In Defense of Re-Reading

I’ve heard people say countless times that life is too short to reread a book. They might even say they have read so many thousands of books since adolescence.  That is certainly admirable.  But do you really remember a book’s contents after, say, twenty years after you read it? If so, well, that is admirable as well.  I have to admit, if someone says that truthfully, it makes me envious. I have read, yes, thousands of books since my adolescence.  I don’t remember all of them beyond a short synopsis.

This idea came up when I started reading Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes last weekend.  I remember reading it when I was senior in high school. Maybe I was a freshman in college.  Nevertheless, I knew I read it, but couldn’t remember anything about it other than a brief synopsis: “It’s about a dark carnival that comes to a small town.” I remembered the setting of the book, the two young boys at the center of the story, the carnival, of course.  The Cliff Notes version would have more details than what I could recall.

So, like I said, I started reading it again.  The details are coming back to be as I progress.  There are details that I either forgot or didn’t pick up the first time I read it. It’s almost like reading it for the first time. And it is truly a wonderful and magical story. I’m glad I made the decision to re-read it.
So, my point of all this is that you shouldn’t be embarrassed or shamed about rereading a book. I am finding that there are indeed details, and the story is rich with detail, are ones I didn’t pick up on the first time.

That being said, if you read a book ten, twenty years ago (or forty in my case) and want to reread it, do it.  You might find it very satisfying coming across parts of the story that were no longer in your memory.

On a personal note, there is only one or two books I have read multiple times.  One is Dracula by Bram Stoker, the other, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I read both of them for the first time when I was eleven or twelve, much to the consternation of my 5th grade teacher. I have read both of them every 5 years or so, each time gaining a new perspective on the story.

Life is too short to worry about what others think you should read, or reread. The important part is, if you are not in formal studies, to read as much as you want and what you want.

Another example.  Today I picked up a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (Le Nausee’).  I think I was in college when I read it. I was definitely in a Angsty Francophile phase. I also read Death on the Installment Plan by Celine as well.  I wanted to be like Larry Darrell in Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge and become an expatriate.  I may have even started wearing a beret and smoking Gauloises.  Anyway, I remember one or two elements of the story.  One is the man whose goal is to read every book in the library from A to Z.  But not much else. So, although I have a thousand books at least (no exaggeration) that I haven’t read yet, I am going to read Sartre’s Nausea instead. 
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I am sure I will get more out of it this time.