What's the first novel you read?

[OldGreyFox]

@butterscotch

The joy of discovery would be gone. You’d have already read it, so you know how it plays out. But you’d still have familiarity and constancy and the memories.

But that doesn’t explain why we re-watch an old movie or read a previously read book butterscotch…Perhaps its not all about knowing how it ends…

[butterscotch]

@OldGreyFox

@butterscotch

The joy of discovery would be gone. You’d have already read it, so you know how it plays out. But you’d still have familiarity and constancy and the memories.

But that doesn’t explain why we re-watch an old movie or read a previously read book butterscotch…Perhaps its not all about knowing how it ends…

I think it does explain it. It’s about familiarity, constancy and memories. When you watch an old movie, it’s familiar. You liked it before, so you feel you will like it again. You have the good memories of watching it before and it’s always there to watch again, so there’s constancy.

[Boot]

I do still have a couple of shelves of “old favourites” in my bookcase and have read some of them many times over.

When it comes to children’s literature, returning to read it as an adult is different to reading it as a child.

@Butterscotch - I thought you described the feelings about losing some of the joy of discovery but still having the pleasure of familiarity and constancy very well.
There is also sometimes an additional surprise element about returning to childhood favourite stories as an adult - although the original joy of discovery is a little lost when you already know the storyline, I find that reading the book again through adult eyes sometimes throws up extra nuances in the story or the characters that I maybe didn’t notice when I was reading it as a child - sometimes I notice an author’s underlying theme or social commentary which my childhood mind had never noticed.

I have had that feeling when I re-read
The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe and several other stories from the Chronicles of Narnia - there was a lot of symbolism in that which passed me by in my youth.

The Lord of the Flies was another such children’s book that seems much more shocking to read when you are a parent than as a child.

I even noticed the undercurrents of social class and prejudice when I re-read the fantasy series about imaginary little people living under the floorboards in the books called “The Borrowers” !

Most of the books I re-read tend to be adult classics but I still have a soft spot for a few of the old novels and poetry books I read as a child and teenager, so will dip into them from time to time.

[Chilliboot]

The Enchanted Wood and the Faraway Tree books were so very stimulating as far as the imagination went. The illustrations weren’t lavish, just ink line drawings but they worked. Imagine getting arrested by an upside down police officer in the the land of topsy turvy.
This isn’t on my things to do list I hasten to add

[OldGreyFox]

I’m going to settle down now with my latest ‘Biggles’ book…Looks interesting…