Reading differently at different ages

In my early 20s, I discovered Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, for example). I read all his books and revered him as a writer. He had a naked irreverence toward life. His writing was daring, bold, full of anger and honest social commentary.

Now I try to read it and I just see sexism and misogyny.

I'll bite. I could give a bunch of examples, but I'll give the first ones that spring to mind.

Huckleberry Finn has held up for me from childhood until today. When I was not even in kindergarten, my mother read it to me, doing all the voices in her best version of the various dialects (I can still hear her -- it is a fond memory). And I loved it -- enough so I picked it up on my own at around 7 or 8, and loved it even more. I read it again in high school, again in college, and one or two times since. And I still love it.

That said, a few things changed about my perceptions of the novel between childhood and today. Here's a big one: when I was a kid, I loved the part of the novel where Jim is imprisoned in the cabin, and Tom Sawyer comes up with a ludicrously complicated escape plan for him. I thought that was a scream, and I thought Tom Sawyer was a good egg for helping Jim escape.

On my college read, though, I found myself getting disgusted with Tom -- how cruel and selfish and thoughtless to risk Jim's freedom and put him through such unnecessary stress and discomfort. And I was annoyed at Huck for going along with it. I know he hero-worshiped Tom, but still -- the friendship he'd formed with Jim was deep and important, and damn it, he should have known better. And I was bit annoyed with my beloved Twain. I wish he'd had Huck rebel against Tom.


A book that didn't hold up so well for me was Gone with the Wind. Again, I read it for the first time when I was about eight, and a couple more times before I hit my teens. I thought Scarlett was the shit. She could do no wrong. I was happy I had black hair, green eyes, and white skin, just like her. Maybe I'd be a belle someday, too, when I grew up. I couldn't believe Rhett would leave her at the end -- I was mad at him, and mad at Margaret Mitchell for not writing a sequel where he came back on his knees.

I re-read it a few years ago. I appreciated one or two things I didn't fully appreciate as a kid -- e.g., the burning of Atlanta scenes are quite vivid, and while I found Ashley to be unattractively wimpy, I also found him rather an interesting character and one that rang true to me.

But -- I wanted to slap Scarlett for most of the book. Please, she couldn't see that Rhett was the hottie? Are you kidding me? And she couldn't see that Melly was her adored mother all over again? And she retained her passion for sexless Ashley almost to the end -- with Rhett there? Pfffft. And sorry, Rhett was no kid, he was pretty bright, and he had some experience under his belt. I can't believe he'd retain his passion for spoiled, shallow Scarlett as long as he did.

Also, though I in general don't have a hard time cutting authors slack for holding the prejudices of their time, I did find the racism in the book jarring on the adult read. Mainly it was the "slavery was better for them" attitude that's implied throughout. I mean, she was writing in the mid 1930s, not the mid 1830s. But I admit this didn't trouble me much when I was reading it as a kid.

Absolutely my perception of novels has changed over time as I have grown older.

Sometimes it's a matter of timing. I believe that some books you read too young – without the experience and hopefully some wisdom gained over the years, they fly right over your head and fail to engage you. I believe this is particularly true of quiet, deceptively simple books, where "nothing happens."

Other books, you read too old. Books full of excited passion (not necessarily romantic) full of energy and great ideas. Books that had I read when young would have excited me – but read in later years seem shallow, and with no heart.

I read Conrad's Heart of Darkness when I was 18 and didn't understand what all the fuss was about. I struggled through Moby Dick and thought it was vaguely interesting, but certainly no great work of literature.

Both, when I read them later in life stunned me with their brilliance. For me they do the hardest thing of all, something great poetry also does. They create a world and narrative that is indefinable and is far more then what the words on the page convey.

What they achieve is something ineffable, almost mystical, created by a magic that I don't understand. Those who do not perceive this magic find them boring and pointless, as did my younger self. Those who do see the magic may not be able to explain it and may not understand how it was done, but are deeply affected by it nonetheless.

When I was younger, Hemingway was my favorite author. The Sun Also Rises was my inspiration to be a writer. Later on, upon rereading it, I found it no longer moved or touched me – I still appreciate the writing which I think is brilliant, but the book itself seems a bit artificial and phony in a very real sense. I think it's a young person's book.

And then there are books which can be read at any time in life. You read them differently as a young person, someone later on in life, and someone getting on in years as I am now. It's almost like they are three different books, but you can end up enthralled by the book for different reasons at the different stages in your life. These books, the ones with staying power, that ones that can speak to you at any stage in your life, are rare and treasured.

One of my all-time favorite books is Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories. I've read it five or six times, and each time not only am I not disappointed, I am blown away by it -- but each time in a different way. I used to recommend it to people but have given up. Most people think it's okay but don't understand why I think it's so great. And that's fine, not every book is to everyone's taste.

However, I've been lucky. I've found more books that I like more as time goes by than books that I like less.

The Wombles series has held up over time for me. No, seriously. A group of beings that leave absolutely no carbon footprint, and in fact "tidy up" everyone else's? They were ahead of their time!

But on a more mature note...

A Tale of Two Cities has held up for me. It became my favourite book when I was 19 or 20, and now I'm in my mid-30s and still re-read it whenever I can. Also, pretty much anything by L.M. Montgomery holds up to re-reads from childhood into adulthood, especially the later Anne books, Emily of New Moon, and The Story Girl. I see so much more in-depth meaning in all of these books as an adult, but as a kid/young adult I enjoyed them at face value as a good yarn.

One that surprised me somewhat - Great Expectations. I used to call it Great Expectorations, I disliked it so strongly as a teenager, but I read it again recently and discovered that maybe it wasn't quite so bad.

Books that haven't held up - the first one that comes to mind is Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott. I loved it as a kid, but as an adult I realized that it was basically like reading a 12-year-old's fantasy life, and I have (thankfully) out-grown that mentality. That was a bit disappointing, and discouraged me from re-reading a lot of my old childhood/teen favourites. Once I started thinking about it, I went through a phase of reading that type of book and thinking they were spectacular.

I'm planning some re-reads in the near future of books that I didn't like when I was younger but should probably give another try - Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, Oliver Twist. I fully expect my opinions of them to have changed.

I made a conscious decision to put down The Chronicles of Narnia after I tried to re-read them as an adult. I loved those books as a child, absolutely freakin' loved them -- when the religious allegory went right over my head, unnoticed. But as an adult, the allegory was all I saw, and it struck me as preachy and shoe-horned in. To preserve my fondness for the books, I chose to not read them again.

As a teenager, my favourite books were Child of the Grove and The Last Wizard by Tanya Huff. I read and re-read them, and they always seemed so vivid and alive. Now -- and this may be a symptom of me trying to become a writer -- what I mostly see is adjective/adverb abuse. I can't drop into that world anymore because of the prose.

jjdebenedictis said:

I made a conscious decision to put down The Chronicles of Narnia after I tried to re-read them as an adult. I loved those books as a child, absolutely freakin' loved them -- when the religious allegory went right over my head, unnoticed. But as an adult, the allegory was all I saw, and it struck me as preachy and shoe-horned in. To preserve my fondness for the books, I chose to not read them again.

Click to expand...

+1

Only the writing has really changed for me. Stories and characters that I loved when young still hold up for me. I can't think of a case where one doesn't.

But writing I loved when young sometimes reads poorly, or horribly, now. I can't read Isaac Asimov or Roger Zelazny, to name two of several, now because the writing stokes me as hideously flat and boring.

jjdebenedictis said:

I made a conscious decision to put down The Chronicles of Narnia after I tried to re-read them as an adult. I loved those books as a child, absolutely freakin' loved them -- when the religious allegory went right over my head, unnoticed. But as an adult, the allegory was all I saw, and it struck me as preachy and shoe-horned in. To preserve my fondness for the books, I chose to not read them again.

.

Click to expand...

I'm the opposite with Narnia. I didn't much care for them when young, but when I read them again as an adult, they became some of my favorites. I flat out loved them. I still read them again every two or three years.

Another book that I didn't appreciate when I first read it was Walden. As an adult, however, I found it wonderful. It's now on my read every year list. So is Civil Disobedience, and Walking.

I find this happens far more often than the reverse. If I loved a book when very young, I probably still love it, even if the writing now appalls me. But there are many books that I hated when you that I love as an adult.

jjdebenedictis said:

I made a conscious decision to put down The Chronicles of Narnia after I tried to re-read them as an adult. I loved those books as a child, absolutely freakin' loved them -- when the religious allegory went right over my head, unnoticed. But as an adult, the allegory was all I saw, and it struck me as preachy and shoe-horned in. To preserve my fondness for the books, I chose to not read them again.

Click to expand...

CassandraW said:

+1

Click to expand...

Speaking of which, is your current avatar an allegory for "You're toast?"

Angry Guy said:

Speaking of which, is your current avatar an allegory for "You're toast?"

Click to expand...

I am being persecuted by jackboot mods. Again.

I never tire of reading Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (and I'm 54!) but few of my other childhood favourites have stood the test of time. My favourite book when I was about 10 was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, but when I re-read it a few years ago I found it unbearably twee.

William Haskins said:

daniel mendelsohn (not surprisingly, i reckon) discusses how 'a catcher in the rye' lost its luster over time

Click to expand...

Incredible. I had almost exactly the same experience. I read CITR once per year from when I was 12 to 16. At first, I loved Holden and thought he was really cool and insightful. By the time I read it in high school, I though he was a bit of a baby, and now I want to punch people like him in their snotty little noses.

In the other direction, I didn't think much of Huckleberry Finn when I read it in high school, but now it's one I'd take with me to a deserted island. The more I read it the more I see its intricacies.

Jamesaritchie said:

I find this happens far more often than the reverse. If I loved a book when very young, I probably still love it, even if the writing now appalls me. But there are many books that I hated when you that I love as an adult.

Click to expand...

It's this way with me. I can usually reconnect with whatever it was that attracted me to a book when I was kid or a teenager, and that lets me continue to enjoy it even if I'm seeing other things I didn't see before that I'm not such a big fan of.

The only book I can remember having a total change of opinion about was A Tale of Two Cities. I thought it was boring in high school and didn't understand why we had to read it. I decided to try reading it again in college, started it on the bus, and almost missed my stop. I was glued to that book and something about it really got to me the second time around. All the stuff that made no sense when I was a teenager suddenly had meaning.

jjdebenedictis said:

I made a conscious decision to put down The Chronicles of Narnia after I tried to re-read them as an adult. I loved those books as a child, absolutely freakin' loved them -- when the religious allegory went right over my head, unnoticed. But as an adult, the allegory was all I saw, and it struck me as preachy and shoe-horned in. To preserve my fondness for the books, I chose to not read them again

Click to expand...

+1. And I'm the same way with the first three Harry Potter books -- but the opposite for the final four. The writing in the early books makes me cringe these days, and now as an adult(ish) I have more appreciation for the more complicated and serious tone of the end of the series. Maybe that's what J.K. Rowling was going for?

Man, I remember reading Catcher in the Rye twice, once in middle school and once in high school. In middle school, I didn't think much of it. In high school, suddenly it became completely unbearable.

I haven't re-read a ton of books that I enjoyed when I was younger, but overall, I think my old favorites hold up well. My tastes and what I gravitate toward have changed, but I still think most of my old favorites hold merit. In a lot of cases, I feel like my understanding and appreciation has increased as I've gotten older and learned more about books' context. For example, I didn't really "get" Voltaire's Candide when I first read it, though I enjoyed the humor. Now I understand what Voltaire was satirizing better.

One of my favorite novels is The Picture of Dorian Grey, and while I enjoyed the story when I first read it at 16 or 17, I found I got so much more out of it on subsequent readings over the years. The story still holds up for me, but the themes about art, literature, and moral influence are fascinating to me.

What I find interesting is how my perception of length and complexity has changed over time. I mean, that's probably obvious, but it's still strange sometimes to pick up children's books that I remember from when I was 7. The print is so big! The story is so much shorter and simpler than I remember!

Jperez6 said:

+1. And I'm the same way with the first three Harry Potter books -- but the opposite for the final four. The writing in the early books makes me cringe these days, and now as an adult(ish) I have more appreciation for the more complicated and serious tone of the end of the series. Maybe that's what J.K. Rowling was going for?

Click to expand...

I hope not. I still think the writing in those first three books is as good as anyone ever wrote anything. It's as close to perfect as I can imagine. Rowling managed the almost impossible. She turned ink into real characters, used writing that matched the age of those characters perfectly, and still wrote books that hundreds of thousands of adults loved.

If you can write the way Rowling did in those first three books, and be at all original, you'll be rich and famous in nothing flat.

The story is richer, and has different mood and tone, in the later books, as you would expect from a great writer, but the writing is not quite as good. Still far above the norm, but not as perfectly matched to age and character as in the first three.

I can't help but wonder if yu don't just like the books more because the story is for older readers, rather than for the writing. None of the writing in any of those books should make anyone cringe. It's brilliant. Doubly so since Rowling actually knows what omniscient really is, and how to use it. Very, very few writer have a clue.

Jamesaritchie said:

The story is richer, and has different mood and tone, in the later books, as you would expect from a great writer, but the writing is not quite as good. Still far above the norm, but not as perfectly matched to age and character as in the first three.

I can't help but wonder if yu don't just like the books more because the story is for older readers, rather than for the writing. None of the writing in any of those books should make anyone cringe. It's brilliant. Doubly so since Rowling actually knows what omniscient really is, and how to use it. Very, very few writer have a clue.

Click to expand...

That's fair--I do like the story more than the writing itself, and maybe I was being a little hard on 1-3. It wasn't that the writing was bad, it was just different and more appropriate for MG and for the story itself. Just not my cup of tea.

I meant no disrespect. I was just saying (in probably the worst possible way) that I see the books differently than I did as a child. I mean, I treated Sorcerer's Stone like the bible of literature for years. Now that I've read a few more books and started the lifelong journey of developing my own voice, I found myself enjoying her style less and less.

*hangs head in shame*

Jamesaritchie said:

I hope not. I still think the writing in those first three books is as good as anyone ever wrote anything. It's as close to perfect as I can imagine. Rowling managed the almost impossible. She turned ink into real characters, used writing that matched the age of those characters perfectly, and still wrote books that hundreds of thousands of adults loved.

...

I can't help but wonder if yu don't just like the books more because the story is for older readers, rather than for the writing. None of the writing in any of those books should make anyone cringe. It's brilliant.

Click to expand...

I have to agree with JPerez6 -- I loooooove the Harry Potter series, but I don't find the first three books very good, although book 3 was starting to get there.

In my case, however, that very likely is because those books were written for younger children. In general, I don't connect with YA very well (Harry Potter was an exception) and books 1 to 3 in the series were for an even younger target audience than that, so no surprise they strike me as weaker stories.

I read Catcher in the Rye in middle school, and thought Holden Caulfied was a spoiled and ungrateful brat. I never had the inclination to read it again.

Maybe I'm alone here. Catcher in the Rye holds up for me.

I have friends who love it, but I couldn't connect, and it may have been because my parents sacrificed so I could go to a good prep school.

C.bronco said:

I have friends who love it, but I couldn't connect, and it may have been because my parents sacrificed so I could go to a good prep school.

Click to expand...

Hmmm. I paid for college and law school myself, and my parents tried to dissuade me from applying to the ivy league because they didn't think I could get in. Could this be the key to liking Holden Caulfield?

(Probably not. I just think it's a well-written book. And I feel sorry for Holden. But I can see why someone wouldn't like him.)

My best friend was going to the prep school in our town, and when I asked if I could apply, they actually said yes! My parents strategy was that I could go, and I did have financial aid, to get a free ride to college. The plan worked.