In which my blog leaves the essay on some topic format, and enters the chatty bloggy format.
Lets talk about just genre fiction, and how it relates to me. The first book anyone can tell that I read was Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. My mother tells me that she sat me in her lap, as she always did when reading to me, and with that book, I started turning the pages faster than she was reading. She actually quizzed me on the content of the part I'd read that was slower than what she was reading out loud, and apparently I got it right.
The second book I really remember reading, cover to cover, was The Hobbit. I'm sure i read plenty of other books. I have memories of various Golden Books, but The Hobbit was one that stuck, because I re read it enough. I re read books I really like a lot. If I really love a book, I may re read it like I'm chain smoking.
Genre fiction, especial a series of books, or a book set in the same universe as previous books, like the Diskworld or Ethshar books, are usual re-reads. Sometimes if a new one crops up, I'll make a point of re reading the entire series. There's something comfortable about that. It's like getting reintroduced to old friends. It's an easier read, because I know the story. I suppose it's like seeing an opera you love performed again. And because I've had different experiences, I might have a differnt perspective on part of the story
Back to The Hobbit. I re read that book countless times as a child. I doubt churchgoing kids read the bible as much as I read The Hobbit, and later, The Lord Of The Rings. I knew those books backwards and forwards. I've probably forgotten huge chunks of them by now. More books have entered my re-reading stack, so the fanaticism to a few books has gotten a bit diluted.
Am I the only one who re-reads like this?
1 comment:
As a kid I sometimes used to finish the last page of a book, and then turn back to the beginning and start all over again. I think The Hobbit was one of the books I did this with.
My grandfather, the eminent professor, was very upset by this. He said that re-reading a book was indeed like revisiting an old friend, but you should only do it once every ten years or so.
But kids love repetition! Look at children's television, or the way a toddler will watch a favorite Disney movie again and again and again.
As an adult, I still re-read, but less often - maybe every couple of years for favorite books. I tend to associate books with the experience I was having when I was reading it the first time - maybe while sick in bed, or on a plane, or ditching work for a long lunch. Re-reading brings back that experience of being sick, or the trip I took, or the crappy job that I snuck away from.
(this is reene)
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