April 22, 2013.
Several months ago a movie critic described to some of us who were spending an evening together how she approaches reviewing movies. She said she tries to think about films using three points: what was the artist trying to do, how well did he/she do it, and was it worth doing?
That was eye opening (mind opening?) for me as I usually just react to what I’ve seen by thinking about what I liked or didn’t like. While I can’t say I’ve totally changed how I approach thinking about the many movies I see, I have been using her categories to expand my response to what I am seeing.
I also began to wonder about my reading and my reactions to what I read, as I spend a good deal of time with books (in one form or another). In fact, I signed up for a two hour talk and discussion at our wonderful, local bookstore, Politics & Prose with Pulitzer Prize winning critic Michael Dirda on “How to Read a Book” (I’ll write about what I learn after the ‘course’).
And I began to think about reading vs rereading, which brings me to Vladimir 
Nabokov, whose birthday happens to be today. The Russian writer (Lolita and Speak, Memory, etc.) talks about what makes a good reader (Lectures on Literature):
Incidentally, I use the word ‘reader’ very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. 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 a 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. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is—a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)—a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.
If what Nabokov says is accurate, do I have to go back and reread all those books in my library? Some of them? A few?
Thus, this post with a question to those of you who do read a good deal (and there are many of you as 70 readers submitted titles this year for the The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2012.)
So,
Do you reread books?
And if you do, then these questions:
- Does your rereading significantly change your view of what you read the first time?
- In what ways?
- How do you decide which books you reread?
I am hoping some of you will respond in the Comments section below or send me an email about these questions (let me know if I can post that email so others can benefit from it too).
Maybe we can get a bit of a dialogue going.
Jackie said:
I reread anything I want to know if highlighting doesn’t do it the first time through. Usually, it takes more than one time through to get the real gist of something I truly want to understand. Having said that, sometimes I can get a lot from one reading if I can truly get away from things and focus on the book. When my focus is free from distractions, a very rare phenomena, I can almost absorb the book. Another rare event is when the book touches my emotions in such a way the book is hard to forget. When that happens, I usually have no reason to reread because the impact was so strong.
I do no reread anything I read for pure entertainment unless I remember it fondly and reread it years later just for more fun.
Brian S. said:
I do on occasion – but what came to mind first was Jonathan Yardley’s recently concluded series of reviews of books he re-reread after some 40 years or so. What you get when you are young and when you are older is quite different.
I wonder what Nabokov would say about recorded books? Listening to a story teller or poet? Probably same conclusion, but different organs. And even looking at art, don’t we come back to the mind as key?
Just a few random thoughts.
And, another thought – we watch movies second (and more) times – why not re-read books?
Ed. – A link to Brian’s reference to Jonathan Yardley’s rereads, Second Readings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102650.html (See the final paragraph).
David S. said:
My answer to your question about how I go about reading a book is “It depends”
on the purpose why I’m reading it.
(1) When I’m writing an essay or a book and looking for what others had to say about my topic I look at the table of contents and index to give me clues about how best to find the writer’s ideas on the specific matter or issue I’m focused on. Then I try to dive into the book at the right page to find what I’m looking for and usually don’t care about what that writer had to say about non-germane subject matter.
(2) When I’m reading a book to ascertain then retain the author’ entire thought process, I take notes as I go along and note the book’s page numbers from which I copied the information, and if I’m blown away by the book, I re-read it after first looking at my notes so I can better discover important points I missed previously.
(3) If the book or story is fiction, I read as a witness having a vicarious experience and allowing myself uncritically to participate in the adventure as it unfolds, and if I’m blown away by it I re-read it analytically seeking to detect the the author’s hook, suspense, voice, phrasing, style and so forth.
(4) If the book or mag is poetry I can usually absorb no more than two or three poems at most at a time because I need to meditatively allow myself to become still and openly receptive to the phrasing and imagery the poet has employed so I can allow my eye to become the poet’s eye as best I can and theerfore attempt to see what the poet saw and sometimes the insight, perception or feeling is so poignant that I lapse into a near stupor and vibrate sympathetically with the poem so to allow it to integrate itself within deeper realms of my consciousness.
I’m reasonably certain that if I gave it some more thought I could conger some more examples.
The point is that books are like women inasmuch as they are each unique and not always easily understood at first blush or even I identically grasped, if you get my point.
Anonymous said:
Nabokov is always right. I’ve been re-seeing movies that I saw before I was 12. (Sample new perceptions: Easter Parade was in color?! The Greatest Show on Earth was about people not the circus. Limelight was about people not the circus or the ballet. The Red Shoes was about leaning in, not ballet. Shane and High Noon are about ethics and values not about horses, children, shootouts, or bad guys.) He doesn’t mention movies which MIX words and images. We perceive films the way Nabokov says we perceive paintings, AND we decode them with our linear brains too. Re-seeing a film uses both sides of the brain and does not compare w/ re-reading!
I am too busy seeing films and reading books I haven’t read/seen once to re-read anything. When I finish Dickens and Henry James, I’ll let you know so that you can ask this question again. But to answer your question, I think a technique to use in deciding what to re-read is to put this question to yourself, “Do I remember this book as being a positive or negative experience? What do I remember? How much do I remember? If I can’t remember, am I homesick for this book?” That’ll guide you. And of course now I’m homesick for Lolita which I have not read since 1967
Elizabeth said:
I’m not sure if anyone who is not a Boston Globe subscriber can read this essay in full, but it is a lovely reminder of the joys of rereading in our later years what we perused in our youth: http://www.boston.com/2013/01/24/wickersham/23bPu9r4l2sGfodwkwfBbK/story.html
Land W said:
How I read a book depends on what I think the author’s purpose was in writing it. If the purpose wasn’t serious, if the author did not have the ability or take the time to write clearly, if the editor didn’t remove the stuff that doesn’t move the book forward or present ideas that are at least little different, then I rarely rarely reread.
But if the author was serious about the writing and reasonably competent, I will often reread either the whole book or parts of it. Which depends on what type of book it is—books that tell a story need to be reread from the beginning. Books that present facts or explanations or arguments or make specific points can be reread in sections.
After reading thousands of books over many years, I find that fewer and fewer new books fall into the “must reread” category. But this has given me the time and incentive to reread old books that I really liked. I recently reread “Huckleberry Finn”. I can’t say that I had new insights into life in Mississippi many years ago but the old insights were more than enough to keep me reading.
And I disagree with Nabokov about the differences in reading a book and looking at a painting (which is an inexact analogy because a book moves forward page after page but a painting, for the most part, simply hangs there). When I am reading, the story flows before my eyes like a movie, but this is a movie that I am casting, directing and reviewing. It is far more personal that a commercial movie–I decide what the characters look like and how they dress and move. I decide what the set looks like, what sound effects are heard, even what smells are smelt.
Occasionally a picture or scene appears that is as real as a painting (or reality) and I take the time to study it, often from many angles. Think of the scenes of Ann Frank shut up in her room or Gandalf confronting the Orcs.
Reading a book has little to do with the way the eyes are moving but is about the way the mind is moving.
Land W. (since we are now using initials for last names)