['Open Mike' is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial Page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. rambles afield very slightly more than usual. It appears either on Wednesdays, or when I get it finished.]
-
In response to this, a couple of days ago: "I loved C.S. Forester's Hornblower books...and read the whole series through twice," Stephen Gilbert commented: "You only read the Hornblower books twice?"
Made me smile. But to answer seriously, I'm not actually a big rereader.
I've gotten to the age, however, that it's become a valid topic. I wanted to recommend a wonderful—well, promising—little book called Rereadings by Anne Fadiman. Her 'Introduction' alone is worth the price of admission. I'll use that as my justification for breaking the Pinker Rule.
The book is a compilation of the best essays from a feature in the journal American Scholar from the time Anne edited it, also called Rereadings, in which authors and writers would reread a favorite book from earlier in their lives and write an essay about their relationship with it—how they themselves had changed since the first reading, how the book changed for them upon rereading.
Which books were influential and important to you in early life will be different for most everyone, of course, but there are a few that I think could particularly benefit from rereading. Alice In Wonderland, for instance, is a truly weird little book, and you don't really get that when you're a kid and your reading tastes have been formed by Batman comic books and the gentler fantasy of things like James and the Giant Peach. A particularly valuable book to reread in adulthood in my opinion is A Christmas Carol, which might be the most celebrated and vivid depiction in classic fiction of a spiritual awakening and the changes in thinking that necessarily precede such an awakening. You need to be a reflective adult to read it that way, not just someone sopping their bread in the gravy of Christmassy effusions. Counterculture classics from the '60s and '70s like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha (a retelling of Buddha story) benefit from revisitings. Most especially, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter begs to be reread as an adult, since its action (if not necessarily its themes) are adult by definition. If you haven't yet reread Joyce's Dubliners, that's an experience.
Many great readers and literary critics are famous for revisiting touchstone books. Susan Sontag famously read The Brothers Karamazov again and again, and Clifton Fadiman (Anne's father) estimated he had read Moby-Dick five times. Harold Bloom (who died just this last October) reread Shakespeare again and again, and show me a real Jane Austen fan who has not reread at least one of her books! Following the advice of my great friend Jim Schley, a writer on poets, what's important is not who you reread but that you reread someone, because it's important to your personal intellectual culture to engage at a deep level with at least one great author. On account of you cannot engage at that level with everyone.
A book that comes to mind that I've reread is O.E. Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth, the 1927 translation into English of the Norwegian I de dage, published by H. Aschenhoug and Company of Oslo in two volumes in 1924 and 1925. The Nation called it "the fullest, finest, and most powerful novel that has been written about pioneer life in America." I read it as a young teenager, and at the time it struck me as a serious, adult book, and I was was proud of myself for reading it all the way through and finishing it—it seemed as bleak and featureless as the prairie, as serious as breaking the earth with plows to survive, and very long. On rereading it a few years ago I was surprised at how short and full of action it actually is! A great book either way, and a classic of the literature of America (although it's not American literature).
Anne Fadiman. Photo by Gabriel Amadeus Cooney,
compliments of MacMillan Publishers.
Anne Fadiman is a recent discovery, but she's a gem, a minor treasure. She can write. Fun fact: her family's dog is named Typo. She hasn't written much, so I intend to read it all. (Hey, I can intend.)
As an aside, as I was browsing through Clifton Fadiman's New Lifetime Reading Plan—chock full of entertaining little thumbnail reviews—it crossed my mind that I no longer have enough life left to read all the books he discusses. That's one of life's tragedies I can feel: "Life is Short, Books Long." Choose wisely!
Mike
UPDATE Wednesday: As usual with book posts, this one has cost me money! And the last one too—I had to buy By Brooks Too Broad for Leaping, the selected writings of automotive journalist Denise McCluggage, which turned out to be quite expensive, and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which I've never read. Al C., hugh crawford, and JimH all mentioned Denise, and Martin D recommended Magic Mountain—thanks to them.
It was costly in time, too—I had to spend an arduous hour rummaging in the attic of the barn where my library is now kept (and where it is gradually being destroyed by insects) looking for the copies of The Brothers Karamazov I know I have (didn't find them), and spent a number of hours comparing translations of several books from other languages.
There are so many fine old photography books up there in the attic of the barn. I just don't have room for them in the house. I was blinded by love when I bought this place—the next house I buy will have room for a pool table and bookcases, dammit Gumby!
By the way, I have to say that Amazon does a poor job with translations. You can look for just the translation you want, then click the Kindle e-book option on the proper sale page, only to find that the Kindle version reverts to a different, older, rights-free translation. There doesn't seem to be a way to get the Grossman translation of Don Quixote or the Woods translation of Magic Mountain as e-books, for example. In the case of The Brothers K., you can go the P/V translation, click Kindle, and the order page still says Pevear and Volokonsky...but the file you get if you order it is not the Pevear and Volokonsky translation at all but the old Constance Garnett translation. In the scope of the world's troubles this isn't much I suppose, but it's frustrating. At the very least, they should inform you which translation you're buying when you buy a Kindle version.
I did find my hardcover copy of The Scarlet Letter, the one with Barry Moser's illustrations, which I bought, according to the mark, as a remainder.
UPDATE #2: I had to laugh...just after I posted the above, this comment came in:
Richard Nugent: "MIKE! You have to slow down on these literary 'Open Mike' essays!! Between your recommendations (or mentions) and those of the commenters, I wind up ordering two, three, or even four books with every essay. I have a stack of eight unread ones on my table right now and I just now ordered three more through Amazon. I may have to give up eating and sleeping (and maybe talking with my wife) to keep up. Have some mercy, man!"
At least Richard knows now that I suffer because of the same problem too!
Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Lance Saint Paul: "Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth reminded me of Faulkner, but more lyrical, flowing (he's a better poet in his prose than Faulkner). I first read it about 15 years ago (way late by the way)—I look forward to another reading in the future. Beautiful and harrowing. My roots are there, too."
Clayton: "Only two books that I remember reading several times—Love in the Time of Cholera by Garcia Marquez and The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato. Some Kurt Vonnegut books got two or three readings. Seems I am drawn to hilarious tragedy."
Mike replies: Then you might enjoy The Brothers Karamazov.
Robert Roaldi (partial comment): "I read Catch-22 three times, saw the movie twice."
Mike replies: Did you ever read any of the books that purport to tell the true story the novel is based on? Such as The Bridgebusters: The True Story of the Catch-22 Bomb Wing by Thomas Cleaver. Looks like an interesting book to read alongside the novel.
Eric Peterson: "Put me down for rereading Anthony Trollope. The more things change, the more they stay the same."
DavidB: "I'm in the process of rereading many of the fiction books I've held on to for many years. Of these, the one I have reread the most is Robert Heinlein's The Past Through Tomorrow. Some of those futuristic science fiction short stories are happening now."
ChrisC: "I made the mistake of rereading Orwell’s 1984 a year or two back. It was much more scary this time round."
Darin Boville: "I re-read book occasionally but not as any particular philosophy of reading, just whenever the mood strikes me. I’ve re-read Moby-Dick, yes, five times seems right. I keep a copy on my vehicle’s dashboard so I can ask people who ride in my FJ Cruiser for the first time to open to a page at random, read whatever sentence their finger strikes upon, and then treat that as a sort of fortune cookie. (It works.) I’ve re-read Lord of the Rings, all 1008 pages, including once out loud to my young daughter as a bedtime story (in many parts!) when she was too young to read.
"In my mid-40s I was having a long spell of bad luck with book, movies, music and culture in general. I started to wonder if maybe I’d discovered all the good stuff, touched on all the mountaintops and that maybe the rest of my life would just be filling in the nooks and crannies of my cultural map. But then I picked out Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I’d never heard of him. I read the book, finishing as I lay in bed, closed the book, stared at the ceiling a bit, then re-opened it to the first page and read it again. I'd never done that before, read a book twice in a row.
"For some reason that experience broke the spell."
Jeff Thompson: "For me, it was Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, Cannery Row and The Grapes Of Wrath. Prescribed reading at school when I was 15 or 16 years old. Tedious reading then, but I reread them as a 'knocked around by life' adult and loved every word."
Alexander P. Schorsch: "William Faulkner said that he reread Don Quixote every year."
Mike replies: Setting aside holy books, Don Quixote is believed to be the number-one bestseller of all time, with an estimated 550 million copies printed and sold in a great many languages over its 415-year lifespan. There is a fine recent English translation by Edith Grossman that has received very high praise. Carlos Fuentes, writing in the New York Times, said this about it:
[I] celebrate the great new translation of 'Don Quixote' by Edith Grossman. Nothing harder for the traduttore, if he or she is not to be seen as the traditore [the Italian words mean "translator" and "traitor" —Ed.], than to render a classic in contemporary idiom yet retain its sense of time and space. Up to now, my favorite 'Quixote' translation has been that of Tobias Smollett, the 18th-century picaresque novelist, who rendered Cervantes in the style proper to Smollett and his own age. His 'Quixote' reads much like 'Humphry Clinker,' and this seems appropriate and, even, delightful. The family relationship is there.
"Edith Grossman delivers her 'Quixote' in plain but plentiful contemporary English. The quality of her translation is evident in the opening line: 'Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.' This 'Don Quixote' can be read with the same ease as the latest Philip Roth and with much greater facility than any Hawthorne. Yet there is not a single moment in which, in forthright English, we are not reading a 17th-century novel. This is truly masterly: the contemporaneous and the original co-exist."
Larry Wilkins: "I read The Sun Also Rises for the first time when I was in high school, and then re-read it several times over the next decade or so. I picked it up again in my late 20s or early 30s—and was appalled. For the first time, I understood an essay topic that a college English professor proposed, 'The only pity that you can find in a Hemingway novel is self-pity.' On finishing the novel, for the last time in my life, I felt like a needed a shower.
"And I second Stephen Gilbert's comment on the Horatio Hornblower books."
Martin D: "I first read Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain as a young man, when I was at university. This is the novel to end all novels. I immersed myself into its world. The book changed my life forever and it keeps a clear presence in my life today. It's a long novel, a fat volume, and in those innocent days of my youth I read the book cover to cover three or four times within a few years. In the decades since, I always have a copy lying around somewhere in the house, and not a month passes where I don't pick it up and read a few pages.
"I have the advantage to be able to read it in the original German; Mann's complex sentences don't translate all that well into English, but I have coaxed many of my English friends into venturing into Magic Mountain land, and they didn't reproach me for it!"
Jimmy Reina: "In the early 1950s, I stumbled upon a used bookstore in the block where my father had a business. In those days, such stores also carried secondhand comicbooks and magazines, and I was injected with a drug that took 40 years to withdraw from. For a reader that loves books with pages, I can't think of a more indulgent pleasure than Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris. Now, when I haunt used bookstores, I buy all the copies I can find, and give them out to fellow book lovers."
Robert Stahl: "It doesn't get any better than rereading good and compelling poetry. A few favorites: Rumi, Emily Dickinson, Rilke, and Mary Oliver."
Good idea. Perhaps tonight I will go pull down Plains Song by Wright Morris for another read.
It was a challenge for me in the early 80's but good.
Posted by: Mike Plews | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 04:09 PM
Let the ceremonial calling out of favourite reread books begin! For me, it's The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. Really, anything by Ursula Le Guin, except the Earthsea series.
Posted by: Ernie Van Veen | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 04:15 PM
I read The Alchemist in my early 20’s, and while it affected me, I could never quite put my finger on how. I reread it in my late 30s, just out of curiosity. I understood why it appealed , and added it to the pile to take to the second-hand book shop.
I should pull Brave New World off the shelf for a re-read, to see how it compares to school vs my mid-40 year old self.
Posted by: Not THAT Ross Cameron | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 04:17 PM
You really ARE tired with photography.
[I have always been a reader! --Mike]
Posted by: Steven Palmer | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 06:31 PM
I read Catch-22 three times, saw the movie twice. I read the Detective Aurelio Zen series twice and will probably read them again one day. I read some of Joseph Heath's books twice now (U of Toronto philosophy professor, writes a lot about politics and human affairs). So far, those are the only repeats. While I was studying in the field, I read physics textbooks over and over again but I think that's a little different.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 07:00 PM
Well worth checking out Anne Fadiman’s excellent non-fiction book:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures .
Posted by: Geoffrey Hiller | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 09:20 PM
John "Sandford" with Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers novels - entertaining and enjoyable.
Michael Connelly with Lincoln Lawyer and Harry Bosch novels are also good.
But, John Steinbeck is it for me. The one I re-visit for well written stories.
Steven King, but not the horror novels. Shawshank Redemption in both written and movie form.
Same with Norman Maclean and A River Runs Through it - a true story from where he grew up. The movie is well done and has some great lines... “The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.”
So much to read and enjoy and Sally Mann's HOLD STILL is written much as she speaks - well and clearly stated.
Posted by: Daniel | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 09:24 PM
"bailure". I like that, and it describes a lot of my reading these days. The older I get the more apt I am to bail out of books that are poorly written and don't hold my interest, sunk costs be damned.
Thank you, too,for mentioning "The Scarlet Letter". It's time for me to reread that and to reread for the third or fourth time "The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler.
Posted by: Bandbox | Tuesday, 11 February 2020 at 11:20 PM
Wow, you managed to talk about rereading without mentioning C. S. Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism!
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 03:15 AM
There are indeed too many excellent books out there to read them all in one lifetime, which can seem depressing. But look on the other side: you'll never run out. For the last few years I've set aside a certain number of hours per week to read good literature, helped a lot by the library I inherited from my mother (English major at Smith College).
But there should be a word for my experience recently with Paradise Lost. I hadn't read it before, but had read all about it, seen references to it along the way, etc. There was a feeling of almost disappointment when I finally got to the orignal and found no, well, surprises. Not really disappointment, but as if the trailers had largely spoiled the movie. I should have read it long before.
Posted by: Alan Whiting | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 09:00 AM
Catch-22. The later movie only reiterated it all.
Posted by: Rick in CO | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 10:22 AM
Catch 22
Posted by: Steve Rosenblum | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 10:53 AM
Interesting. I regularly reread my favourite books. Several more than 10 times since I first read them as a teenager. They both remain the same and change with you.
Posted by: PatrickC | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 11:15 AM
In my youth, I was an inveterate re-reader, and I think I read Asimov's "Foundation" series at least three times before I left high school and Tolkein's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" at least five times. As I got older, though, my desire for new stories waxed, and my rereading stopped. I think the last thing I reread (barring children's books; parenting has given me complete mental copies of several Dr. Seuss books) was the Tolkein books sometime around when I was writing my dissertation (in analytical chemistry, not English; I needed a mental break from nitrile vibrational modes and Liouville space diagrams), so almost 20 years (!!!) ago. I really should go back to Tolkein one more time as a middle-aged (sob!) person, since I would be curious to see how my perception of it has changed.
Posted by: Nick | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 12:05 PM
Surely we can't talk of Hornblower without mentioning Patrick O'Brian and the Jack Aubrey series, which I just started on for the second time.
Posted by: Edd Fuller | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 12:29 PM
I've read and re-read Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada" three times and I'm still mystified at parts.
I re-read Hemmingway's collected short stories once a year, around my birthday.
Posted by: Kirk Tuck | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 12:36 PM
Some novels I have re-read a number of times; I seem to be able to re-immerse myself in them. Others I read only once, and other I fail to finish even once.
In general it seems to be author-based; for example, I have re-read many of Kate Atkinson’s books several times. This has been useful, in that the re-reading revealed how in earlier books she developed and refined the major themes that she deployed so well in her two masterpieces, Life After Life and A God in Ruins. In other cases a given author’s works have received variable treatment - for example, I have re-read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga a couple of times but have been unable to finish his Last Man in Tower even once. That said, pretty much anything by Iain Banks (and Iain M Banks) has been read many times, while Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books are my guilty pleasure.
Posted by: Tom Burke | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 12:42 PM
I read 'Shogun' in January 1983 on vacation in Tunisia, then 20 years later while recovering from surgery at home in Wisconsin.
Then again 10 years later (because it had been 10 years)
I will read it again soon. My fav story, I think.
I also loved the BBC TV series based on the book, which I think ran to about 13 hours.
Similar with the 'Millennium Trilogy' (The 3 'The Girl Who...... books)
But with those I started back at the beginning as soon as I finished the third book.
I also watched the full Swedish TV series all the way through 4 times.
Great story!
Posted by: James | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 12:49 PM
I read Catch 22 while serving in Vietnam and found myself occasionally laughing out loud at certain passages at what might have been inappropriate times given my location. I've read it again once since and it did not conjure up the same chuckles, though it was still a most worthy read.
Posted by: Stoney Stone | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 03:13 PM
I made the mistake of rereading Orwell’s 1984 a year or too back. It was much more scary this time round.
Posted by: ChrisC | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 03:25 PM
I read "Dune" by Frank Herbert three times.
First time in German and then twice in English.
Liked it very much how he managed to weave quite a yarn and still maintained a dense atmosphere.
Besides that I never re-read anything.
Love McCarthy though... might be one of his books. I enjoy his sparseness.
Also love James Sallis. Could also be one of his Lew Griffin books.
Posted by: Stefan | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 03:29 PM
Hi Mike:
Most of the books mentioned in your post and the comments came as no surprise. E.g., I was directed in high school to read The Brothers Karamazov as a disciplinary measure and it is one of the most influential books I have ever read; I tried to read The Magic Mountain (auf deutsch) in college, but wasn't up to the task. The mention of Giants in the Earth completely surprised me. My mother was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants who homesteaded in the Dakotas, so I am familiar with the book, but I think of it as somewhat obscure.
I have attached a picture of my great-grandparents' homestead in South Dakota and can only imagine the feeling of isolation during the howling winds of winter.
Posted by: Tom | Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 10:29 PM
One book that keeps dragging me back is Homo Faber by Max Frisch. A book that I first read about 40 years ago. Iain Banks, also known as Iain M Banks is someone I also reread for his inventive mind, interesting themes, and delight at making his characters real.
Posted by: DAVID BOYCE | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 12:27 AM
Don Quixote. The older you get, the better it gets.
Posted by: M. C. Ekstrand | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 02:17 AM
I had never heard of O.E. Rolvaag before - so as a Norwegian myself I had to look him up. And I think you can count his books as American literature. He was born in northern Norway, but moved to South Dakota in 1896 and became a U.S. citizen in 1908.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Edvart_R%C3%B8lvaag
Now to check out his books.
Posted by: Thor Egil Leirtro | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 04:17 AM
I reread Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels on occasion, but that's just for fun. The plots in Chandler's novels are often so convoluted that I don't remember who did what or why after I put the book back on the shelf. But, oh boy, Chandler's evocative Los Angeles scene setting is a treat!
I had a feeling of whiplash when I reread Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger a couple years ago. I first read the book when I was 13 or 14. I thought Holden Caulfield admirably saw through all the BS in the world. When rereading the book in my mid-30s, my view on Caulfield underwent a complete 180: he was a confused, maddening, angry boy with huge capacity to contradict himself from one moment to the next and undermine his best interests. He was no sage, but a typical teenager.
Posted by: Andrew | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 09:23 AM
I've read Great Expectations by Dickens maybe a half dozen times, starting in junior high school. Over the years, my view of Pip has changed from being a sympathetic character to a little shit. Every reading over the years provided me with a new take on the story.
I have also read several different translations of War and Peace over the years. I think I am finally starting to understand Pierre.
Posted by: Bruce Appelbaum | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 10:02 AM
Among my favorite things to experience over and over are Lawrence Durrell's exquisite "Alexandria Quartet" and just about any Leonard Cohen music. Open to any page of Durrell or set the needle down on any track of Cohen, and I'm done for the day.
Posted by: Wayne | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 10:08 AM
I've been a lifelong re-reader, though I went on a moratorium while my children were very young -- couldn't devote precious personal time to such indulgences.
As a youth, I had read Moby Dick about 6 times before I'd finished high school. I re-read it for the 7th, and likely final, time last year. Sadly, it didn't hold up: I've moved on, as has the world of literature, and Western culture at large. I re-sampled some of Melville's other stories, and found that only Bartleby the Scrivener still retains its essential weirdness and relevance, without disfiguring elements of unconscious racism.
I've read Lord of the Rings more than 6 times, and I'm in the middle of reading it aloud to my youngest child. That one holds up.
Surprisingly, Dune holds up as well -- I've read that 4-5 times over the decades, most recently 2 years ago.
Other rewarding re-reads (in no particular order) include: Blood Meridian, 1984, A Winter's Tale (Helprin), Fahrenheit 451, The Secret Sharer, The Great Gatsby, A Christmas Carol, anything from Shakespeare, A Clockwork Orange, Riddley Walker.
Posted by: Ari | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 11:45 AM
I'm going to bring in the recently deceased novelist James Salter. Often called a "writer's writer," he was certainly a reader's writer. Transcendent, limpid prose that is like a drug (in the best possible sense!). "Light Years" or "A Sport and a Pastime" are probably the best places to start. Surely the best writer to come out of West Point (intrigued?).
Posted by: Greg Heins | Thursday, 13 February 2020 at 05:18 PM
Gotta sing the praises of Mark Helprin also. The first time I read "Soldier of the Great War" I read it straight through without sleep. Slept eight hours then read it again. Never before or since I have I done that. His short story collection "The Pacific" is the best one author collection I've ever read. I've reread Tolkien numerous times and also Dune. I've read at least a couple of books a week for over 60 years. Generally read new to me books, but some books HAVE to be reread. Considering Moby Dick again, but the loooooooooooooong description of ship is holding me back.
Posted by: jerry | Friday, 14 February 2020 at 07:58 PM
'Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it.'
Vladimir Nabokov
Posted by: Rob Clayton | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 06:19 AM
Hi Mike, Had to laugh last night.
My wife was watching reruns of the first series of 'Cheers' when I walked into the room. After a few minutes that ditzy blonde said she was thinking of spending the evening in bed with The Brothers Karamazov.
You can imagine the look on Ted Danson's face.
All I could think was about the culture level of this post being "raised"?
Posted by: James | Tuesday, 18 February 2020 at 12:35 PM