghosts of the past. Adams’s use of intertextuality connects with the broad message of The Reading List: that books serve as bridges, and those who read them can speak to other readers in a language all their own.
David Attenborough’s Nature Documentaries
Before he is introduced to the reading list, Mukesh spends his time enjoying the nature documentaries that were produced and narrated by biologist and environmental advocate Sir David Attenborough. Mukesh recalls watching the series on television, stunned by the photography and by the factoids he always learned, while Naina patiently made her way through her stack of library books beside him. Early in the narrative, when Priya visits, Mukesh tries to engage her in one of Attenborough’s documentaries, only to find Priya already lost in Little Women.
The documentaries represent Mukesh’s dedication to reality. They are a stark contrast to the fiction novels Naina so enjoys; they are grounded, logical, and educational in an academic way. Mukesh’s love of these documentaries positions him opposite his wife and granddaughter, who, in his mind, waste(d) their lives lost in fantasies. Only after he starts reading Naina’s books does Mukesh begin to understand the beauty of fiction novels.
Adams does not argue that one form of media is better than the other. Although the documentaries and novels initially seem to clash, in reality, they run parallel to each other. Mukesh learns that novels are just as educational as documentaries—only in a different way. Mukesh learns about the natural, scientific, orderly world through his documentaries; he learns about empathy and connection through Naina’s novels.
Disney/Pixar’s Up
The brief interlude in which Aleisha and Leilah watch Up, a 2009 Disney/Pixar movie, is a moment of genuine calm between the two. Aleisha recalls film nights when she was growing up, before her father left. The family would huddle under blankets and eat bowls of ice cream generously spangled with “hundreds and thousands” of chocolate sprinkles (237). The best part for Aleisha came once the film was over, when the four of them would talk well into the night about the “characters, funny bits, and sad bits too” (237). For Aleisha, it was not the film: It was the rich conversation and bonding moments that came after.
In addition to representing familial nostalgia, this scene speaks to The Reward of Intergenerational Friendship—particularly that between Aleisha and Mukesh. Up is the story of a retired balloon maker turned lonely, abrasive widower, who finds himself on an unexpected adventure with a young, lonely “wilderness explorer” (essentially, a boy scout). Up explores themes of aging and loneliness, of dealing with the loss of a spouse and the cold distance of a disconnected family; it is also, primarily, a story of intergenerational friendship. In the moment, Aleisha bonds with her mother over the movie, but the movie itself represents Aleisha’s unexpected yet powerful friendship with Mukesh. Additionally, Carl and Russell (the widower and the young boy from Up, respectively) are clear nods to Mukesh and Aleisha, yet another example of Adams’s love for allusion.
