Do you have to read a book more than once?

 

Do you have to read a book more than once?

If, like me, you are a keen reader, there are questions you will inevitably have been asked. One of the most common is: 

“Why do you have to read a book more than once?”

There are several answers to this question. Perhaps the most obvious is that a good book does not give up all its secrets at first reading. A good book draws you in. The first time you encounter it you want to know where the story is heading and ultimately, where it will end. This urge to know speeds up your reading rate and you concentrate on the narrative. It’s a lot like going on holiday; you want to reach your destination, so even if the landscape you pass through is picturesque, you cannot spare it more than a fleeting attention. But you might decide that on a future occasion, you will take the time to pass that way again, more slowly, and explore. 

There is a uniquely special feel to that first read that you will never recapture. But once you know how a book pans out, what happens to the characters you have met, you can give yourself permission to re-read the book with attention. On this second exploration you read more slowly, pausing to admire an especially eloquent description here, or stopping to consider an implication there. You may congratulate yourself on noticing a key fact or a piece of dialogue that, in the light of the story’s end, you now see is highly significant, but that you missed on first reading. Above all, you revel in the language; in the use of a phrase or a word that turns your soul inside out, with joy or sadness. The author who has that effect most on me is Joseph Conrad, whose lucid writing and ability to condense the human condition into a combination of a few words is, to my mind, unequalled in English writing. 

So of course books should be read more than once, if they deserve it. But there is a further reason, which is much more subtle. It relates to the time between each reading. If that time stretches out to years, or even decades, then it adds another dimension to the reading experience, another layer of understanding that illuminates your mind. 

You will have worked out the significance of this; which is that reading a book at different stages of your life changes your perspective on it. Not least, it alters your attitude to the characters and to which you empathise with. To take an obvious example, a teenager reading Romeo and Juliet is likely to feel their pain and understand the desperate nature of their passion. But some-one coming to it in middle-age may well roll their eyes in disgust at such youthful folly. I have experienced this perspective shift many times. As a precocious reader I tackled War and Peace at thirteen. Natasha Rostova was probably the first fictional crush I had; she seemed utterly captivating. But I missed the subtlety and irony of much of Tolstoy’s description of her. When I came to re-read the book in my thirties I realised that he simultaneously managed to present her own view of herself and a more grown-up view that showed her faults and frailties. 

Another example would be the Lord of the Rings; my young self naturally empathised with the hobbits. I re-read the book frequently into adulthood, but by then I identified more with the likes of Eomer or even Aragorn. If I were to read it now I know I would see things through the eyes of Gandalf and Elrond, elder statesmen trying to guide the wonderful but frequently foolish young. It will be interesting to know whether those who have grown up with Harry Potter gain an appreciation, when they read the books to their own children, of how long-suffering grown-ups like the Weasley parents and Professor Lupin are in the face of the adolescent recklessness of Harry and his peers. 

I hope that this article answers the question posed and inspires some-one to return to a book they have once read and re-discover what gave them joy whilst making new discoveries. I welcome any comments.