During the holidays, a friend loaned me several books to read. The first I picked up, A Redbird Christmas, by Fannie Flagg, was a delight to read. It wasn’t written to educate, just to entertain. And, it did.
After I put down that good read, I picked up a second volume . I was three-quarters through the book before I realized that I had read it before. Up until that point, no name, no incident, no character seemed remotely familiar at all. Once I realized that I had read it before, I put it down because I then remembered how it ended and I really didn’t care enough about the characters to continue. My daughter calls such books, “No brainers.”
Since that accidental experience, I’ve thought a lot about rereading books for the second, third or tenth time. There are books not worth rereading or even reading the first time. And then, there are books worth reading again and again.
Of course, when we’re studying an academic book, we often have to read and reread to retain all of the information. Even more, we may have to highlight passages, take notes in the margins and memorize facts.
Professor W. M. Davis in a lecture on the Harvard Classics, says, “Scientific essays, like those by Lord Kelvin on Light 1 and The Tides, 2 should be read several times by the studious reader, and each time from a different point of view. In the first reading, the reader seeks for information offered by the author; in the second, the reader examines the scientific method by which the author has gained his information; in the third, the reader’s attention should be directed to the style of presentation adopted by the author in telling his story. After an attentive study of Kelvin’s essays from these different sides, many a reader will find that he has made a distinct intellectual advance.”
It always amazes me that nonreaders can watch a movie or television rerun countless times, but scoff at people who read a book more than once. “You already know how it will end!” they exclaim, as if they didn’t with the video. With both mediums, we constantly surprise ourselves when we see something we missed the first time around.
And yet, those of us who now have the luxury of selecting what we want to read often find pleasure in a second or third reading of a novel or self help book or a collection of poetry. True, with a second reading, we already know how the plot will end; However, we can, with the turning of each page again, look closely at the craft of the author, the vocabulary used, or countless other lessons hidden between the lines. Authors, after all, are crafty people.
Reading, whether the material is contemporary, science fiction or history, can take us on adventures to other places, other worlds, other ideas. But I encountered another experience recently with the first reading of a book, Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg. The plot was simple; I felt empathy with the characters, but it was the setting that held my attention.
Set in Chicago during the early 1940s, it could have been any town or city in the U.S.A during that same time period. The author’s research into the daily sacrifices that average citizens made for the war effort brought back a flood of memories even though I was a child during World War II. For example, the protagonist has a brief discussion with a younger brother about some gum he has bought. He complains that he can’t blow bubbles with it and she explains how so much of what we once used in everyday life has now gone to the war effort. The boy has lost his bubbles to the war.
With the discussion, the boy then feels remorse that he has spent a few cents on a pleasure for himself when he could have helped the war effort by putting that money toward a war bond. For a second time, I was a child sitting on that porch step, complaining that the gum wouldn’t blow bubbles and feeling guilty because I had spent a penny. It wasn’t a second reading for me, but this vicarious experience vividly returned me to a time I had experienced in real life.
In a Reader’s Digest article, a reporter asks actor Denzel Washington what he was reading. Washington responded. “Books? I don’t have time. Except for the Bible, the No. 1 bestseller...I read the Bible every day. I’m in my second pass-through now...It’s better the second time around.”
Washington certainly isn’t alone in his choice of reading material. The friend who loaned me books had started reading the Bible straight through for the first time. “It’s hard,” she said. Many people read selections from the Bible daily; some read it page by page, like Washington and my friend. To read the Bible is life-changing. And, I have found that a good commentary is invaluable in rereading the Good Book.
2008
Comments