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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Re-reading books

19:33 / 10.03.06

I spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years reading anything and everything in my house, and when I'd finished that, in everyone else's. This included (in no particular order of significance) all of the Reader's Digest magazines at my Gran's, Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, heaps of science fiction novels including lots of Asimov and Wyndham and little seventies paperback Sci-Fi magazine stories, lots of trashy thrillers, Doris Lessing, and the back of the ketchup bottle about once a day.

I cared little what I was reading, as long as I was reading something and I read so much and for so long that my Mum resorted to removing the lightbulb from my bedroom at night.

Obviously all this reading was good except that I have not read many of the books I read as a teenager again. This is because I think I've read them, but in actual fact I probably haven't have I? Do 14 year olds grasp as much of the concept of a book as it's possible for an adult to? If they're not an uber-genius?

It may be that I was using them as 'reading practice', rather than taking it all in properly, I don't know, but I think I should probably read them again.

So, apart from the teenage binge-reading fiasco, I am not sure how often I should re-read books, unless it is a favourite book when the answer is obviously as much as I like. With regard to re-familiarising myself with an 'important' (I flounder for the right word for this) book such as Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own' does anyone have an opinion on the correct re-reading timeframe, other than, 'When you've forgotten what it was about.'?

19:55 / 10.03.06

Well, you know, it depends whether you want to read them again... I think 'should' is a greatly over-rated word when it comes to reading as a pastime. e.g. 'I am not enjoying this book but I should finish it' - no! Bin it! (In the sense of passing it on to a charity shop.)

Mind you the book I have reread most often is still probably LOTR, closely followed by Three Go to the Chalet School, so I don't really have a great deal of experience of reading the better-for-you books I read as a teenager. Moreover I regularly reread books even though I can perfectly well remember their plots. If you can't remember what it's about but remember enjoying it, it might be worth another go; ditto if you can't recall what you thought of it but like the look of it now.

As for important books... I read on some crafty blog (I am addicted to craft blogs, where's that WI thread) that someone had spent an entire year carting Finnegan's Wake around with him so that he was so drenched in teh text that it became almost part of him. Now that's a bit extreme perhaps for something not as abstruse as FW, but perhaps it would be good to keep the book around and pick it up from time to time, an ongoing acquaintance?

09:01 / 11.03.06

does anyone have an opinion on the correct re-reading timeframe, other than, 'When you've forgotten what it was about.'?

Helene Cixous's novel O R lettres de mon pere (which I don't think has been translated yet) has a wonderful opening section, a few pages long, on re-reading books - how you return to them when you know they have something in them that you need, but you can't remember what that something is. She talks about reading things in order to forget them, and makes up a word oublire (French oublier, forget + lire, read). I wish my French was good enough to read it properly, but it's not. Or that someone had translated it, but they haven't (and her main English translator died a few years ago).

Will come back to this thread with actually helpful input (I hope) later, as a huge re-reader and particularly a re-reader of my childhood/teenage books.

13:30 / 11.03.06

I re-read books all the time, which is why I hate letting books out of my grasp and can imagine I'll end up being buried with them like some kind of really bookish Pharaoh.
As for re-reading books you read as a teenager I recently re-read "To Kill a Mockingbird" which I had read at school and was amazed at a) just how good it was and b) just how many of the nuances of the text I had completely missed. I'm beginning to think I ought to go back and completely re-read my library to see what I think of all the books I read as a teenager.

18:04 / 11.03.06

I like being surrounded by books piled on shelves. As Anthony Powell said, Books Do Furnish A Room. I don't often re-read a whole book though. There are a handful of titles I return to when I'm stressed and about to curl up in a foetal position for days at a time. They're a mixed bag of childhood favourites, biographies and non-fiction.

Otherwise, I'd rather pass it on once read and let someone else share the pleasure. If I do have the urge to re-read, I usually have to buy it again. Happened recently with Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers and William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach, both old favourites.. Found both unexpectedly at the book tables outside the NFT.

I do like experiencing the book in another format. I love to hear Radio 4 do them as Classic Serials or whatever. I buy lots of audiobooks to enliven the many journeys around London I make for work. As often as not, these are readings of books I've read but now coming at me from more famous mouths.

Jawsus-son Starship

19:01 / 11.03.06

But are there any books you loved in your formative years but have recently re-read and thought were shite? Pour Example; never been able to read catcher in the rye or catch22, and while spouting my usual rage about these books a friend piped-up and said she used to love catcher in the rye, reread it, now thinks it is shit.

Anyone else discovered this?

20:18 / 11.03.06

I think there's definite benefit to re-reading books you may have read at a younger age. For example, something recently reminded me of how much of the subtext I lost out on in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep because of reading it at a very young age. My younger reading habits circled around a mixture of classics Jane Austen, The Bronte sisters, bits of Dickens etc (which I must re-read as I don't really remember anything about them) and books about anthropromorphosized (s.p?) animals (most of which I didn't even like*).

But are there any books you loved in your formative years but have recently re-read and thought were shite?

Luckily there isn't, anything I've ever loved I've always continued to love to the same degree. But to give a reverse example, when I read The Grass is Singing in school I hated it, stopped reading it in fact and then read the whole thing backwards in an act of insane defiance**. I have re-read it since, several times infact, and feel very glad that I did. Less that I missed any subtext in this case more that between my teenage years and adult years I've startlingly changed. So, I'd argue that there's even benefit to re-reading books you may've hated previously, given a few years and with new eyes/a new mind.

*With the exception of Robin Jarvis who I re-read constantly.

*descending vs. ascending page order rather than gnigniS si ssarG ehT

Bubblegum Death

20:46 / 11.03.06

I used to enjoy Ann Rice's vampire books, but I went back and tried to read The Vampire Lestat(my favorite), and was only able to make it past the first few chapters. It just seemed so.... melodramatic now. Or something.

On the other hand, I went back and re-read Catch-22 and Anne of Green Gables (both books I had loved when I was younger)and was pleasantly surprised at how well they both held up. I used to have a crush on Anne.

01:38 / 12.03.06

I normally read three or four books in rotation. The problem arises therefore that the stories merge, when reflecting on them later. What I do when I finish reading a book is to have a decent skim through the whole thing. These skim reads can take a couple of hours, or a couple of days. It's a form of closure, so that I know how I feel about the book.

I write in all my books (don't groan... it's in pencil) and annotate in the margins. I used to then transcribe the interesting bits into an exercise book. And these may flavour pieces of writing (these days mainly academic). So, whilst I seem to have gone off-topic my indirect answer to your question is that many of the books I read are re-used and re-read... but not in their entirity.

I don't really like reading books a second time. It's sort of like flicking through a photo album... it reminds me too much of what I was like in time past. I'm too much of a list-make and box-ticker to read a book more than once. Once it's read it stays read (singular).

17:33 / 12.03.06

Looking for something else today and came across this practically palaeolithic thread about re-reading. Might be of interest.

19:12 / 12.03.06

I think all of us have lives that are too busy, and with the vaugest awareness of "the canon", however defined (even if it's just good stuff you've not read), we create outselves have a huge mental backlog, which takes away from the pleasure of reading. So, in a sense, it's no wonder we find re-reading difficult - who's got the time?

This point struck me: he was so drenched in teh text that it became almost part of him

This is what a lot of my occult books feel like to me, things I've picked up repeatedly over and over again. This "core stash" probably isn't more than six books but I've read them backwards, forwards and sideways and pick them up as part of my mental processes as I'm engaging with a certain topic. You continually gain new insights and understanding and hear new voices in them. So, I re-read in this sense, having a key book or two as a companion to thought, which I think is valuable (and is also why I consider that you only need half a dozen occult books - good advice I've singularly failed to take myself). I do the same with key magazine articles, even emails - I never seem to exhaust them of meaning, probably because most of the meaning is coming from the changeable circumstances in my life, rather than the text itself.

I imagine a serious engagement with critical theory is much the same.

19:51 / 12.03.06

So what's on the list, Mr I?

I'm guessing; The Necronomicon, the complete 'Don Juan', the complete Lobsang Rampa (with particular emphasis on the last in the series,) 'Magic: An Occult Primer,' 'Morning of The Magicians' and the complete Austin Spare.

But I've been known to be wrong before.

j

20:19 / 12.03.06

Actually, you're not far wrong with Austin Spare, his "Book of Pleasure". Also "The Black Goddess" by Peter Redgrove, "Tantra Magick", the works of a bloke called Dadaji, lots of bits of Wilhelm Reich and bodywork material, Wilhelm's I Ching and a few other bits, a lot of it being email and correspondence.

20:22 / 12.03.06

I know email and that shouldn't really count, but it's stuff that I re-read a lot.

20:33 / 12.03.06

this is a bit like movies, innit? i mean, i re-read books when i want to recapture something of what that book gave me first time round... there are bits in books i love and so will sometimes re-read the whole thing to 'get' that again. and then there are books that were read once at a younger time and need to be read again to make it make sense. or different sense.

i haven't found a book i'd read as a youngster that i loved and then realised it was shite upon re-reading it. mebbe i'm lucky, still juvenile or actually have no taste!

and reading some or all of a book aloud on a re-read can add a dimension. i read the hobbit to my younger cousins once and loved it again! and i read metamorphosis aloud and it is a different read again...

then there are some books - like the increasingly poorly named hitchhikers trilogy - that can be read in moments; light relief between heavier tomes, or just to fill in time when bored...

love books.

Bubblegum Death

20:44 / 12.03.06

and reading some or all of a book aloud on a re-read can add a dimension.

I've noticed I do that a lot. It helps me retain information better. And if I'm reading a book with really powerful language, I'll read it out loud so I can "feel" it.

10:33 / 21.03.06

I don't think i've ever re-read an entire book- like Xoc i may pick up books and flick to favourite chapters - but i've never felt i could justify the time reading something that i have already read.

I generally only read on the tube or on holiday- if i can find time i'll read on a weekend or in bed- but this isn't regularly. As a result i read about a book every 3-4 weeks depending on its size, and re-reading means devoting that much time to something that i already know the outcome of.

My personal bugbear is that i started reading for pleasure late in life - while at university i realised that i missed huge swathes of what many contemporaries took for granted in terms of education- and despite starting to read at a ferocious rate (i would read at least a book a week) I still feel like i'm playing catch up- therefore while i read less i don't ever feel i can devote that much time to re-reading. I would love to re-read some novels like Catch 22 to see if ten years later they still seem like great novels- maybe on my next holiday.