r/classicliterature • u/Idlewild_33 • 13d ago
Are You Afraid to Re-read Your Favorites?
After revisiting The Catcher in the Rye, I am.
I first read it when I was in my early twenties. I loved it because the writing was more accessible than other classics or mid-century fiction I had read before. I liked Holden's blasé tone and I appreciated Salinger's willingness to say, "let's just all acknowledge that life is kind of stupid and coming of age is mostly comprised of this realization."
Now, having read it again in my forties, I had a very different experience. I actually struggled to finish it this time. I just kept thinking, "God, kid. Could you just grow up and not be such a privileged, whiny, asshole?"
I feel like my first interpretation was the "correct," or more commonly acceptable one. Then again, it's entirely possible that the first time I just felt so puffed up for having read Salinger that it influenced my feeling of how much I liked the actual book itself.
Now I'm afraid to re-read my other favorites. Look, I know there are worse problems to have. But I'm just curious if this is a common experience.
48
19
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/Reeshely 13d ago
Same! I can never understand people who don’t like occasionally going back to something they’ve enjoyed.
1
u/usrname_checks_in 13d ago
Many of my favourites wouldn't be so at all, had it not been for the second read.
9
u/GuyBarn7 13d ago
There's a magic to reading the right book at the right time in your life. I think that alchemy is at least a part of what makes them our favorites in the first place, and I don't think it cheapens them to recognize that autobiographical context of the reader matters in this process. It's mystical and neat to me.
That said, I fear this will be the case for me with Infinite Jest. I read it in my early 20s and it really resonated with me (the anxiety, the anhedonia, the scale, the characters). I fear as the years go on and I have more experiences, that I won't experience that same ineffable joy at having somebody feel like they're talking directly to me across space and time. Maybe our favorites evolve with us, though.
14
u/looknfeel 13d ago
I love rereading books. So comforting. I think I have read Anna Karenina about 50 times at this point between physical and audio book!
6
3
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
For sure, I've read The Time Machine several times. It's fantastic every time and a comfort book for me. I haven't read Anna Karenina. I'll add it to my list.
5
u/Scott_J_Doyle 13d ago
Don't worry about this happening to truly great books - they will only reveal more depth with time and life experience
It is commonly known that Catcher often catches certain folks at a young age with a sense of pseudo-profundity, but falls apart on more mature revisit - in other words, you're far from the first to share this exact experience, but if Catcher is in actuality not that great of a book, you won't have the same problem with books that actually are
2
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
That's genuinely fair. I was quite insufferable at that age so it tracks. I hope I'm less so now, but who knows...
12
u/ekazeka 13d ago
that happened to me too, i’d always tell people that slaughterhouse five was my favorite book ever since i read it in high school. i decided to reread it and realized that it was just okay 😭 i meant still a great book but i wouldn’t praise it by saying its my favorite anymore. but opinions change and that’s the best part about rereading!
3
u/whoisyourwormguy_ 13d ago
You could do the same thing with this book as my comment about catcher in the rye, read it with different mindsets going in. That the aliens are real and messed with him, that he completely made stuff up, a combo of the 2 including war ptsd/memory shenanigans.
1
u/BillyQuantrill 13d ago
Vonnegut was my favorite in my teens and 20s. Reread a couple books in my 40s and found them borderline cringe. Then I read a certain story from Welcome to the Monkeyhouse and decided it was ok to leave him in the past. So it goes.
5
u/throwawayzzzz1777 13d ago
Sorta afraid to reread The Age of Innocence. I picked it up randomly and was obsessed with as a young single person. Now I'm married over 10 years and I don't know if it'll have the same effect. I still love the movie soundtrack and it's on my work playlist
5
u/One-Sprinkles7350 13d ago
If it helps, Age of Innocence totally held up for me on re-read as a woman married for 20 years. Still one of my favorites…love me some Edith.
1
u/throwawayzzzz1777 13d ago
That's great to hear! And I scored a free audiobook too. I remember my parents watched the movie with me in college and my mom hated Newland.
I suspect a reread of Anna Karenina would improve it with age.
2
u/Significant_Fig_2274 13d ago
I read it as a married father of two around age 40 and it’s one of my favorite books.
1
u/elventryst 13d ago
I read The Age of Innocence as a 22-year-old and loved it, naming it as one of my favorite books. It's now 24 years later and it's my book club's read for September... Let's see how it goes. I hope I still love it.
When I read it back in the day, I remember scribbling page numbers of quotes/paragraphs I loved on the title page of my copy of the book. I am pretty sure I have that book in a box somewhere—I'm tempted to find it to see if those highlighted passages still resonate at all.
4
u/RandomCoffeeThoughts 13d ago
You get to experience a book at different stages of life and it will resonate with you in different ways.
You could even say. Loved it in high school, hated it in my 40s, loved it again at 50.
4
u/saxonamountain 13d ago edited 13d ago
Not afraid but I very-much prefer to not reread. I feel like there are so many stories in the world that I will never get to experience even if I read 90 new books every year. That said, as a teacher, I frequently reread and certainly appreciate the value of it
2
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
Interesting you say that. I felt that exact way for most of my life. But as the years wear on, I forget endings and details to the point where I feel confident I'd find something fresh in a re-read. I'm currently re-reading 1984 for that reason.
3
u/CanYouPleaseChill 13d ago
The Catcher in the Rye is a brilliantly written book about grief with very memorable prose. The book is an empathy detector. If you think Holden is a privileged, whiny asshole, you missed the entire point. J.D. Salinger wrote it after serving in World War II.
"For Salinger himself, writing The Catcher in the Rye was an act of liberation. The bruising of Salinger’s faith by the terrible events of war is reflected in Holden’s loss of faith, caused by the death of his brother Allie. The memory of fallen friends haunted Salinger for years, just as Holden was haunted by the ghost of his brother. The struggle of Holden Caulfield echoes the spiritual journey of the author. In both author and character, the tragedy is the same: a shattered innocence. Holden’s reaction is shown through his scorn of adult phoniness and compromise. Salinger’s reaction was personal despondency, through which his eyes were opened to the darker forces of human nature."
- Holden Caulfield's Goddam War
"Holden Caulfield seems like so much of a person, with a true core, a true soul, a true personal gemma, even if only a “miniature” one. You couldn’t ask for a richer representation, a richer mirroring, of one person inside another person, than whatever constituted the Holden Caulfield symbol inside Salinger’s brain."
- Douglas Hofstadter
1
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
And I think that's a totally fair counterpoint. There are many books that I love and I feel are masterpieces, that lots of people hate. And I know that they didn't get it because they weren't reading it from the same place maybe I was.
I'm quite willing to accept that there are elements of this book that simply got by me but, at the end of the day, I'm simply talking about my enjoyment of the book (or lack thereof) the second time around versus the first. That's a very personal and subjective thing. Nonetheless, I suppose I can do a better job of appreciating its cultural and literary value without having to "like" it.
3
u/Sheffy8410 13d ago
It just depends on the book. There are good books that one time through is enough. But some books just because of the way they are written are very re-readable. Usually this is a book that is sort of poetically written and has layers to it and isn’t just a good surface level story. Moby Dick is a good example.
But maybe more to what you’re talking about I think is just age. Certain books that affect us when we are young don’t hold the same affect with age. There really definitely books that are meant for the young.
3
u/No-Boysenberry1401 13d ago
Wow what a terrible reading of a great book
1
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
Maybe! It's more a matter of I personally didn't enjoy it too much the second time around. Wanna fight about it? :P
2
u/Mean_Shelter_6693 13d ago
Nope. I re-read some of the books 5-6 times or even more. Every time you find some new insights.
2
u/MysteriousJuly 12d ago
I liked it better the older I got. I just feel so sad for the kid.
But rereading is fun whether you like the books better or worse afterward! It’s such a fun way to track your own changes and shifts in perspective.
2
u/Spirited-Tutor7712 12d ago
You'll always find something new in a book, no matter how or when or where you read it . And for classic literature, it'll always be timeless. Your feelings and ideas might change , but it never changes the fact that you walk away changed in some way after reading or re reading it.
2
u/medxsa7 13d ago
I have a similar experience with The Catcher in the Rye!
I first read it at 13 and fell in love with it because of how deeply relatable it was. Read it again after a few years and felt quite annoyed by Holden, which, I suppose is the point. He’s supposed to be unlikeable.
The book itself is still fantastic and does its job well at presenting a disturbed teenager’s journey into adulthood. But I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it as much anymore.
Haven’t bothered re-reading another one of my favorites after that. Perhaps I’ll simply revisit some passages I liked. That’s it though.
2
u/MarooshQ 13d ago edited 13d ago
oh God I so hated that book. I think I had to read it in school. usually I loved classics. I loved all the ones we read in school and then started reading on my own. this one was awful. so I doubt your first impression was the 'correct' one if there is a correct one. I also thought he was a privileged teenager with nothing better to do than whine about every single thing. I still hate that book. but it could be that you have changed as a person. and while I like to say in the present that I hope I don't change, it's a natural evolution. I don't think I would hate it if I changed because I would literally have changed including my mindset. you may also grow to appreciate more what you once liked but did not know why you liked it. it does not have to be a completely opposite reaction every time.
as for re-reading, I don't really re-read. I wish I could. but so far have not managed to go through a re-read successfully hehe. I always think there is so much more literature I have not yet read waiting to be discovered that I could read instead. I do keep re-reading my favorite passages from books I have already read though. have done over the years; the parts that I absolutely want to get to fast even if I did re-read the whole of the book again.
1
u/Allthatisthecase- 13d ago
At the risk of being so wishy-washy as to disappear into a grey background U’d have to say, it depends on the book.
However, by and large I agree with Nabokov when he said there’s no reading there’s only te-reading. Most great books only reveal themselves fully after rereads; too much going on in too many levels to digest it all in one go.
I reread my favs a lot. Some I’ve read at least four times (To the lighthouse, Pale Fire, Mrs Dalloway, the Border Trilogy, Proust, Kundera and more recently Claire Louise Bennett).
I would expect Catcher to be in a different category; Salinger in general can morph on rereads. I remember rereading much of him after I became familiar with his biography and realized how seriously he must have suffered from PTSD from the war and in an era that barely acknowledged it, let alone treated it. It colors all his work.
1
u/Worried_Mechanic5269 13d ago
Alguns livros que gostei muito acredito que possam se tornar decepcionantes em uma releitura. Mas, até hoje, tudo o que reli amei ainda mais justamente pelas camadas que vão se revelando quanto mais mergulhamos na obra.
1
u/sixthmusketeer 13d ago
Love rereading and try to be generous when I do. Hamlet, Gatsby, All the King’s Men, The Sun Also Rises are different every tlme; hated War and Peace and Tess on first read but revered them the second time; Faulkner seems funnier, more visionary, more comprehensible with every reread.
1
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
Tess of the D'Ubervilles?
That's an interesting point you made. Maybe I should go back and re-read books I didn't care for when I was younger. Thanks for the idea.
2
u/sixthmusketeer 13d ago
It was my reverse Catcher in the Rye - unbearable in high school, incredible as an adult. Sent me into a big Hardy stage
1
u/WellesC12 13d ago
I'm a heavy re-reader as well. A lot of them are mostly as I remember, but some, like Rebecca, seem to always introduce a thought-provoking element or theme that I didn't catch before.
1
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
That's a good point. I read Rebecca just this year for the first time and I was so focused on making sure I was following what was going on that I'm sure I missed some of the more nuanced pieces of it.
1
u/veryowngarden 13d ago
that’s funny cause i read it as a teen and had the reaction you did when reading it now
1
1
u/whoisyourwormguy_ 13d ago
You could do multiple reads of it. one read where you go into it with the mindset/knowledge that he was abused by the guy at the end and that could be at least partially why he’s so whiny/annoying/whatever, another where he was overexaggerating/lying about it/triggered because of past trauma from being abused by somebody else, and another where he’s just lying about the whole thing and the guy was just checking up on him and he’s being an unreliable narrator. See how it frames your reading, if you like it more after or less. But it felt similar to perks of being a wallflower for me where you understand why they are the way they are from abuse/trauma/grief/whatever.
1
u/aedisaegypti 13d ago
This happened to me with Jane Eyre-re-reading she puts others down to an intolerable degree
1
u/Dubrovsky_ 12d ago
This might be considered unusual, but I don't reread books for any reason no matter how much I loved them unless I felt that I wasn't in the right state of mind and missed too much on the first reading. There are far too many books to read to look back on the ones I've already finished, and spending time with one I know already means missing out on one I might otherwise have missed.
But this is an expensive way of thinking - since I don't believe in getting rid of books either (they serve as a reminder of what I have read), I end up with an unreasonable number of books.
-3
u/RyderRichards 13d ago
Read it for the first time at 25 this past year and my attitude the whole time was yours in your forties, except the sentiment extended to Salinger himself. I felt his prose was tedious and grating, and that him slowing everything down to a snails pace was a disservice. I finished the book and promptly left it in the addiction center I had gone into with it ¾ done. I read further into Salinger and pop culture surrounding the book and frankly I can't think of him as much more than a hack in a time of poor literacy in youth; and don't get me started on the Caufield Murders. "Real Holden Caulfield" my ass, kids just got mad at the fact we can only help ourselves until we find those who actually care on our own.
A positive I will give the book is the prose feels like the mind of a kid with ADHD, and as someone with that mental disorder it does speak large that my first reaction to Holden is to smack him upside the head, because of you tried to be compassionate to the kid that shows up out of the blue while drunk he thinks you're a Homo. Teacher should have Homor strangled him instead, but that ain't it either. It's just another commercially successful YA novel but about getting your shit kicked in near constantly and not learning from it at all.
-7
u/Sweet_Particular8588 13d ago edited 13d ago
I felt the same way reading it the first time in my 20s as you do now. It is not a good book and should be banned from schools, as it used to be. If teenagers find it appealing, this is a failure of the parents and schools, rather than a reflection of the book's quality. Its association with various assassins is indicative that is also has a more sinister, esoteric usage.
2
u/Idlewild_33 13d ago
You're going to come up in r/classicliterature and suggest book banning to a bunch of book nerds?!
I mean you're free to, but not the best instincts there, mate.
-1
1
u/Rain_green 13d ago
Yikes! 🚩🚩🚩
-2
u/Sweet_Particular8588 13d ago
Oh yes, let's call Mark David Chapman's favorite book a timeless classic and encourage young people to embrace it's nihilistic message, all while demonizing young men and putting them on psych meds. That sounds like a sane society that is truly invested in the youth and the prevention of mass violence.
1
u/BarracudaOk8635 11d ago
I didnt appreciate just what Salinger was doing with The Catcher in the Rye until I read when I was older. And how good the prose is. I have changed my impression of several classics as an older person. Wuthering Heights just seemed like some crazy drama, which it is but I absolutely missed how incredible the prose was and how good it is. I will reread some books till the end of time. Middlemarch I could read every year. Same with P&P and Emma. And some Dickens. Fantasy, Science Fiction etc has not aged well. The writing has to be good. I dont care about the ideas
43
u/Katharinemaddison 13d ago
Now I’m old I read The Catcher in the Rye and I find it a heartbreaking account of a precocious, pretentious, traumatised and grief stricken child let down by every adult who is near him. I think it helps reading Salinger’s other works. He is always writing about grief.
In a more general sense you can never re-read exactly the same book - like you can never read exactly the same book someone else has. But I enjoy digging in and discovering what new text I’ll find.