What books seem to have been written to be re-read?
July 24, 2015 11:47 AM Subscribe
What books hold up so well to re-reading that it makes you suspect they were engineered that way? Are there examples of books that seem to be MUCH better on second reading? What kind of things did the author do to achieve that?
There are oodles of details in the Harry Potter series that all feed into the denouement that you'd just never pick up on if you didn't know where it was all going to end up.
posted by phunniemee at 11:54 AM on July 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 11:54 AM on July 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
Best answer: Dorothy Dunnett's books appear to be written to be reread: most of them involve a last-minute reversal of expectations that is very sneakily set up throughout the book but that isn't spotted by 95% of readers. It's fun to go back and reread, knowing how it all turns out, and seeing how the plot is set up.
They're also incredibly dense with plot, history, and literary allusions, so rereading is rewarding on those levels as well.
posted by suelac at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
They're also incredibly dense with plot, history, and literary allusions, so rereading is rewarding on those levels as well.
posted by suelac at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Isn't Infinite Jest deliberately written to be started again immediately?
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2015 [21 favorites]
I remember this about the (original) Bourne books. Like phunniemee said above, there are a ton of details that you would never pick up on the first time around. Like a good spy book, at the end you say "ohhhh that makes sense because of x" or "ohhhh that's why y earlier", and on the second reading there are even more of these. Lots of well thought out details.
posted by sillysally at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2015
posted by sillysally at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2015
Connie Willis's Blackout and All Clear (which are a single story published as two books) do this for me. They're nonchronological, and reading them a second time and understanding how everything fits into the overall timeline really shifts how the narrative works. YMMV, etc.
posted by MeghanC at 12:07 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by MeghanC at 12:07 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Any book with a non-linear narrative will benefit from a second reading.The Savage Detectives is one example that comes to mind, the middle part is very much informed by the last one.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:07 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:07 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Reading Don Quixote as a young person, a middle-aged person, and an older person are three very different experiences, all worth having.
posted by apparently at 12:08 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by apparently at 12:08 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
'Invisible Cities' and 'If on a winter's night a traveler' by Italo Calvino probably fit the bill.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2015 [15 favorites]
Nabokov's Lolita has a clever trick where the introduction refers to Dolores Haze by her married name, which is not revealed until the end of the book. So, to understand how the story ends, you have to begin rereading from the beginning. Very Nabokovian.
posted by chrchr at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by chrchr at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
I've read The Great Gatsby maybe 25 times? Not every year lately, but maybe every other year. The more you learn about history, and the practical life experience you gain, the more nuanced the novel reads.
Pretty much anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude comes to mind), Mark Helprin (especially Winter's Tale), and David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) absolutely fit your criteria.
Nthing Les Miserables.
posted by jbenben at 12:22 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Pretty much anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude comes to mind), Mark Helprin (especially Winter's Tale), and David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) absolutely fit your criteria.
Nthing Les Miserables.
posted by jbenben at 12:22 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Patrick O'Brian: resists all opportunities for cheap dramatic pay-off, drops verry subtle hints that reward only very close attention over ten-odd volumes, the better to devastate you completely years later. Also completely merciless in terms of demanding your intelligent cooperation in much painstakingly accurate medical, botanical and shipboard detail
posted by runincircles at 12:35 PM on July 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by runincircles at 12:35 PM on July 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
The Brothers Karamazov would fit the bill. Every time I read it there's so much more there.
I also feel that way about the works of Shakespeare. I'm a teacher, so there are certain plays I've taught 100+ times (I'm looking at you Romeo & Juliet) but there's always something new when I re-read it.
Gatsby, Lolita and Heart of Darkness all have similar reasons for why they are worth reading multiple times. The language is so, SO rich, and there is so much nuance that they all get better the more times I read them.
posted by guster4lovers at 12:36 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
I also feel that way about the works of Shakespeare. I'm a teacher, so there are certain plays I've taught 100+ times (I'm looking at you Romeo & Juliet) but there's always something new when I re-read it.
Gatsby, Lolita and Heart of Darkness all have similar reasons for why they are worth reading multiple times. The language is so, SO rich, and there is so much nuance that they all get better the more times I read them.
posted by guster4lovers at 12:36 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Praying for Sleep by Jeffery Deaver is a very different experience the second time through, once you know the deal.
Really, any novel with a major plot twist is going to be different the second time around, once you know the ending and what clues to look for.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 12:54 PM on July 24, 2015
Really, any novel with a major plot twist is going to be different the second time around, once you know the ending and what clues to look for.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 12:54 PM on July 24, 2015
Hopscotch by Julio Cortezar is written explicitly to be read at least twice; he provides different sets of page numbers.
posted by klangklangston at 1:09 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 1:09 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Gene Wolfe. Have to run but there is a good quick explanation of why somewhere on gwern.net
posted by grobstein at 1:16 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by grobstein at 1:16 PM on July 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Nabokov's Pale Fire needs to be read twice to grasp just how unreliable the unreliable narrator is.
posted by ostro at 1:22 PM on July 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by ostro at 1:22 PM on July 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
> Which is why I'll re-read Dorothy L. Sayers' works, but not Agatha Christie's
Even The Murder of Roger Ackroyd?
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:31 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Even The Murder of Roger Ackroyd?
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:31 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've felt this way about Camus' The Stranger. The initial reading reveals the plot and characters, but the real meat of this book is found in the second and subsequent readings. Although it obviously has a plot, its message is less about what happens and more about why it happens.
posted by mosk at 1:39 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mosk at 1:39 PM on July 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I read Watership Down almost every year around March. It's sort of the way I distract myself enough to get through those last couple weeks of winter. There's nothing better than a good adventure story with characters you absolutely adore (and who wouldn't adore wisecracking rabbits?!).
posted by WalkerWestridge at 1:56 PM on July 24, 2015
posted by WalkerWestridge at 1:56 PM on July 24, 2015
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears seemed designed to me to be re-read; it's sort of a puzzle of a book so when you re-read it (or even turn back to earlier parts when you're in the middle of it), you get a ton of "a-ha" moments when you realize why such-and-such character was really doing such-and-such a thing.
posted by holborne at 2:01 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by holborne at 2:01 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Infinite Jest, definitely, bears repeated reading. I also found that I can read and reread Wodehouse without any diminishment of delight. Also, Lucky Jim, which still leaves me wheezing with laughter no matter how many times I've already read it.
posted by Aubergine at 2:03 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Aubergine at 2:03 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine. When I reread this I noticed so many clues to the big reveal that I hadn't picked up on the first reading. Because I had assumed things were one way, I didn't notice the ambiguous language which could also mean they were another way.
posted by intensitymultiply at 2:03 PM on July 24, 2015
posted by intensitymultiply at 2:03 PM on July 24, 2015
Finnegans Wake (duh) is both specifically intended and constructed for re-(re-re-re-…)reading.
Nabokov ("one cannot read a book: one can only reread it") has already come up, but it would be unfortunate to leave out Ada. It's ridiculously loaded with obscure details, side-trips, and apparent distractions, many of which don't get referenced again or explained—sometimes very obliquely for things that simultaneously turn out to have been important—for hundreds of pages. Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer, has been working on annotating it since 1992 and is nowhere near done.
posted by Su at 2:41 PM on July 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Nabokov ("one cannot read a book: one can only reread it") has already come up, but it would be unfortunate to leave out Ada. It's ridiculously loaded with obscure details, side-trips, and apparent distractions, many of which don't get referenced again or explained—sometimes very obliquely for things that simultaneously turn out to have been important—for hundreds of pages. Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer, has been working on annotating it since 1992 and is nowhere near done.
posted by Su at 2:41 PM on July 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Similar to apparently's comment about Don Quixote, I think Brideshead Revisited holds up well when read at different stages of life. Possibly because it depicts distinct life phases that the reader can't fully appreciate until they've lived them.
posted by girlgenius at 4:51 PM on July 24, 2015
posted by girlgenius at 4:51 PM on July 24, 2015
You know, I'm a big proponent of rereading all those books you were forced to read in high school as an adult because frankly, I think they're wasted on kids. Teenagers do not have enough life experience to understand the subtlety of the words of Mark Twain. Or Shakespeare. Marquez and James and Smiley and Austen flower anew every time I reread them. I don't know if it's anything the authors consciously intended, just that great writing is eternal and speaks to the human condition, and as such, the works of Halldor Laxness and Kurt Vonnegut and Toni Morrison and Fitzgerald and Waugh and Steinbeck and Atwood and Faulkner and Flannery and Beowulf and Heloïse and Ovid just stand up to rereading because they intuit the texture of life and can be appreciated in different ways at any age and any walk through life.
posted by Queen of Spreadable Fats at 6:37 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Queen of Spreadable Fats at 6:37 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Obscure answer:
To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. It's nothing special per se, just that there's a lot going on at any given time in the story and it's rather satisfying to read it again with the basics down and really get to concentrate on all the details and line everything up mentally without losing track of something else. But that might just be me being a scatterbrain the first time...
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 8:28 PM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. It's nothing special per se, just that there's a lot going on at any given time in the story and it's rather satisfying to read it again with the basics down and really get to concentrate on all the details and line everything up mentally without losing track of something else. But that might just be me being a scatterbrain the first time...
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 8:28 PM on July 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
I tell myself I would love to reread Blood Meridian, because some of the language is quite beautiful, but the story is so grimy and mean and emotionally exhausting, I don't know if I will.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 8:30 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 8:30 PM on July 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Dune.
Holy crap, I've read it fifty or so times, and I find new stuff on each and every re-read.
posted by Sphinx at 9:17 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Holy crap, I've read it fifty or so times, and I find new stuff on each and every re-read.
posted by Sphinx at 9:17 PM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Wuthering Heights. Animal Farm. Yes to the texts you were forced to read in high school, there's a reason they're classics.
posted by Jubey at 9:47 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Jubey at 9:47 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Lighter fare: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. Multiple story lines woven together, non-linear, absorbing read. So sad when I got to the end, and then was delighted by the easter eggs there.
Much better than the movie.
posted by SLC Mom at 11:14 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Much better than the movie.
posted by SLC Mom at 11:14 PM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Aside from dense heavily detailed stuff (i totally agree with the aubrey/maturin mention above, i am obsessed with boats now and it is All PO'B's Fault) the books I return to over and over have really beautifully rich prose and turns of phrase that stay in my mind for decades. The Latin American trilogy by Louis De Bernieres is a good example of this.
also temeraire because it's aubreay/maturin with DRAGONS
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on July 25, 2015
also temeraire because it's aubreay/maturin with DRAGONS
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on July 25, 2015
Best answer: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton does this for me. It's a big (800+ pages) sprawling literary (2013 Booker Prize winner) historical mystery, and the intricacy of the structure (there are twelve main characters, each of whom embodies one of the astrological signs, and their interactions are all defined by the actual astrological movements of gold-rush-era New Zealand; the twelve sections of the book each get shorter in precise mathematical sequence) suggests that there is way more going on beneath the surface than anyone could catch in one read.
As the NYT review put it:
posted by teditrix at 8:02 AM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
As the NYT review put it:
It’s a lot of fun, like doing a Charlotte Brontë-themed crossword puzzle while playing chess and Dance Dance Revolution on a Bongo Board. Some readers will delight in the challenge, others may despair. I went both ways: always lost in admiration for this young New Zealander’s vast knowledge and narrative skill, sometimes lost in her game, wishing at times for more warmth, delighted by her old-school chapter headings (“In which a stranger arrives . . . ” “In which Quee Long brings a complaint before the law . . . ”), puzzled by her astrology, Googling everything twice and three times, scratching my head, laughing out loud, sighing with pleasure at sudden connections, flipping back pages and chapters and whole sections for rereadings, forging ahead with excitement renewed.(Also Slate review; author interview podcast.)
posted by teditrix at 8:02 AM on July 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I can't tell you how many times I've reread it. I pick up something new every time.
posted by SisterHavana at 2:10 PM on July 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by SisterHavana at 2:10 PM on July 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
Gravity's Rainbow and it will help if you use the wiki.
posted by adamvasco at 4:02 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 4:02 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
For the YA crowd, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. One of my all time favorites, and so, so clever.
posted by bibliogrrl at 6:25 PM on July 25, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by bibliogrrl at 6:25 PM on July 25, 2015 [10 favorites]
Also YA, The Queen's Thief series, especially the first two books. First you read them, and then you reread them while gently smacking yourself in the face every time you find some little detail or aside that clearly points the way towards... exactly the opposite interpretation of events you went with on the first read.
I'd also mention Capek's War with the Newts but that might be because I read it in 5th grade thinking it was an awesome alternate history novel about giant talking newts and then I reread it a few years later it was also an anticolonialist dystopian satire.
posted by bettafish at 7:40 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'd also mention Capek's War with the Newts but that might be because I read it in 5th grade thinking it was an awesome alternate history novel about giant talking newts and then I reread it a few years later it was also an anticolonialist dystopian satire.
posted by bettafish at 7:40 PM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have read John Crowley's Little, Big every year now for close to 20 years. I am positive it was written to be read, re-read, and then read some more.
I always discover something new, and my sense of wonder in the world is always renewed.
posted by jammy at 7:51 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
I always discover something new, and my sense of wonder in the world is always renewed.
posted by jammy at 7:51 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Name of the Wind, and its follow-up Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss fit this description. These are examples of very well-written fantasy that I've really enjoyed even though I'm not a fantasy lover. Rothfuss is excellent at building his world, and buries hints/secrets/foreshadowing many layers deep. I've read the books at least 4-5 times each, and I've seen people posting online who have read them 10+ times. This may be a bit much, but they're deeply satisfying.
Be warned, that these are just two books of a trilogy, and that there isn't yet a definite date for the release of the third book. (This is possibly why people read the first two books over and over again, to speculate and re-speculate while we wait).
posted by taltalim at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Be warned, that these are just two books of a trilogy, and that there isn't yet a definite date for the release of the third book. (This is possibly why people read the first two books over and over again, to speculate and re-speculate while we wait).
posted by taltalim at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Another YA novel written specifically to be re-read because of SURPRISE TWIST ENDING is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Once you reach the twist you start to weep uncontrollably, and then when you reach the end soon after you immediately have to go back to the first page while rubbing cucumber slices on your eyes.
posted by brina at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2015
posted by brina at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2015
> "Dorothy Dunnett's books appear to be written to be reread: most of them involve a last-minute reversal of expectations that is very sneakily set up throughout the book but that isn't spotted by 95% of readers."
Dunnett's "A Game of Kings" was the book that instantly sprang to my mind in response to this question, for just this reason.
posted by kyrademon at 8:15 AM on July 27, 2015
Dunnett's "A Game of Kings" was the book that instantly sprang to my mind in response to this question, for just this reason.
posted by kyrademon at 8:15 AM on July 27, 2015
Each time you reread the Illuminatus! Trilogy, you understand more of it. And less of it.
Whenever a niece or nephew of mine reaches a certain age* and is of a particularly inquisitive and intellectual bent, they get a copy of the Phantom Tollbooth from me. I first read it as a ten-year-old and never tire of it.
* “Seventeen!” shouted the bug, who always managed to be first with the wrong answer.
posted by delfin at 9:38 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]
Whenever a niece or nephew of mine reaches a certain age* and is of a particularly inquisitive and intellectual bent, they get a copy of the Phantom Tollbooth from me. I first read it as a ten-year-old and never tire of it.
* “Seventeen!” shouted the bug, who always managed to be first with the wrong answer.
posted by delfin at 9:38 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]
Two books:
I'm not one of those people who says "I don't have time for fiction", but I'm a scientist with a short attention span, so fiction isn't really my thing. With that in mind, I reread The Shipping News by Annie Proulx because the language and craft has a richness which blows me away. I first heard it read on the BBC via shortwave radio several decades ago and was astounded.
Also, Charlotte's Web by E. B. White because it's a profoundly great work of art.
posted by MacChimpman at 11:35 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm not one of those people who says "I don't have time for fiction", but I'm a scientist with a short attention span, so fiction isn't really my thing. With that in mind, I reread The Shipping News by Annie Proulx because the language and craft has a richness which blows me away. I first heard it read on the BBC via shortwave radio several decades ago and was astounded.
Also, Charlotte's Web by E. B. White because it's a profoundly great work of art.
posted by MacChimpman at 11:35 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
I recall reading a book which might have been translated from Russian where a boy offers a confusing narration of events. At the end of the book he tries on a pair of glasses of a friend and it becomes clear that he has been unable to see. You then need to re-read the book. I cannot recall what the book was called.
posted by bdc34 at 11:44 AM on July 27, 2015
posted by bdc34 at 11:44 AM on July 27, 2015
The Quincunx
The protagonist is kept in the dark throughout the novel, and so the reader must infer what is really going with the conspiracy that surrounds him.
posted by Eddie Mars at 1:41 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
The protagonist is kept in the dark throughout the novel, and so the reader must infer what is really going with the conspiracy that surrounds him.
posted by Eddie Mars at 1:41 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
Certainly this was deliberately true of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
posted by willF at 2:16 PM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by willF at 2:16 PM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
I just re-read To Kill a Mockingbird for the umpteenth time; I think it bears re-reading every few years. I certainly pick up on things I missed every time.
posted by sarcasticah at 3:56 PM on July 27, 2015
posted by sarcasticah at 3:56 PM on July 27, 2015
I read Bujold's Shards of Honor eight times in the first week I had it and several times a year in the ten years after that.
But that probably says more about me than about the book.
posted by Bruce H. at 4:06 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
But that probably says more about me than about the book.
posted by Bruce H. at 4:06 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh my goodness, I don't know why I didn't think of this first - Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec.
It works to read straight through from cover to cover. It works to jump from chapter to chapter. To dip into and dip out of. teditrix's description of The Luminaries brought this to mind immediately. To call LAUM non-linear isn't doing it justice. It's a series of vignette's - some short, some long - interspersed and linked, mundane and meaningful, frightening and serious and funny. Throughout the book, the histories of a few of the characters trace a path, and establish a firmer grip than all the rest. But all of the waypoints are delightful too.
I've recommended this book to many people who have trouble getting into it. Perec describes a lot of rooms' physical properties in excruciating detail (he actively worked to eliminate the notion of narrative symbolism). But if you don't worry too much about remembering the details, and once you can get past page 50 or so, then this book is an utter treat.
Bonus: Perec includes multiple indices to help you keep track of the various characters, rooms, and plotlines, to make re-reading not only more satisfying, but less difficult as well.
posted by taltalim at 4:38 PM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
It works to read straight through from cover to cover. It works to jump from chapter to chapter. To dip into and dip out of. teditrix's description of The Luminaries brought this to mind immediately. To call LAUM non-linear isn't doing it justice. It's a series of vignette's - some short, some long - interspersed and linked, mundane and meaningful, frightening and serious and funny. Throughout the book, the histories of a few of the characters trace a path, and establish a firmer grip than all the rest. But all of the waypoints are delightful too.
I've recommended this book to many people who have trouble getting into it. Perec describes a lot of rooms' physical properties in excruciating detail (he actively worked to eliminate the notion of narrative symbolism). But if you don't worry too much about remembering the details, and once you can get past page 50 or so, then this book is an utter treat.
Bonus: Perec includes multiple indices to help you keep track of the various characters, rooms, and plotlines, to make re-reading not only more satisfying, but less difficult as well.
posted by taltalim at 4:38 PM on July 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. It's written in two streams, one going forward in time and the other backwards. Both streams reference events in the other one in a totally out of sequence fashion, so the references frequently don't make a lot of sense or are easy to miss. You need to understand the events described at the end of the book to understand the import of events described at the beginning. It's a completely different story on the second read than it is on the first one.
posted by langtonsant at 6:14 PM on July 27, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by langtonsant at 6:14 PM on July 27, 2015 [7 favorites]
Ulysses gets my vote. And MacBeth and Hamlet.
Each of these works rewards re-reading because of the beautiful use of language. You may know the plot inside and out, but the sheer pleasure of the words cascading into your ear. Wooo!
posted by storybored at 6:33 PM on July 27, 2015
Each of these works rewards re-reading because of the beautiful use of language. You may know the plot inside and out, but the sheer pleasure of the words cascading into your ear. Wooo!
posted by storybored at 6:33 PM on July 27, 2015
a) When I got about half-way through Trainspotting, I thought I should start reading it again (even before finishing), because most of the dialect finally was making sense.
b) I did read The Great Gatsby again, 35 or 40 years later, to see if I disliked it as much the second time. Yep. (I guess I don't think much of beating on against the current, ceaselessly into the past.)
c) I gave up on The Shipping News the first time, but then – after I spent seven years as a boat tour guide, hanging out with an unusual group of whale watch/maritime academy types – it really appealed to me, and went quickly, when I started again.
d) The book I used to read every summer on vacation, as a teenager, was the endearing No Time for Sergeants. Never got tired of it.
posted by LeLiLo at 7:54 PM on July 27, 2015
b) I did read The Great Gatsby again, 35 or 40 years later, to see if I disliked it as much the second time. Yep. (I guess I don't think much of beating on against the current, ceaselessly into the past.)
c) I gave up on The Shipping News the first time, but then – after I spent seven years as a boat tour guide, hanging out with an unusual group of whale watch/maritime academy types – it really appealed to me, and went quickly, when I started again.
d) The book I used to read every summer on vacation, as a teenager, was the endearing No Time for Sergeants. Never got tired of it.
posted by LeLiLo at 7:54 PM on July 27, 2015
If On A Winter's Night a Traveller by Calvino begs to be read then re-read .... and maybe read again.
posted by chris88 at 11:12 PM on July 27, 2015
posted by chris88 at 11:12 PM on July 27, 2015
The Third Policeman reveals greater depth, profundity and hilarity with every rereading. The craft of the writing is almost beyond belief - the book's depth and complexity are particularly well smuggled into what feels like a light breezy read.
posted by coleboptera at 12:31 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by coleboptera at 12:31 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seconding anything of Shakespere, Jane Austen or Mark Twain, as well as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Also most of Conan Doyle, especially but not only his Sherlock Holmes stuff.
posted by easily confused at 6:29 AM on July 28, 2015
Also most of Conan Doyle, especially but not only his Sherlock Holmes stuff.
posted by easily confused at 6:29 AM on July 28, 2015
All Creatures Great and Small (and the like) by Herriot.
Almost goes for The Stand or It by King or the LOTR books by Tolkien.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:57 AM on July 28, 2015
Almost goes for The Stand or It by King or the LOTR books by Tolkien.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:57 AM on July 28, 2015
All of the Thomas Pynchon books I've read are like this, especially V. His writing is so dense that there's no way to absorb it all on one read-through. This seems intimidating, but I think it's best to allow yourself to be pulled along by the current and not worry about missing every single detail along the bank as you are swept along.
posted by picea at 9:18 AM on July 28, 2015
posted by picea at 9:18 AM on July 28, 2015
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. It follows a young woman going through college and on the first read, she seems to sort of wander and pay attention to all sorts of things. These all come together by the end, and on re-read, you can follow way more of them and understand so many of the things that are happening, and how they are connected.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:41 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:41 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
Oh, yes! In fact, all of Pamela Dean's novels are like this. They're often very difficult to understand on first read (or the second, or the third--I've kind of given up on understanding Juniper Gentian and Rosemary), because the plot is in the subsurface of the text.
posted by suelac at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh, yes! In fact, all of Pamela Dean's novels are like this. They're often very difficult to understand on first read (or the second, or the third--I've kind of given up on understanding Juniper Gentian and Rosemary), because the plot is in the subsurface of the text.
posted by suelac at 10:35 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet.
Rereading: The Alexandria Quartet
Rereading: The Alexandria Quartet
It is actually neither specific nor precise about anything. It was an experimental novel of its day, perhaps related to the work of Durrell's friend Henry Miller, perhaps to Ulysses. It was based on the premise that people and events seem different when considered from different angles and periods, and that they can best be recorded, as Durrell himself put it, stereoscopically. The four volumes concern the same characters, but each of the several narrators tell the novels' complex tales from their own viewpoint, and they write at different times. It is a device, Durrell claimed, amounting to a new concept of reality, reflecting the ideas of Freud and Einstein and a convergence of western and eastern metaphysics.posted by Kabanos at 11:59 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Gene Wolfe tells of how he first read The Fellowship of the Ring:
posted by straight at 12:09 PM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
You are not likely to believe me when I say that I still remember vividly, almost 50 years later, how strictly I disciplined myself with that book, forcing myself to read no more than a single chapter each evening. The catch, my out, the stratagem by which I escaped the bonds of my own law, was that I could read that chapter as many times as I wished; and that I could also return to the chapter I had read the night before, if I chose. There were evenings on which I reread the entire book up the point — The Council of Elrond, let us say — at which I had forced myself to stop.I'm pretty sure that some of Wolfe's books are written for an ideal reader who re-reads the entire book up to the point of starting each new chapter.
posted by straight at 12:09 PM on July 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
1. I jumped in to make sure Gene Wolfe was discussed. hurrah. Squirrelly plots aside, His narrators are unreliable. Books with unreliable narrators are going to bear a lot of rereading.
1.a. Also, I looked up gwern.net due to a comment above and saw a Borges/Watts mashup. holy cow.
2. I end up rereading some some of the Terry Pratchett books. They are comfort rereads but what makes them so compelling might be the emotional insight and wisdom. Particularly in The Wee Free Men. that is my favorite YA novel.
posted by bleary at 8:17 AM on July 29, 2015
1.a. Also, I looked up gwern.net due to a comment above and saw a Borges/Watts mashup. holy cow.
2. I end up rereading some some of the Terry Pratchett books. They are comfort rereads but what makes them so compelling might be the emotional insight and wisdom. Particularly in The Wee Free Men. that is my favorite YA novel.
posted by bleary at 8:17 AM on July 29, 2015
A Song of Ice and Fire is an example of a series where you don't fully understand early references until certain reveals are made later in the series. Some things are quite subtle, like a character's choice of one word over another will later be revealed to have import.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:21 AM on July 29, 2015
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:21 AM on July 29, 2015
Seconding The Quincunx. The last sentence of the book contains a small mistake. The moment you realize that's no mistake is the moment you realize you need to reread the entire book.
posted by grimmelm at 8:36 PM on July 29, 2015
posted by grimmelm at 8:36 PM on July 29, 2015
When I was in my first year of grad school, I got really obsessed with the idea that books had different shapes. I remember arguing that Moby Dick was shaped like a circle, because the first chapter can actually be read as taking place last in the narrative timeline (VERY arguable, don't cite me.) So, you'd finish Moby Dick and turn back to the first chapter and read it as the last, at which point you'd begin the novel again, and read it continually and obsessively in the same way that Ishmael returns obsessively and repetitively to the subject of the whale.
That's more like a Mobius Strip, now that I think about it.
Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow, I argued, were shaped like rainbows, in that the books' first chapters could also be read as their last (this is true; both books are told out of order, and the events of the first chapters happen late in the books' narrative timelines) BUT a chunk of the narratives are missing: major events in both books are left undescribed and have to be inferred by putting together clues seeded throughout the books; clues which can only be understood after the entire book had been read. So, just like a rainbow is an circle that is interrupted by the Earth so as to form an arc, so too these books are circular narratives which have been interrupted. And of course the arc is also the shape of the bomb as it is launched and falls, which is determined by gravity, Gravity's Rainbow, which is also a circle, and circles are infinite, and it's called Infinite Jest OH MY GOD YOU GUYS EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER. (Now that I think about it, maybe I didn't come up with that idea about Gravity's Rainbow - I might have only extended it to IJ.)
Anyway, point being, Moby Dick, Gravity's Rainbow, and Infinite Jest are all books worth reading at least twice, if not over and over again, forever, and your first year of grad school can sometimes be basically indistinguishable from being high.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:05 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's more like a Mobius Strip, now that I think about it.
Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow, I argued, were shaped like rainbows, in that the books' first chapters could also be read as their last (this is true; both books are told out of order, and the events of the first chapters happen late in the books' narrative timelines) BUT a chunk of the narratives are missing: major events in both books are left undescribed and have to be inferred by putting together clues seeded throughout the books; clues which can only be understood after the entire book had been read. So, just like a rainbow is an circle that is interrupted by the Earth so as to form an arc, so too these books are circular narratives which have been interrupted. And of course the arc is also the shape of the bomb as it is launched and falls, which is determined by gravity, Gravity's Rainbow, which is also a circle, and circles are infinite, and it's called Infinite Jest OH MY GOD YOU GUYS EVERYTHING IS COMING TOGETHER. (Now that I think about it, maybe I didn't come up with that idea about Gravity's Rainbow - I might have only extended it to IJ.)
Anyway, point being, Moby Dick, Gravity's Rainbow, and Infinite Jest are all books worth reading at least twice, if not over and over again, forever, and your first year of grad school can sometimes be basically indistinguishable from being high.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:05 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
It makes me very, very sad that no one mentioned one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century and a personal favorite of mine, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. It is certainly one of the major reasons Mann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. I know Mann wanted readers to read it twice, because he specifically said so. And it really rewards the (tough) first read to read it again, immediately after finishing it. Mann does a lot of amazing things in this book, but one of my favorites is that he messes with your sense of time, building in that weird slippage you feel in your instinct for elapsed time when you are sick. A lot of Magic Mountain is about sickness, obviously because it is set in a tuberculosis sanitarium, and in much less obvious ways, and it is also about time -- how time is felt to pass, how time and narration relate, what events in past time (history) inform the current time (the present), and the links between space and time. It is about more, too, but the way Mann plays with the themes of time and sickness is something you pick up much, much more clearly on second reading.
Magic Mountain is a tome, but it is actually one of the best re-reading candidates ever, and definitely designed that way.
posted by bearwife at 5:42 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Magic Mountain is a tome, but it is actually one of the best re-reading candidates ever, and definitely designed that way.
posted by bearwife at 5:42 PM on July 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ogooglebar at 11:54 AM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]