Something Wonderful: Rereading Books

Being a list-maker and someone who prefers not to fly by the seat of her pants, I have a list of topics I might cover on my blog. As far as my “something wonderful” posts go, I want to cover books, music, movies, and other things that most of my readers may not have encountered. That means I plan to skip reviewing the stuff that everyone talks about, like the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” which is, indeed, wonderful… but you’ve already heard that from other sources, haven’t you?

Most of the things on my list are individual items (like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) or categories (like slow-burn sci-fi/fantasy romances). So far there has been only one concept on my list: rereading books. I wasn’t really sure, though, if I should bother to post about that. After all, rereading books isn’t that unusual, is it?

And then a friend of mine said to me, “I never reread books.” I decided I would go ahead with the post.

I have a book list that I will never finish. Right now it is more than 23 pages long, and I put books on the list at a faster rate than I remove them. It doesn’t help that I love to reread books, over and over again.

I do read most books only once, but there are many for which once is not enough. After all, if a book counts as “something wonderful,” why on earth wouldn’t I come back to it, particularly since I have a fairly poor memory for things that I don’t need to remember? Give me enough time, and I can safely reread a mystery, because I’ll have forgotten “who dunnit” and why.

Some books I’ve only reread once to date, like Dune, though I keep thinking it might be time to read it again. But many books I’ve read more than that. I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings four times each now, and I have no doubt that, given a long enough life, I’m not done rereading them.

Sometimes rereading a book is like visiting an old friend. Give me enough reads through a book like Emma and I will, despite my confessed poor memory for trivial details, remember a fair amount of what the book contains. I remember quite well how fussy Emma’s father is about the health of others and how he urges them to forego rich foods in favor of things like gruel, but I still love to curl up and read those passages again.

Sometimes I develop a new understanding of a character as I reread a book. The first time I read Jane Eyre, I simply saw Edward Rochester as a romantic hero. The second time I read it, I thought he was manipulative and even a little cruel. The third time I read it, I saw him as pitiful, doing the things he did because he was profoundly insecure. Each of these rereadings has given him a complexity of character that I wouldn’t have seen if I had stopped with my first reading.

Sometimes my rereadings deepen my appreciation for a book, particularly for really good children’s literature. I heartily agree with people like C.S. Lewis, who wrote: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” I think that we often rely on the children in our lives (our own children, nieces and nephews, or children we teach) as an excuse to read children’s books. But a really good children’s book needs no excuse and, indeed, if you haven’t reread a book like Winnie-the-Pooh since you were a child (or have never read it at all), you’re missing out.

For instance, when you were four and someone read Winnie-the-Pooh to you, you were probably amused, but some of the humor went right over your head, such as the statement that Piglet’s “grandfather had had two names in case he lost one—Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.” I firmly believe that, while Winnie-the-Pooh is a wonderful book to read to little kids, you can’t fully appreciate it until you are an adult.

Likewise, children are entertained by the adventures of Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad, and Badger in The Wind in the Willows, but they tend to miss some of the lyricism in Kenneth Grahame’s writing. The chapter “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” is so beautiful that musicians like Syd Barrett and Van Morrison have made references to it in album and song titles. Again, it wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I was profoundly moved by the religious awe expressed in that chapter.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corner; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!”

When passages like that exist, how can you not reread a book?

This week, think of a book you read once and loved. Pick it up again. Maybe you’ll gain new insights on characters or a new appreciation for the book, or maybe you’ll just re-experience the pleasure that led you to love that book in the first place. Whatever you find between the covers, I hope you will join me in believing that rereading good books is one of life’s great pleasures.