Tags
Arthur Conan Doyle, Big Read, books, Cameron Art Museum, classics, Edith Wharton, eleanor lanahan, Ethan Frome, f scott fitzgerald, f scott fitzgerald books, Great Gatsby, guest blogger Sue, Julian Barnes, Literature, postaday, postaweek 2013, reading, rereading, Vladimir Nabokov
She’s never written a novel, but she’s read thousands.
Guest Blogger Sue knows that certain books lure us back. Yes, I know what you’re thinking ~ so many books, so little time, that precarious TBR pile. …….. 
Vladimir Nabokov had the same dilemma. Yet he was convinced that rereadings were better readings.
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When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting.
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Rereading never gets old. Great books get greater. And we are unbelievably lucky to have them. And Guest Blogger Sue, who’s got street cred, just like Vlad. So…ready for a second run? 
Classics!
Read a classic. Or reread a book you were assigned in high school. Or junior high even. You’ll have a different point of view, that’s for sure. And there are no quizzes, no grades. :) Here in Wilmington, several groups joined forces for their first Big Read, choosing The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Books are available free for the taking, a slim volume, only 180 pages. Library branches all have discussion groups. UNCW offers lectures, discussions, a screening of the movie. The Cameron Art Museum lavishly displays walls and walls of Zelda’s artwork. The museum hosted Eleanor Lanahan to lecture on her famous grandparents, bringing in a dance company presentation of original work based on Zelda’s art, and highlighting musician Gernoldo Frazier with the music of the Roaring ‘20s. Historic Thalian Hall offers a free screening of the 1974 version of the movie starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Even Old Books on Front Street offered a performance based on Scott’s and Zelda’s letters. Wow! This town is hopping! . 
So start with The Great Gatsby. Learn through literature about some wild times and lost souls of the Jazz Age, the 1920s in America. . 
Then move on to Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. You read this one in high school. It is not one of her characteristic very long period novels but a slim volume of under 100 pages. Young Ethan is beaten down by circumstances, one being a drear New England winter. Another being his dour wife, Zenobia. Distant cousin Mattie Silver comes like quicksilver into their lives. Poor Ethan. ……
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Arthur and George by Julian Barnes is not a classic. But Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who created Sherlock Holmes, surely a classic detective. Barnes gives side-by-side pictures of these disparate young men as they grow to middle age, one from wealth and social standing, the other a half-caste son of a small town vicar. We see Arthur use his Sherlockian talents to right a terrible wrong done to George. An interesting picture of the social strata in late Victorian Britain.
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What makes you return to a book? The prose? The memories it evokes? What books do you still love after a second (third? fourth?) reading?
Toni 2/22/13
Lovely. I’m re-reading Portrait by Joyce (#4 reading!), but rather bemoaning it and planning a post on it soon. It will be a scant gnat’s worth of substance compared to its subject.
There are two kinds of people. Those that have read Joyce and those that haven’t. Quite a feast of words ahead of you, I’m looking forward to your comments.
Fourth reading, that is unchecked awesome.
Toni
Ooh, I remember reading Ethan Frome and some of those books as well. A little while ago I reread The Scarlet Letter which we had read in high school. I truly enjoyed it even more the second time around. Thank you for a wonderful post.
love. hate. guilt. Time for a reread, thx for the reminder
Toni
*I’m digging the whole concept of re-reading..Love the quote that great books; get greater. Going to try it with Scarlet Letter also(I read it in high school too!) and see if I see it in the same perspective now..
My favourite book is “Trinity” by Leon Uris. From the first read I re-read it once a year in March. It occurs to me I haven’t done that for a couple of years. Time to dust it off again. Thanks.
I read Trinity once upon a time. A great yarn, and a long one
I think Uris really gets the Irish. In March, I seek out Irish novelists to reread, but almost without fail there’s a new one by Frank Delaney that shouts, Read me! Read me!
Good post, Sue. I am a big fan of re-reading. What connection you make to a story is influenced by where your life is at, and your perceptions of the world around you, in that particular time and space; so a book is never the same the next time, or next….
I absolutely love this blog!
My favourite book of all time is kind of a cliché but that doesn’t dishearten! I’ve read Pride and Prejudice so many times that I can practically recite passages word for word at this stage. And this post has inspired me to read it again, I say inspire…it has inspired a proper excuse to read it again! Every time I read that book different aspects of the story are highlighted, especially aspects of character, I notice a new level to one or another of the characters each time, and that is one of the things I love about rereading the classics, the characters always seem to be created from so many different levels, and can be read from so many different angles.
I have to say once again how good this blog is! Thank you for this post
We agree, WWWW is one fun thing to write. We LOVE our followers. Tell your friends. BTW: You don’t need a proper excuse or even an excuse to re-read! Or abandon either.
Patty
We love our readers! For a writer there is no better thing than knowing you’ve got readers waiting for what’s coming next. It kick-starts the wide-awake life each day. The world lights up, shadows lift, hidden cracks on the sidewalk show themselves as possible topics that connect to Something Larger. It’s what I imagine an LSD trip might be like if one were into such. This is way healthier.
Patty
THX, Amy, for the kind words and comments. If you saw the NYT book review this weekend, Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins shared his reasoning re: rereading like this ~
“I’m starting to think everyone should have to read Shakespeare in their 40s or 50s, when you’ve lost parents and had children and really know failure, when you can appreciate all of that paradoxical insight into human nature. That part of it is wasted on high school and college kids,” he said. “Making 18-year-olds read Shakespeare is like having toddlers watch porn.”
Having grown up in Salem MA and worked as a guide in the House of Seven Gables, my spin on the dark works of Nathaniel Hawthorne is similarly dark and twisted. Scholars would come through the Gables and tell me all sorts of tales about Hawthorne and the Real Meaning of it all–allegorical structures, the doctrine of the Fall of Man–that sort of thing. Too much for my 13-year old brain. I picked up all sorts of weird and probably untrue narratives that I’d put into the spiel.
I love this piece and the image of unruly stacks of books. (Did you know that people decorate with nightstands made of unruly stacks made ruly (my inner lap-top editor wanted to make this word into the word rule; isn’t that great!).
Patty
I’ve had recurring reunions with dear Edith for four decades. She is always the best company!