Are You a Re-Reader?
Are there books that you’ve read so many times, you can open them to any page, randomly, and know exactly where you are in the narrative?
I am definitely a re-reader, though as I write this, I’m realizing that the books I’ve read and re-read so many times are all books I had read by middle school. Sometimes, I’m just sitting somewhere, minding my own business, and one of these books will call out to me. I wonder, is it the writing itself, or the simplicity of the story, that makes it so easy for me to return, again and again? What is so comforting about these books, that is lacking in the majority of the books that I read today? Is it the happy ending? I’m not sure.
I decided to test myself, to see, is this really true…can I really open these books to ANY page, and know what’s going on? Let’s find out.
1.Chronicles of Narnia. Any book. Without looking, I grabbed one from the shelf…it turned out to be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I opened it to page 80, and found this:
At first he tried to do it too quickly, slipped on the steep grass, and slid for several feet. Then he thought this had carried him too far to the left – and as he came up he had seen precipices on that side.
OK, maybe without actually holding the book, feeling the weight of it, knowing how far into the story I was, I might not be able to do this. But as it is, I know that Eustace is lost, and he’s trying to find his way back to the ship. Of course, he doesn’t. He finds himself very close to a dead dragon and its lair, and anyone who’s read the book can tell you that what happens next isn’t at all nice for Eustice, but it is absolutely instrumental in the development of his character. Actually, it is probably the singular most important thing that ever happens to him.
2. The Little House series. Any book. I randomly grabbed By the Shores of Silver Lake. Opened to page 133, and read:
“There’s flour and beans and salt meat and potatoes, and even some canned stuff, he told me. And coal. We can have the whole of it for nothing, just for staying out here this winter.”
This is where the family has moved to South Dakota, to the town that will later be DeSmet. But there’s no real town yet, and everyone else is going back East for the Winter. The Ingalls family has decided to stay for the winter, in the railroad surveyor’s house, where they enjoy such luxuries as canned peaches, and they end up taking in boarders and charging them money, which they hope can be used for Mary to use for college for the blind someday, in Iowa.
3. Gone With The Wind. Page 415.
“Yes, that’s the word. Dreadful. Our men had come back into Atlanta then and so our train was sent here. Well, Miss Scarlett, it wasn’t long before the war was over and, well, there was a lot of china and cots and mattresses and blankets and nobody claiming them.”
Scarlett has gone to Atlanta to see Rhett in her dress, made from the fabric of her mother’s green velvet curtains (I know, Carol Burnett comes to mind, doesn’t she?), only to be turned away, because he cannot get to his money, as he’s in jail. On the way back to the house, she runs into her sister’s beau, Frank Kennedy, and he’s telling her about how he came to open a little dry goods store, which , of course, gives her the idea to marry him herself in order to get the money to pay the taxes on Tara.
4. A Little Princess. Page 173.
“Perhaps,” she said, “to be able to learn things quickly isn’t everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.”
Oh, poor Sara. She’s quietly starving to death in the attic, and her friend Ermengarde has come to visit, and is feeling stupid because she can’t remember her lessons. Sara is promising to help her to remember them, and wants to make her feel that she isn’t a failure. This is the fateful night, the night that she learns that she has a true friend, a secret friend who cares for her….and of course, I had to finish reading the whole book right then, because I just KNOW how it ends, and it is very satisfying indeed…though it might have been moreso to my modern sensibilities had she made Becky more of a sister figure, and less of a servant. But perhaps that’s asking too much.
OK, re-readers out there, what book can you open, any page, and just KNOW where you are, and what’s going to happen? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
16 Comments
Ml
Wow, that’s awesome you can do that! I cannot, but maybe it’s because I’m not much of a re-reader.
Wendy
I’ve read Gone with the Wind at least 5 times – The Thorn Birds, curiously enough (while not high literature) is one that I have to re-read every 10 years – love it
Lotus
Wow, J, great post, great picture! No, I’m not a re-reader, but perhaps all that is going to change because I recently re-read ‘The Good Earth” (second time) and “Mme. Bovary” (for the third time) and found the experience highly rewarding. Soon I hope to make a list of those books I might like to re-read and get cracking on it. Great post, I think re-reading certainly has its advantages!
Py Korry
I think the only book I’ve re-read is Dune.
Beenzzz
I’m not much of a re-reader either. I think I re-read a couple of the Harry Potter books. It’s nice to escape reality sometimes. 🙂
Autumn's Mom
ugh, I can’t even get myself to be a one time reader. But back in the day and by that I mean as a cooped up teenager, I used to re-read. Anything by Stephen King. Remember S.E. Hinton? yea, I read those a lot. I can still remember the beginning of the Outsiders. “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house I had two things on my mind. Paul Newman and a ride home.” or something like that.
starshine
I am not a re-reader, however, I do watch certain movies over and over again: The Sound of Music, Sense and Sensibility, Legally Blonde, and of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. When the teacher says “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?” Ben Stein is taking roll the day that Ferris didn’t show up. Shortly after, a blonde teenie bopper says, “Um, my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. It sounds pretty serious.” 🙂
Random Kath
Any of the Little House books – I read those paperbacks to shreds before I passed them on to my youngest sister. Any of the Anne of Green Gables series – I still have those and go back to them as a bit of comfort food from time to time. A book of Edgar Allan Poe short stories that I’ve had since high school. Otherwise, I’m still trying to make my way to orginally read a huge stack of books I have by my bed . . .
Lalunas
None, I am not a re-reader. Sorry. But Py can quote any part of the Dune movie and probably the books if you give him a chance.
Maya's Granny
You come by it naturally, J. I have a group of authors that I have to re-read at least every time I move — it isn’t home until I have had the characters in those books in for a visit. And, as you know, I can pretty well tell you the stories and what it was about each one that attracted me. The complete works of: Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie (Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot), Terry Pratchett, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Mark Twain, and Andre Norton. Some individual books, like Eric Frank Russell’s Plus X. Many of these I read in high school, but some in college, and I didn’t discover Pratchett until about five years ago.
Black Belt Mama
I am not a re-reader at all, unless you count that I had to read To Kill A Mockingbird multiple times in order to develop lesson plans. I guess I always just have such a list that I want to read that I don’t get a chance to go back. There are just too many books I don’t have time to read right now.
ally bean
I re-read books once in awhile. I like Jane Eyre and To Kill A Mockingbird quite a bit. I’ve also re-read Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. But those are about the only ones.
Susan in Italy
Wow, that’s incredible; I only remember certain great novel first lines. Easy: “Call me Ishmael”. Hard: “As he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia recalled the day his father took him to discover ice”.
Kvetch
I have never re-read a book, but I think it’s a good idea. I know there are books that I loved 20 years ago and I am sure I would love them today. I feel so overwhelmed on a daily basis, although I read, it’s now rarely a novel, it’s usually something short that can be finished in one sitting or in snippets (which I guess means I could be reading novels). I may give it a try, and I may start with Jane Eyre.
sami
Okay, I’m a re-reader. Usually its the books that I hated to see end when I finished them. Here are a few: The Mirror, The Rift, The Diana Garibaldon series, Nora Roberts, Three Sister’s Island Trilogy, The Stand, just to name a few. I think it depends on where I am in my life at the time. Sometimes I get a totally different perspective the second time areound
Mama Bear
Gina
Yup, I’m guilty as charged. Not with every book, mind you, but Narnia ones are in there, as well as “The Little Prince” and a couple of sci-fi series.