Martin Amis on re-reading the authors whose voices you hear best:
I find another thing about getting older is that your library gets not bigger but smaller, that you return to the key writers who seem to speak to you with a special intimacy. Others you admire or are bored by, but these writers seem to awaken something in you.
For me the two, the twin peaks, like two mountains, are Saul Bellow and Nabokov. And those two I go on reading and rereading. And the great thing about the great books is that it’s like having an infinite library, because every five years you can read them again and the books haven’t changed but you have. And they seem to renew themselves, transform themselves for you.
So you can never say you’ve read a novel. Nabokov always said, funnily enough, you can’t read a novel, you can only reread a novel. If you listen to music, you don’t say, “That’s it.” If it speaks to you then you play it dozens of times, and you probably won’t like that piece of music until you get to know it. It’s the same with a novel. You have to know the kind of thing a novel is, you have to know what it’s about, and the second time you read a novel you can see how this is achieved.
When I teach literature I always tell them, these would-be writers (we don’t do workshops, we just read great books), I say, “When you read Pride and Prejudice, don’t if you’re a girl identify with Elizabeth Bennet, if you’re a boy with Darcy. Identify with the author, not with the characters.” All good readers do that automatically, but I think it’s helpful to make that clear. Your affinity is not with the characters, always with the writer.
4 comments:
Interesting how books reveal different things as we grow. I have read the LOTR several times over the decades, , starting around age 10 or 12, and each time was new.
On another note, I was in a used bookstore recently, and saw one of the series that used to be popular in the 50' and 60's- this particular one was aimed at boys, it was one of the "Rick Brant" electronic adventure books. ( one of the few that was actually written by one person, not as a generic publishing house release by varied authors) So on a lark I bought it to see what sort of reading Mom infused me with way back then. It was a revelation- the book presented a very sound world view- the characters affirmed what most of the Hall would recognize as "Solid American Values, including great respect, (but not pandering) to other races. The people were persons, not caricatures. And the writing was pretty accurate with respect to various topics, cultures, etc. The book was sort of an instruction manual for boys about respect, courage, enterprise, etc.
It felt like coming home again, down a lane to a place where the things we loved are safely secured.
Wow so true.
...........And the great thing about the great books is that it’s like having an infinite library, because every five years you can read them again and the books haven’t changed but you have. And they seem to renew themselves, transform themselves for you........
Funny, I thought this same thing last night while rereading the Gosple of Mark before bed.
Thanks Texan
- Mississippi
I find another thing about getting older is that your library gets not bigger but smaller....
Maybe I'm not aging properly. Since I started writing a few years ago, my library has grown by about 25%, and it's still growing.
And I still reread books that I already have--guys like Thomas Paine, John MacDonald, Robert Parker....
Eric Hines
I'm old enough now that I don't have to wait five years to re-read my favorites.
Raven--I proof a lot of "juvenile" books from the early 20th century on Project Gutenberg. They're charming. Some are a little cloying or didactic, but most are as you say: solid characters in a story that's teaching the value of character. The grownups are a mixed bag--some villains but plenty of solid citizens setting good examples--instead of the typical modern YA novel's incompetent parents and inconvenient obstacles experienced by ironic, depressed special snowflake teenagers.
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