- Hardcover: 260 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (1 Nov 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674062221
- ISBN-13: 978-0674062221
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.7 x 3.1 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 388,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
On Rereading
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Review
"An absorbing, detailed account of books [Spacks] has reread over the years...Among other highlights, Spacks is particularly good on Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, explaining why it is a low unpleasant book, and why, like most of its first time readers she was too busy laughing to notice this the first time round." --Prospect, November 2011
Product Description
After retiring from a lifetime of teaching literature, Patricia Meyer Spacks embarked on a year-long project of rereading dozens of novels: childhood favorites, fiction first encountered in young adulthood and never before revisited, books frequently reread, canonical works of literature she was supposed to have liked but didn't, guilty pleasures (books she oughtn't to have liked but did), and stories reread for fun vs. those read for the classroom. "On Rereading" records the sometimes surprising, always fascinating, results of her personal experiment. Spacks addresses a number of intriguing questions raised by the purposeful act of rereading: Why do we reread novels when, in many instances, we can remember the plot? Why, for example, do some lovers of Jane Austen's fiction reread her novels every year (or oftener)? Why do young children love to hear the same story read aloud every night at bedtime? And why, as adults, do we return to childhood favorites such as "The Hobbit", "Alice in Wonderland", and the Harry Potter novels? What pleasures does rereading bring? What psychological needs does it answer? What guilt does it induce when life is short and there are so many other things to do (and so many other books to read)? "Rereading", Spacks discovers, helps us to make sense of ourselves. It brings us sharply in contact with how we, like the books we reread, have both changed and remained the same.
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Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading and, Yes, Rereading, 29 Jan 2012
By Timothy Haugh - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: On Rereading (Hardcover)
Those of us who read extensively are also apt to be rereaders. There are a number of writers out there who have written on the experience of reading. The number of writers who have tackled rereading, however, is much smaller. For that alone, this book is a worthwhile endeavor. The fact that it is also a pleasurable read is a bonus.To be honest, though Professor Spacks is trying to analyze the experience of rereading, this is not what makes the book most engaging. It is the simple encounter with what she has read and what she considers worth rereading. She enjoys Alice in Wonderland. I've never liked it much and recently tried reading it aloud to my daughter over a couple weeks but stalled out around chapter 8. She can't make it through The Chronicles of Narnia again, whereas I have read them through more times than I can count. She and I agree that The Catcher in the Rye is not a very good novel. She has a passion for Austen; I have a passion for Dickens.
And, again, despite the topic here, it is interesting to read through her analyses of various books that I have never read. She has the advantage of having spent a career in literature extending back into the 1950's, so it's no surprise that her reading list is much more extensive than mine. But she doesn't hang it over the head of her reader. She also acknowledges that, as a teacher of literature, some of her rereading is done professionally, and this impacts her interpretations.
Any complaints I have about what I encountered here are small, and mostly matters of argument it would likely be interesting to take up with Professor Spacks, if we ever have the chance to speak. I, for example, am not a believer in the category of "guilty pleasures" and I certainly would not included Wodehouse as an author that deserves that appellation even if I were. I also feel warmer towards the concept of "reading together" than she seems to be, if for no other reason than that I often find the pleasure of book discussions to be a great as that of reading itself (which is one of the main reasons this book itself is so pleasurable--the conversation I am able to carry on with the author about these books). On the other hand, I was right with her on the concept of "books I ought to like". There are plenty of things people tell me I should love to read that do nothing for me.
As to the main theme of the book: Professor Spacks seems to come to one main conclusion that stands out in my memory. Unless we are a professional, we reread to relive a previous pleasure. The previous experience of reading pleasure leads us to the expectation of a repeated pleasure by rereading. Of course, each time we reread, we are different and so our experience of even a well-known book is different. This can be good, if the book still speaks to the person we are, but can be a disappointment if we can no longer find meaning in what we once did. Both experiences are familiar to the rereader. We can find new depths in some books but we can also be left wondering what it was that attracted us to a book in the first place.
At this point in my life, and on this first read, I feel that Professor Spacks has written a book of great depth and interest. As time goes on, I hope to be even more widely read than I am now. That gives me hope that if I ever decide to dip into this book again, it will reveal even more to me. Only time will tell.
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