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Dec. 1st, 2009 06:19 amRereading again: Ever love a book so much you read it over and over?
Because I never, ever have. Closest I've done like it is rereading poems and short stories for work, or anyway with some thought of taking them apart to understand them. If I love a book a lot I might look back over it and reread some passages after finishing, but that's about it. I'm both jealous and confused at people who reread continuously out of love.
Books I love most often get diminished by the rereading, even after years have passed. Blood Meridian, The Road, Miss Lonelyhearts, even Hamlet took a bit of a hit, though they were all still worth it, especially Meridian which was fun for detective work.
I guess I associate continuous rereading with youth, with some more naive approach--asking for the same bedtime story every night. What did I do that with? I know I read Tolkien twice or thrice as a kid, but even those readings must have been separated by a couple years. I do remember going back and rereading certain stretches of Catch-22 multiple times at 16. The book got torn up some but I don't think it started in good shape, and I don't think I read the whole thing through more than twice. People reading books to pieces, that's what I'm talking about. Imagine doing that.
My wife read Fiskadoro and then forgot if she'd finished it, started again halfway through and read to the end, at some point realizing she had in fact finished it but not minding. And then she wanted me to read it to her aloud, and heard half of it again that way. Before I met her she only had Stephen King books around--she was very poor--and she read them over and over and over. As a teenager she did the same with Ayn Rand's novels (don't worry, she's cured) and a few others, including The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich, which she says was good for keeping men from hitting on her on the bus. Some of these are still around and they're in tatters, and usually not even her original copies. She also does it with certain Steinbeck books and Of Human Bondage, just glides through them every couple years. I've bought her at least two new copies of both. And now with Murakami and Saramago.
My nearest equivalent would be poetry, I suppose. I don't think I've read anything "hundreds" of times, but with a poem like "Adonais" I must be past ten, maybe fifteen, over the years. There's some I'll always come back to, after a time lag, but the time lag feels pretty crucial (like with Borges stories). Probably people who claim to read a whole book through and then immediately reread it are most often exaggerating anyway, but it's such a lovely thought: something so good you don't even need variety. Being exactly where you want already.
Because I never, ever have. Closest I've done like it is rereading poems and short stories for work, or anyway with some thought of taking them apart to understand them. If I love a book a lot I might look back over it and reread some passages after finishing, but that's about it. I'm both jealous and confused at people who reread continuously out of love.
Books I love most often get diminished by the rereading, even after years have passed. Blood Meridian, The Road, Miss Lonelyhearts, even Hamlet took a bit of a hit, though they were all still worth it, especially Meridian which was fun for detective work.
I guess I associate continuous rereading with youth, with some more naive approach--asking for the same bedtime story every night. What did I do that with? I know I read Tolkien twice or thrice as a kid, but even those readings must have been separated by a couple years. I do remember going back and rereading certain stretches of Catch-22 multiple times at 16. The book got torn up some but I don't think it started in good shape, and I don't think I read the whole thing through more than twice. People reading books to pieces, that's what I'm talking about. Imagine doing that.
My wife read Fiskadoro and then forgot if she'd finished it, started again halfway through and read to the end, at some point realizing she had in fact finished it but not minding. And then she wanted me to read it to her aloud, and heard half of it again that way. Before I met her she only had Stephen King books around--she was very poor--and she read them over and over and over. As a teenager she did the same with Ayn Rand's novels (don't worry, she's cured) and a few others, including The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich, which she says was good for keeping men from hitting on her on the bus. Some of these are still around and they're in tatters, and usually not even her original copies. She also does it with certain Steinbeck books and Of Human Bondage, just glides through them every couple years. I've bought her at least two new copies of both. And now with Murakami and Saramago.
My nearest equivalent would be poetry, I suppose. I don't think I've read anything "hundreds" of times, but with a poem like "Adonais" I must be past ten, maybe fifteen, over the years. There's some I'll always come back to, after a time lag, but the time lag feels pretty crucial (like with Borges stories). Probably people who claim to read a whole book through and then immediately reread it are most often exaggerating anyway, but it's such a lovely thought: something so good you don't even need variety. Being exactly where you want already.
