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Post by bixaorellana on May 30, 2009 15:57:31 GMT
I absolutely love this essay, as I'm a confirmed re-reader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some Thoughts on the Pleasures of Being a Re-Reader VERLYN KLINKENBORG May 29, 2009 NYTimes online
I’ve always admired my friends who are wide readers. A few even pride themselves on never reading a book a second time. I’ve been a wide reader at times. When I was much younger, I spent nearly a year in the old Reading Room of the British Museum, discovering in the book I was currently reading the title of the next I would read.
But at heart, I’m a re-reader. The point of reading outward, widely, has always been to find the books I want to re-read and then to re-read them. In part, that’s an admission of defeat, an acknowledgement that no matter how long and how widely I read, I will only ever make my way through a tiny portion of the world’s literature. (The British Museum was a great place to learn that lesson.) And in part, it’s a concession to the limits of my memory. I forget a lot, which makes the pleasure of re-reading all the greater.
The love of repetition seems to be ingrained in children. And it is certainly ingrained in the way children learn to read — witness the joyous and maddening love of hearing that same bedtime book read aloud all over again, word for word, inflection for inflection. Childhood is an oasis of repetitive acts, so much so that there is something shocking about the first time a young reader reads a book only once and moves on to the next. There’s a hunger in that act but also a kind of forsaking, a glimpse of adulthood to come.
The work I chose in adulthood — to study literature — required the childish pleasure of re-reading. When I was in graduate school, once through Pope’s “Dunciad” or Berryman’s “The Dream Songs” was not going to cut it. A grasp of the poem was presumed to lie on the far side of many re-readings, none of which were really repetitions. The same is true of being a writer, which requires obsessive re-reading. But the real re-reading I mean is the savory re-reading, the books I have to be careful not to re-read too often so I can read them again with pleasure.
It’s a miscellaneous library, always shifting. It has included a book of the north woods: John J. Rowlands’s “Cache Lake Country,” which I have re-read annually for many years. It may still include Raymond Chandler, though I won’t know for sure till the next time I re-read him. It includes Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” and lots of A.J. Liebling and a surprising amount of George Eliot. It once included nearly all of Dickens, but that has been boiled down to “The Pickwick Papers” and “Great Expectations.” There are many more titles, of course. This is not a canon. This is a refuge.
Part of the fun of re-reading is that you are no longer bothered by the business of finding out what happens. Re-reading “Middlemarch,” for instance, or even “The Great Gatsby,” I’m able to pay attention to what’s really happening in the language itself — a pleasure surely as great as discovering who marries whom, and who dies and who does not.
The real secret of re-reading is simply this: It is impossible. The characters remain the same, and the words never change, but the reader always does. Pip is always there to be revisited, but you, the reader, are a little like the convict who surprises him in the graveyard — always a stranger.
I look at the books on my library shelves. They certainly seem dormant. But what if the characters are quietly rearranging themselves? What if Emma Woodhouse doesn’t learn from her mistakes? What if Tom Jones descends into a sodden life of poaching and outlawry? What if Eve resists Satan, remembering God’s injunction and Adam’s loving advice? I imagine all the characters bustling to get back into their places as they feel me taking the book down from the shelf. “Hurry,” they say, “he’ll expect to find us exactly where he left us, never mind how much his life has changed in the meantime.”
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2009 20:17:46 GMT
There are a few books like 'The Lord of the Rings' that have given me the same thrill every time I read them, as though I have never read them before. That is strange.
And I recently reread.... er.... On the Road by a certain Jack K., which I think moved me more than ever before, but perhaps because it is the new unabridged version using all of the real names instead of the made up ones ('Sal Paradise').
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2009 20:45:50 GMT
I've read the 'Exorcist' a couple of times. Unusual for me, because, like movies, once is usually enough.
Oh and I've read some Dean R Knootz books a few times. He's great.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 30, 2009 21:52:53 GMT
I don't think it's at all strange. There is something about the way we develop that allows us to pick out some feature of a book that we'd glossed over before. I have read 100 Years of Solitude so many times in the past 35 years, but I still have that pleasant anticipation of waiting for enough time to go by so I can read it again. And books about magical or alternate realities can keep their wonder. A few years ago I read The Princess and the Goblin again, a book I'd adored as a child. Amazingly, it was even better than I remembered it. As a matter of fact, writing about it here is giving me the desire to read it again.
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Post by traveler63 on Jun 17, 2009 19:59:25 GMT
I am also a re-reader. There is so many junk novels out there now. I call them formula books. They have interesting characters, but the plots are pretty similiar. One author I just love is Janet Evanovich and her Stephanie Plum books. The characters are well defined and it is one of the few series that absolutely makes me laugh out loud when I am reading.
Most of the other books that I re-read are the classics. I had to read some of them in different classes when I was much younger. I think, at least for me, re-reading when you are older those books, you understand some of the scenarios a little better because maturity helps. Sometimes, but not always.
For variety, I always try to read something from authors that are not American. For instance I have read 101 Years of Solitude, three times and each time I get something different out of the book. I have read all of his works. He is a phenominal author. I have also re read some of James Michner.
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Post by distantshores on Jun 17, 2009 22:12:04 GMT
"The real secret of re-reading is simply this: It is impossible. The characters remain the same, and the words never change, but the reader always does." What a true statement!!! It's like waching a favorite movie again, and maybe yet again! Something you missed before always presents itself. Oten when rereading, the circumstances are different as well. Distractions, etc. Let's face it, there are always disruptions of some kind, if nothing more than getting a drink, or going to the bathroom. Great thead Bixa!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 14:57:47 GMT
Aside from some particular poems that I re-read on an annual,semi annual basis,some on designated days,e.g. t.s.elliot's Ash Wednesday, I can only think of one book that I have consistently re-read from the time I first read it in say,1969. Shirley Jackson's,We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2009 21:45:29 GMT
I recently reread Michel Houellebecq's Extension du Domaine de la Lutte almost by accident. Since he is an extremely controversial author and yet one who has had the greatest success in other countries, one of my colleagues was wondering what it was all about, just knowing what a despicable and creepy person he is when he appears on literary programs. I told her that I have not at all liked his recent works but that I did very much like one of his earlier ones -- Extension du Domaine de la Lutte (Expansion of the Realm of Struggle), weirdly translated into English as "Whatever" in 1998.
I dug it up from my archives for her to read, and she liked it. When she gave it back to me, I read it again. And it is a damned good book. Too bad that his bestsellers are so disgusting.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 21, 2009 23:31:45 GMT
Have you read any part of it in English, just to see if it was well translated?
Strange that it has such a good title in French and such a silly one in English.
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 22, 2009 9:16:16 GMT
Somerset Maugham wrote a book in which he sort of rates 10 novels. It might in fact be called '10 Novels and their Authors'. I left it in Germany (of course). In it he describes how he reads. He says he reads selectively leaving out any boring passages, skipping whole pages. What an honest guy! Of course the stuff on the market at that time was different from stuff written later on after he died.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2009 21:02:56 GMT
I just can't do that, although I might if I had to make a living of reading manuscripts. I need to get to know an author completely, including his/her weaknesses.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2010 20:43:25 GMT
Rereading a book is generally for reasons of renewing your pleasure after reading it the first time.
But sometimes one rereads a book for other reasons -- "I didn't get it the first time." "I liked it but I felt that I missed some details." "Somebody talked about it and I had to dive back into it." Or whatever.
Why have you reread books? Even though I am starting this topic, I have not given it sufficient thought yet and am unable to reply properly.
However, I will say that I have probably read "The Lord of the Rings" at least 4 times -- as a teenager, as a young adult, after seeing the movies, and once again because I think it is written so well. Each time, I have found it just as exciting and suspenseful as the first time, even though I knew what was going to happen in subsequent readings. And each time I dreaded reaching the end, because I never liked the way it ended and just wanted new adventures to begin.
I'll think of other books soon.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2010 20:47:51 GMT
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Post by lola on May 31, 2010 21:25:01 GMT
Rereading is one of my faults. Favorite books are to me what mashed potatoes and mac n cheese are to my husband.
It took me quite a few tries to get into Lord of the Rings. I couldn't get past the description of the hobbits' furry soles for some reason. Once I did, I loved it and curled up to reread it every January for at least a few years.
My earliest major rereading was Complete Sherlock Holmes, a thick volume my father gave me for my 13th birthday. At times read per page, one big book-gifting bargain.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2010 22:19:53 GMT
Off the top of my head I can say I've read the following more than once:
The Little Prince,Antoine de Saint-Expury We Have Always Lived in the Castle,Shirley Jackson At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Peter Matthiiessen Out of Africa,Isak Dinesen The Blue Bird,Maurice Maeterlinck The Painted Bird,Jerzey Kosinski On the Road,Jack Kerouac The Secret Garden,Frances Hodgson Burnett
I know there's many others,will think of. Read them more than once because I loved them the first time,reread every few years. There's one or two that were not as good or my perspective on them changed radically.
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Post by happytraveller on Jun 1, 2010 7:07:36 GMT
There are lots of books I have read more than once (or twice) as books are like movies, when I like them a lot, I watch them again. I particularly love rereading the Vampire chronicle by Anne Rice and the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Thousands for pages and not a boring minute ! ;D
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Post by bjd on Jun 1, 2010 7:22:15 GMT
If I think about books I have read more than once, the first that spring to mind are all of Jane Austen, which I have read many times over the years. And, oddly enough, I tend to reread detective stories as light stuff -- at least the kind I have on a shelf at home. If I'm reading non-fiction, I sometimes take a break with Dorothy Sayers or Ellis Peters or people like that.(In any case, I don't read the gruesome contemporary stuff like James Ellroy.)
Re-reading last year's thread, I find I agree with Somerset Maugham. I also skip the boring stuff -- like the first 40 pages of Stieg Larsson's first book. I just couldn't get into it, until the friend who lent me the book told me to skip the beginning.
And when I go to the library, I also sometimes pick up the old Maigret novels by Simenon, just for the atmosphere of Paris in the 1950s or earlier.
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Post by onlymark on Jun 1, 2010 7:23:37 GMT
The only book I'll read more than once is a cook book. If I'm reading a fiction book and I know what happens next then I get bored and end it. I'll read non fiction it'll be for more information about the thing or a different perspective, but I'll not read that again either.
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Post by tillystar on Jun 1, 2010 9:58:58 GMT
What Mark said, only poetry and cook books. I keep promising myself I will try and read old favorites, but as soon as I get to “oh I remember this bit” I just lose interest.
It is really silly as I hoard books that I have read and rarely (never) re-read them in full, although I might refer back to sections I liked and remember now and then.
I have probably only re-watched a few films as well.
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Post by lola on Jun 1, 2010 14:11:41 GMT
What bjd said about Austen and about detective fiction.
Sometimes I'm disappointed on rereading. I've read most of Dickens at least once. Last time I tried David Copperfield, though, it seemed padded to me, by an author paid by the word.
Sometime I need to make my own list of first few chapters I've reread, trying to get past. Moby-Dick is my own great white whale, the book that always eludes me.
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Post by cristina on Jun 2, 2010 2:40:22 GMT
There are books that I have read to my children, or that they read aloud to the family, that I will never tire of. Especially anything by Roald Dahl. The BFG still makes me laugh out loud. Since there is 10 years difference between oldest and youngest child, I have read these books many times. And I will happily read any Dahl book again to any future grandchildren. Or to anyone else who wishes to listen to me read them. However in the area of more grown up books, the only one that I think I have read more than once (by choice, anyway) is Love in the Time of Cholera.And, of course, cookbooks. But I don't think the OP meant non-fiction anyway.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 2, 2010 3:49:52 GMT
I've lost track of how many times I've read 100 Years of Solitude. 10? 12? more?
Alice Through the Looking Glass, also many times.
Paul Theroux books: The Family Arsenal; Kingdom by the Sea; and The Great Railway Bazaar.
Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, a book of short stories that is breathtaking in its melancholy beauty and perfection.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2010 9:49:44 GMT
I have often reread detective fiction when there is nothing else at hand, because 98% of the time I have forgotten how it ends and whodunit.
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Post by spindrift on Jun 2, 2010 11:29:50 GMT
I always go back to Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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Post by joanne28 on Jun 14, 2010 0:10:26 GMT
I'm quite hopeless. I've reread innumerable books. As someone here pointed out, if we listen to the same piece of music over and over, why wouldn't we reread a book or see a film again?
So Lord of the Rings (every year), Chronicles of Narnia, mystery novels (which I normally reread by the entire output chronologically, reread all my P.D. James about 3 months ago), Austen (also every year or so), Dickens, Thackeray and the Harry Potters. I'm looking at the 4 bookcases in this room and there isn't anything I can see that I wouldn't read again.
If I won't reread it, I normally get rid of it. If it wasn't enjoyable enough to read again, I see no point in keeping it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2010 5:03:22 GMT
I have read Helen Garner's Monkey Grip several times and feel a need to dig it up again, wherever it might be hiding in my bookcases. There is something about its depiction of normal Australian life, which doesn't seem at all normal to me, that grips me.
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Post by ilbonito on Jun 14, 2010 9:22:32 GMT
You'be read Monkey Grip?? How unexpected. I just read most of it ..and stopped before the end. I thought it was odd that the book was designed to be a searing portrayal of drug abuse but reading it now the feeling I got was of warm nostalgia. All those scenes of people sitting around darning their socks at the kitchen table, chatting and shooting up heroin. These days they'd all be on iPhones. It seemed so...idyllic. Except for the heroin.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2010 11:02:09 GMT
Exactly -- the life portrayed is so normal except for that little detail.
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Post by ilbonito on Jun 14, 2010 11:59:55 GMT
I do think it was overly long though. I enjoyed it, but by three quarters of the way through I thought I'd gotten the point. Its more a atmospheric piece than narrative-driven, afterall. It was weird to read about a Melbourne that was eerily identical to the one I know in some ways, and completely unrecognisable in other. It seemed very naive. Charmingly so.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2010 12:05:29 GMT
I learned a lot of vocabulary from that book. (Dunny...)
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