When I was 18, I became friends with a writer who was in his early 30s, and I asked him one day what he was reading. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve gotten to the stage where I’ve started re-reading.” Oh, dear, I thought, I guess he’s run out of books. I felt a little sorry for him, and also alarmed by the notion that maybe there were only enough good books in the world to occupy me for another dozen years or so. Was my friend hinting that there comes a point when we’re all stuck with reruns?
Now, more than three decades later, I know what he meant. You never run out of good books, but as much fun as it is to discover something new, one of life’s great joys is re-reading: going back to a book for the second or third or fifth time, and seeing how it has deepened and expanded since your last visit.
Comments
I re-read To Kill A Mockingbird when my kids read it in middle school. I was blown away by the book! As a parent, it was so much more poignant than it was for me as a teenager. I recommended it to everyone I knew to re-read it.
This comment has been removed.
Delightful article. Since turning 25 or so my criterion for buying a book has been that if I don't feel compelled to check it out a second or third time at the library in order to re-read it, I don't need it. Of course, many of the great classics can be had for free from online sources, and no matter how satisfying it is to feel a book in hand, savour the texture of the paper on my fingertips, and inhale deeply (and try not to sneeze) of the overall aroma of a beloved old book, it is still pleasing knowing I can have a significant library on a device that fits in my pocket.
I had this revelation when my bookclub read "My Antonia." I remembered hating the paper I had to write about it in college and thinking the book was dull. So I was delightfully surprised to find that my 45 year old self loved the book. My 20 year old self had no understanding of a book that is partly about realizing that you can never really go back to the place of your childhood. How could I? I remembered then, that in college I had enjoyed the early part of the book, but then lost interest when the story moved on to the character as an adult. I've had similar experiences since, and before, with other books, but that was when I really understood. Reading is a process that involved the book, the reader and the context that the reader brings to the reading.
Only four people commented? People do not read; spend one hour watching people on the Common or on the T and they are texting or playing games or their headphones are blaring! High school and college are worse. People worship money and reading is not about money...it's considered a waste of time. By the way, my favorite is "Watership Down" which I have read at least four times.
This article is so comforting for this high school English teacher. It is difficult for us to step out of our own reverential bliss when assigning a novel that has huge, echoing resonance for us, and see that it means precisely nothing in the lives of our kids...yet.
English teachers are professional re-readers. My colleagues and I have read Huck Finn, Ethan Frome, Macbeth, Hamlet, etc. dozens of times. (For us, they are correlated to the rhythms of the year: September is Oedipus Rex, January is Wuthering Heights, and April is Their Eyes Were Watching God.) We continue to add new notes in the margins every year as the works continue to reveal themselves and, as the article suggests, as we change in our perception of them. With all the books I teach I find more with each pass. But as interesting to me are the books I have outgrown. I used to kneel before the Updike altar but now find him grating. And Irving still makes me laugh but now makes me roll my eyes, too (can't deal with one more bear or prep school or incestuous impulse...).
Thanks for a great article.