Electronic text, especially text on the web in HTML form, has fundamentally changed our understanding of the ‘printed word’. On the web, text can change constantly and readers do not have the same surety that, like the words they read yesterday in a book, they will be the same words today.
Of course, the meaning of texts change as the reader changes. Many readers find that, on revisiting a novel they read many years ago, their understanding of the story, its meaning to them, and the different aspects of the novel are changed for them as they have aged and experienced the world.
Moreover, with the advent of 24hr news channels and news online, readers have become somewhat used to modifications and updates. News stories change as more information is known or as the situation being reported on develops.
But fictional text – specifically stories – are another matter. As a child I remember being very angry when I encountered different versions of certain fairy tales I was fond of. It made me angry to see the Disney version of Snow White, because I’d read the much harsher Grimm’s version. I could not understand why it seemed that there was no consensus on how a particular story went.
As far as we know, Grimm’s fairytales were originally oral folk-tales that had many versions, and it was the brothers Grimm who editorialized these stories and locked down in print the forms we have these stories in today.
Whether one opens Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at the age of 12 and then again at the age of 45, one has a certain degree of confidence that the words themselves, sitting on the printed page, will be the same.
On the web, it is the very words themselves that can change. There is no security that a page visited a week ago will contain the same information it contains now.
I am interested in how readers might experience reading a story when the story changes. How hard-wired or flexible are we in our expectation of the permanence of a story? Must I as a writer be trusted to know how the story will end before I begin? Can the experience and enjoyment of reading fiction as we understand it survive the transition to a changing and impermanent thing?
For now, I’m interested in your experience with how the meaning of stories changes as you re-experience them. The first question I would like to ask you is: have you read a poem or a novel more than once and found that its meaning had altered radically for you? If you have had this experience, please talk about it a little. Tell me which book or poem, and how it changed for you. Finally, I’d like to know a little of your feelings on how you felt about experiencing, in essence, a different work, when you reread it.
Growing up I read my horror novels and found myself re-reading many of them. One I found changed with re-reading was The Stand by Stephen King. The first time I admit to skim reading it a lot as it’s a huge novel and I had little interest in having to read his overly complex descriptions of his characters. Re-reading it years after I decided to take my time and fully read the whole thing and it really does change if you allow yourself to get lost in each character and truly know them before they begin their journey to make “the stand” as it is.
A good novel allows the reader to notice more things when they re-read them, IF they choose to. Another example for me would be the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I was a huge fan of these books and would re-read them time and time again, picking up more of the lore she created for her vampires and reading deeper into the characters she created. Based on how I felt when re-reading these books I’d say I had a different viewpoint on the events taking place. For example in the Vampire Lestat you find out more about Armand and who he was, in my re-reading of this novel I was much more interested in Armand’s story than I was of Lestat because as this was a re-reading of the story I already knew Lestat well, but Armand was a side character and it was his turn to catch my interest.
I think I’d argue that in a good novel (and good poems) our experience is based on our current emotions at that time. Much like watching movies, these have the same effect. Take Sylvia Plath as an example for poetry, if you are depressed you are pulled into her little world by her poems and by her Novel the Bell Jar, but if not, you feel more pity for the woman who was screaming out for help while the world seemed to have little time for her.
Sorry if I rambled on a bit, but I hope I got my point across and my answer was helpful. I hope you at least enjoy my response 🙂
Oh, please! No apologies necessary. It was a brilliant response. Thank you for being candid about your experience! I think you expressed it very well and the specific examples really help to get a fuller understanding of how you responded to revisiting certain books!
For me, RG, it was “The Hours” by Cunningham. Being young and happy, I could not embrace walking into the water. I read the account in the book and was as baffled by it as I was when I first was exposed to Virginia Woolf’s story as a teen.
A few years ago, I picked it up again. Being older and wiser and brushed by despair, it made sense to me.
All the parts; all the anger, hurt, sadness of all the intertwined characters.
Our experiences and expectations of the printed word do change, as we change.
The meaning of stories and poems often changes as i reread, to expect it not to seems to be an unrealistic expectation. On the first read everything is unknown and i can emerse my self in the wonder of it all but the times after that I can enjoy the poetry, precision of language and what the informs the characters.
something i have re read and found it to be a very different book on the re read would be The Passions by jeanette winterson. I read it the first time when i was in the beginning of a relationship and again a few years later in the middle and again as the relationship was ending. Three very different experiences as a reader.
I live when i re read something and it is a different experience from the first time.
Could you try to describe the differences in your readings?
I have a small stack of books that I reread every year around my birthday. I basically reread them to see how they hit me as I get older. For instance things that aren’t on the official list but that I reread recently are the Dune books.
I read the first three of the series when I was quite young and as I revisited them twenty years later I can see some influences in my own writing and tastes. Had I not reread them I would have never seen that and understood where my love of syncreticism (in a very broad sense rather than strictly religious) in writing (my own and others) comes from.
The books on my official list I read time and again for very specific reasons to each book. Some of them are pure masochism on my part because they hurt me every time I read them. There have been a few that worked themselves off of my list because I didn’t enjoy them as much or read something differently.
This has become a little bit of a strange birthday ritual.
I’d love to know what the list is 😀
As wouldn’t we all! Do share, please…
I don’t have my actual written down list but off of the top of my head:
The Demon and The Room by Hubert Selby Jr.
Solipsist by Henry Rollins
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The American Night by Jim Morrison
Lolita by Nabokov
Beneath the Skin by John Rechy
Howl by Ginsberg
There are a few more that rotate in and out but those are on my permanent list. I’ve worn out probably five copies of Lolita and Howl by now.
Okay, funny anecdote – that happened to me with a film. The Princess Bride, specifically – i saw it as a child – 10 or 12 or so – and thought it was a serious film. Then I watched it again as an adult (and many times since) and finally understood the farce that it truly is… ;->
Jane Austen – Persuasion. One I’ve only begun to appreciate now that I’m older – there’s something in the quiet passions that one only truly can grasp as one grows into one’s self. Starship Troopers, actually – when I first read it, I was a teen. I found it fun and interesting and very wonderfully sci-fi. Then I read it again several years later – and suddenly it became political science, and I had vistas opened to me that my vision was simply too narrow to comprehend before…
And then there are your stories, RG. There are several I have always loved, at one time because they were thrilling and sexy and wonderful… and now because they are still all those things, but also more. The Teacher – there are levels in that story that one simply can’t perceive until the mind is ready, and only meeting my husband has opened those doors. The Dinner Party (I think that’s the name)… ditto.
Anyway. Good subject.
I too am a re-reader of books, because I love the written word. Also, because I have a terrible memory!! I do love a book which continually springs surprises on you, however many times you read it.
One of my absolute favourite books is called Making Love: A Conspiracy of the Heart, by Marius Brill. It’s not really what the title suggests, though the theme is love. It’s a story supposedly told BY another book, which starts off fairly normal (insofar as a sentient book can be considered normal!) but gradually descends through all sorts of weird coincidences to a kind of Hollywoodesque thriller, complete with attack helicopters and a secret billionaire’s life, as well as spies aplenty. And while we move through the plot, there is also a discourse on the origins of romantic love, in the form of a thesis.
I know, it sounds weird but it is truly the most astonishing first novel (or indeed any novel) I have ever read. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is also responsible for utterly changing my views about “romantic love.”
On my most recent re-reading, I spent my time enjoying all the puns and media allusions which pepper the text. Oh, and – as always – the gradual loss of limbs of one of the main characters!
At the moment, I’m watching my 12 year old, who is also an avid reader. He had read all 6 of the Harry Potter novels by the time he was 9, and we had discussed them a lot (I like to psycho-analyse). From book 4 onwards, his difficulty was not with the reading but with the emotionally more complex emotional aspect, about which he is currently oblivious. It will be interesting to see how a rereading of those novels will affect him in the next few years.
Something like “Snow White,” it seems to me, is more like… well, like a piece of music. That is, a performance of “The St. Matthew Passion” will (one hopes!) always result in a recognizable piece, but different performers & conductors & instruments & arrangements result in very different experiences of it. I have my favorite recordings of various works, but I still listen to different ones (and new ones) sometimes precisely for those differences.
I suppose the most dramatic changes in books I’ve re-read come from my own aging. I read “The Fountainhead” as a freshman in high school and found it terribly profound and moving. I picked it up again in my 30’s and couldn’t finish it. “Oh, this is beyond silly,” was my overall reaction. There are also books I read as a child that, when I re-read them, actually bring the feeling of that time of my life back, not just the feeling I had of that particular book. Not all authors, oddly enough, just some–Zilpha Keatley Snyder (a YA author) is one, and Robert Heinlein another. Maybe something tied to how I was feeling when I originally read the books?
Every year I re-read all of Agatha Christie’s books just because she never really gets old and I have one of those memories where whodunit just doesn’t really stay in my head. I always notice something different when I do. I am a mystery addict. P. D. James is also one of my favourites. Her books have so much depth that each read seems to peel away another layer.
A book that changes for me would have to be Little Women. When I read it as a girl, I enjoyed their girlish adventures and their “epic” romances 🙂 As a grown-up girl, their hardships and struggles mean so much more.
I had a similar experiance with the “Eragon” series, as well as the “Harry Potter” books. They were about the adventure and the drama when I was young and now they’re about the humanity of the characters and the interplay of politics and plot. Also when it comes to the Potter franchise, I appreciate the humor so much more!
I always find something new when I re-read through one of my favourite books, which is good since I go through any new ones at a prolific rate!
Oh, Agatha Christie is one of my deep dark pleasures. And I have re-read about 10 of them. And boy, does a re-reading tell you about the world that woman was living in, and what an extraordinary person she was. There is an undercurrent of racism in some of her novels. I find this a challenge. It’s only on the second readings that I can have a more contextual reaction to it. For she was a woman of her time, her culture, and a daughter of the British Empire. When I think about the role-modelling of women at the time, I still have to forgive her for escaping as much of the gravity-well of culture as she did.
First all… I felt the same about Disney vs. Grimms fairytales! Cinderella was a point of much frustration for me, particularly because I loved (love) the film… but the Grimms version was just so much more intriguing.
But anyway! To your questions. When I look back at things I read a long time ago, and then reread recently, I’m mostly considering books I read in childhood, or my early teens, so simply growing up has a huge effect on the experience. When I’ve reread things from a few years ago, they tend to be things I was enthralled with and thus idealised, and upon returning to them I felt incredibly disappointed, because I am now much more discerning about quality and the use of language – which they tended to lack. So I’m now quite cautious about revisiting lest I ruin my memory of the enjoyment I felt then.
Having said that there are a couple of things which got better when I reread them.
One experience that stays strongly with me is a book I read when I was about thirteen called “The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things” (by Carolyn Mackler) which is, in essence, just a coming of age story about a girl dealing with her weight and her very “picture perfect” family, etc etc. Pretty standard teen reading really. When I’d finished it, I accidentally left the book in the car, and about three years later a family friend who was renting a room in our house found it and read it cover to cover. She then came to me and asked if I had anything similar. I was intrigued to know why she thought it was so good, so I read it again and realised that while it is just a coming of age book, the way it’s written, and the experiences Mackler draws of this girl are so brilliantly true and poignant. It was actually a really lovely experience to reread it and realise how good it actually is.
The other piece of literature that stands out is Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poetry, “The World’s Wife”. I studied it at A-level and really enjoyed the satire and the inventive use of language and took a lot of pleasure studying it, but that was about it really; and coming back to it after I started writing erotica, and now that I have a much greater interest in the hows and whys of sex and relationships, those poems are just so much more interesting; they speak to me on a much more visceral level, and I simply understand them better. Not to mention the inspiration and ideas I gain from her use of language.
Thanks for your comment on this post, LGS. I find that, in re-reading, I’m better able to disengage emotionally from the characters and the story, and see both the mechanics of the writing and the prevailing social forces that lurk there in the author’s viewpoints.
RG, you ask insightful questions! I too, am disappointed in the cultural awareness of fairytales. Snow White and Rose Red is one of my favorites for reading different interpretations — it seems so much of the symbolism could be interpreted any way you like!
I have too good a memory for books, I don’t often reread them. Most of what I revisit are the classics, The Count of Monte Cristo, Pride and Prejudice, Phantom of the Opera, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. It always amazes me, for what amounts to Victorian pulp fiction the depth of characterization and the commentary on the human condition. I also always seem to find something new every time I open Kipling’s verse, although I *hated* The Jungle Book, and the Just-So Stories.
But mostly I’m like Lady Grinning Soul, and am wary what I pick up again. Peter Pan and Swiss Family Robinson were ruined for me, as was Treasure Island and Gullivers Travels. But Arabian Nights held its allure (I suppose it would, after all these years)and The Princess Bride is funnier than ever (specifically, the “Good Parts” version, edited by Wm. Goldman)
I think it’s that, as a child, not only was I less discerning about the writing and the plausibility, but they were really only jumping-off points for my imagination. Now, of course, there is less adventure to them, and more emphasis on their merits.
I too am blessed with a good memory for books. But, as ewoman wrote about Agatha Christie, I have re-read many of them. Of course, I remember who ‘done’ it and the clues now stand out like huge beacons to me, but I’ve re-read them more as studies of culture and class than as murder mysteries.
The first time I read a book, unless the writing is very bad, I tend to be a willing suspender of disbelieve and a model reader. I want to get lost, I want to have my emotions and expectations manipulated. I don’t like ruining the overall immersive experience by reading critically the first time. So in order to do that, I have to re-read. The second time through, for instance, Little Dorrit, I could see just how strangely the novel is constructed. How sloppily the narratives are interwoven. It’s actually quite a choppy book with none of the smooth fineness of some of his other stories. But I also noticed Dickens’ perpetuation of the social fear of independent women. And I then went back and read Great Expectations and I saw his portrayal of Mrs. Havisham in a very different way. For all his compassion, poor Charles was such a man of his time.
the one example that leaps to mind is Romeo and Juliet…and a story in a similar vein from my High School years, The Ice People…As a teen, and young adult, i felt the heartwrenching pain and anguish…but when i reread both as an adult, one with kids….all i could think of was of the tragic loss of two young lives.
On another vein, i’ve just started rereading F.Paul Wilson’s “Healer”…which i read in my 20’s. The story stayed with me and i’m interested to see how it looks on the other side of 50, rather than the short side of 20!
nilla
Hey Nilla,
Do let us know how it strikes you now!
RG I like Shannon have a tendency to reread certain Books over every year or so. One I have been re reading for 50 years (Starship Troopers) Laugh of you must but I find it a very concise explanation of ;the dynamics in a military organization. Of course, the USMC doe also on their reading list. What has changed in the time that I have read this book is it has gone from an adolescent piece of science fiction adventure to an interesting thought of the formation of a government based om someone who has “skin” in the game. So every time it is read thoughts change.
So yes the view of a book over the years has changed.
More to follow on a series I have started re reading after 35 years.
Thanks for your reply, Ken. And yes, please do let me know how other re-readings strike you.