Why You Should Re-Read Your Favorite Books, According to a Novelist
Kate Forsyth
My husband and I recently sold our large family home and moved into a much smaller flat.
Of all the heartbreaking decisions that had to be made about what to keep and what to give away, sorting through my vast book collection was the most painful. When I complained to a friend about the difficulty of the task, he looked at me with blank astonishment. “But haven’t you read them all already?” he asked. “What’s the point of keeping them?”
I looked at him with even greater surprise. Apart from the fact that a book is never just a book (it carries meaning and memories far beyond the words on the page), much of the pleasure of a book comes from returning to it. Each time we re-read, we discover new layers of meaning about both the book and ourselves.
Every Christmas I give myself the intense pleasure of curling up with a beloved childhood book. A few years ago I re-read all the Narnia books. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe It was the first novel I read on my own and the first time I experienced narrative transmission. As a child, I stumbled through the wardrobe and into the dark, snowy forest with Lucy Pevensie. I felt the icy touch of the wind on my face, I saw the golden light of the lamppost shining through the clutches of shadows. As I reread this scene for the first time in decades, the wide-eyed, ecstatic ghost of me reading a book with me was forever changed by the realization that black marks on a white page had the power to transport me to other worlds.
As I read my battered childhood copy, I felt once again that joyful loss of self in the story, the willing suspension of disbelief. In a story full of dryads, fauns, and naiads, it didn’t matter that Santa Claus came with guns. All that mattered was that I wanted a magic bow and arrows and a horn to call for help when I was in danger. Two and a half hours later I read the happy final lines: “And that is the end of the adventure of the wardrobe. But if the Professor is right, this was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.”
What a lovely way to spend Christmas Eve!
The books I choose to re-read each year not only give me comfort and joy, but also make me think more deeply. while writing Wild GirlI re-read all the works of Jane Austen in chronological order, which tells about the life of Dortchen Wild, the oral source of many fairy tales of the Grimm brothers. She was their contemporary and helped me understand the inner life of a young woman in the early 1800s.
This also meant that I was reading his work more closely than ever before. One of the biggest benefits of rereading is that it relieves the cognitive load on our brain. Because we already know the plot and characters, our prefrontal cortex (the part of our brain responsible for problem solving and critical thinking) can focus on hidden layers of meaning. And so I discovered, in literary critic Tony Tanner’s words, the “muffled scream” at the heart of Austen’s novels.
Last year I re-read many books set in Scotland, the setting of my latest book. Changing. They are included Bright Water Ring By Gavin Maxwell To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and Living Mountain By Nan Shepherd. Everywhere I went on my research trip, the wild Scottish landscape was transformed by words that I had thought about so often that I knew them by heart. “Walking for hours, with the senses triggered, one walks with the skin transparent,” Shepherd wrote, and I understood his words to the marrow of my bones.
The most interesting example is my rereading experience. Wuthering Heights. I first read it when I was 12, inspired by Kate Bush’s “cunning, windy moors”. I loved the gothic elements here, the ghost of the little girl knocking on the window, the sinister house with its strange mysteries, and the intense, death-defying love between Catherine and Heathcliff.
Ten years later, I studied this subject at university. By then I was a flag-waving feminist and wrote an essay denouncing the patriarchal structures of 19th-century society that confined women to rigid social expectations.
I thought it would be interesting to read it again when I was 32 years old. At the time, I was a new mom flush with oxytocin. I was very saddened by Catherine’s death. The idea of her never getting to see her child grow up and her little girl growing up without a mother seemed unbearably tragic to me. I cried while reading, my tears falling on my baby’s furry head.
Ten years later I was writing the first draft of my novel. Bitter GreensA re-imagining of the story of Rapunzel and the witch, interwoven with the true story of the woman who wrote the story. This meant three separate narrative streams, three different points of view, three time periods. I couldn’t see how to structure the story so I didn’t lose the tension of the narrative. Then I read Wuthering Heights for the fourth time, not because I was looking for inspiration, but because it had become a tradition. In Emily Brontë’s unconventional “home” narrative, I found the structure I was looking for in three stories intertwined like Russian dolls.
Let’s fast forward another 10 years. My children are now adults and starting to make their own way in the world. I’m afraid for them and I hope I’ve taught them everything they need to know. When I read the book for the fifth time, I realized that Brontë’s true story is the saving love of the young generation. Unlike the destructive, obsessive passion of Catherine and Heathcliff, the love between young Cathy and Hareton offers a chance for genuine healing and breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.
I re-read it every time Wuthering Heights Since I am not the same person, I encounter a different book. I’m curious to see what my next read will show me about myself, and I’m happy to know that I’m sure there will be many more books to come. Because rereading is not just a source of pleasure. When we re-read a known text, we deepen the neural pathways in our brain, strengthen neural connections and help it remain in long-term memory. Rereading is a form of deep processing that can help delay cognitive decline, and for that reason alone, it’s worth bringing out an old favorite.
As C.S. Lewis said: “I can’t imagine [anyone] “I really enjoy a book and I only read it once.”
Changing By Kate Forsyth Published by Penguin ($35)
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