Rereading books: Great loves or bad breakups
Rereading a book after a decade or more can be an exciting undertaking. But it also can be a disappointment.
I just finished reading “The Talisman” by Stephen King and Peter Straub for the first time since it came out in the mid-1980s. I remember loving the book back then, and picked it back up with a combination of enthusiasm and trepidation. Suppose my memories were faulty and it wasn’t as good as I remembered? That’s happened with other books I’ve reread at one time or another.
Good news. I enjoyed it just as much as last time, perhaps more. Except for the overarching plot, I didn’t remember one single thing about it while reading it this time. So my memories were faulty, just in a good way.
I’m in the process of going back to books that I’ve read in the past, even ones that I only sort of liked. In some cases, I’ve adjusted my views on the book.
I’ve read Dickens’ “Great Expectations” about three times, and each time I find something new in it. But nothing matches the joy I experienced the first time I read it in high school.
Right now, I’m reading Stephen King’s entire catalog, about 50 books, in chronological order. Why? I have them all in hardcover, something that took a lot of time to complete. I realized that it was amazingly stupid to have all these books gathering dust just so I could look at them and think, “Cool.” (In my defense, I’m also reading books by other authors at the same time.)
Anyway, as I said, I’m up to “The Talisman,” the 16th in the line (not counting “The Gunslinger,” which I plan to tackle in my back-to-back-to-back reading of “The Dark Tower” series). I have found that “Pet Sematary,” which I didn’t like first go-round, was much better. Conversely, “’Salem’s Lot,” which literally gave me the shakes when I first read it back in the ’70s, wasn’t quite as horrifying.
Whatever genre you enjoy — horror, romance, science fiction, thrillers, historical — age and circumstances play large roles in the way your views can change on them. Having children can make you shiver if kids are in danger in the pages of a book. But you can still get vicarious thrills from reading Frederick Forsyth or Trevanian or Alistair MacLean (look ‘em up).
Going back to a familiar book can feel like finding a pair of old, comfortable slippers in the back of your closet. Or it can feel like running into a significant other that was part of a bad breakup, a let-me-get-out-of-here-now moment.
Either way, it’s worth taking the chance. You can always close the cover and move on.