A new read or a re-read?
I have always wondered why parents take their 5 yr kids along for holidays? I doubt those kids would have any memory of those moments anyway. They are just going to grow up turning pages of the family photo album looking at their presence in historical places which they have absolutely no recollection of. Even if they did have a memory, I bet none of them realized the importance of that place back then. If they had to visit the place again now equipped with a fairly average knowledge, they would be able to appreciate it better. It is not fair to the child to have visited the Great Wall of China or Disneyland at an age when she thought any place far away from school would do unless the parents decide to plan a trip again when she grows up.
Since most Planners are Schizos, I would like to refute my own observation playing the parent’s advocate by saying that those experiences add up to the child’s development just like travelling always has. Also, since this was just an analogy to what I eventually plan to argue about I would like to abruptly wrap this up before I queue in more such observations.
With a sister who is a voracious reader and parents who always fount the time to take us to book fairs; I took to reading quite early in life. My main agenda then was to read everything my sister read and my claim to fame was that I read it 5 yrs before she did. It was an accomplishment I still take pride in. Never really matched up to her speed but I definitely developed an appetite for reading in this process. Thanks to her I read all the popular classics as a child!
In college, Mary’s little lamb drifted to the books recommended by teachers and sometimes friends. Preparing for an MBA entrance meant completing the to- read books which actually introduced me to a lot of different authors and genres. Reading easily topped my hobby list in my CVs and could defend it with equal ease during interviews.
Now in a city where life around is full of short stories and an age where online articles shield an impatience of craving for something new, I find myself at a junction of choice between a re-read or a new read. What I have read so far has certainly shaped significantly the way I think and behave. What bothers me is if I read Pirsig and Ayn Rand a bit too soon. Such authors write books that are meant to be re-read at different stages of your life. I bet I would interpret Harry Potter differently if I started re-reading them at 25 which I overlooked when I was 13yrs. Blyton also claims to paint a different picture maybe more vivid this time if I invited her over for some coffee after work.
There is a strong urge to go back to all those books once more. Rich in history with such detailed understanding of human behavior which still persists in today’s age.Partly a desire to relive those good old times when summer meant books, a noisy cooler and a pillow. Agreed that there isn’t any mystery left now but so many finer nuances must have been skipped back then. I wonder if this craving is a fatal sign of arrested development or holding on to the past a little too tight.
What’s the use of walking the path all over again when there is so much happening around you every sec? The horizons have broadened with the digital age which allows the mind to wander around the globe. Will resisting this urge and grabbing a new read be a symbol of progress? After all a new book opens the mind up to a new journey and seeds a new thought.
With an attention span of a gold fish, the burden of a choice we make with whatever is left of a day is monumental. Exaggerated you may say raising an eyebrow, in my defense drama is what I thrive on. With the shelves of my cupboard exceeding their limit every month, I have defied space in a city which is always short of it. Haruki Murakami makes it the situation worse by saying “If you only read the books everyone else is reading, you can only think like everyone else is thinking.”
30dayshathseptember 
I was having a discussion on the same lines with someone a couple of days ago. The talk gathered momentum when I told this guy how much I love Catcher in the Rye and he suggested I wouldn’t love it as much if I read the thing again in 5-10 years. So i took it up again (having last read it 5 years ago) and enjoyed it as much. Now there can be 2 conclusions (a) Classics don’t change (b) I haven’t matured a bit. Somehow (b) isn’t appealing enough to I think it’s something about good books that remain unchanged over a period of time. Ironically people who re-read CITR in their middle age hate it; no matter how much they loved it when they first read it.
I guess I kind of know it when I encounter such a book, for example, say The Fountainhead – I knew it when I started reading it that I didn’t like it then. Not at all. But I gave myself 20 years time. Maybe I’ll grow up to it. Also The Alchemist. Maybe some books are ‘bad books’ and maybe they won’t appeal later on.
I sort of lost the whole point there.
But re-reading is important. I underline a lot and make scribble notes simultaneously (I’m a book defacer! It’s mine.) so it’s easier to just skim through my favourite books when I feel like I have 15-25 mins spare.
Interesting read. Want more.
I, coincidentally, was having a discussion on the same lines with a buddy a while back- it involved movies too. I am still out there in terms of visiting your past or moving onto broader horizons, with having not liked a movie’s re-run as much but having successfully read and re-read The Alchemist thrice.
Since we live in the world of cut-throat competition, we have to broaden our horizons for as much as we possibly can. But the flutter in your heart or the timid but palpable euphoria in your soul when you pick up a book you’ve already read is priceless- and it’s for that sole reason alone that I would want to go back to Rowling.
Kudos to having gone ahead and penned this!
The first line of the above two comments summarize the pertinence of this topic. It is a conundrum all readers, movie buffs, to an extent even travel fanatics ponder on. I mean, how can one not consider revisiting Coorg?
The analogy put the perfect premise to a post whose germination lies in the most simplest yet ubiquitous observation. It’s often these simplest of observations that strike the perfect chord [ what marketers and advertisers love to call Insight].
While it is definitely important to broaden one’s horizon, it is equally necessary to take a mometary pause, sit back and focus on the top of the heart recall. Your fingers will have the right concoction of synchronization and symphony while writing about only them.
More power to your sense of observation and this black over white on racking the grey stuff.