Comments on: Strange readers, we begin again

By: links and things « Enter the Octopus

links and things « Enter the Octopus — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:37:17 +0000

[...] Richmond guest posts at Ecstatic Days: Here, Here, Here and [...]

By: Michelle Richmond

Michelle Richmond — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:11:14 +0000

Dave, ah yes…that’s another thing to address…those books that mean so much to us when we’re younger but don’t age so well!

Again with Earthsea. Now that just about everyone on this comment chain has listed it, I must go out and get it immediately!

Corey, you mention Vonnegut, which brings to mind another author of his ilk, John Fante, whose short stories I reread every now and again when I’m looking for something fun and somewhat zany, but dark, and at heart very melancholy.

By: Dave Larsen

Dave Larsen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:51:41 +0000

Yes, good post – thanks Michelle! The reverie I’ve been in reading the responses has been a real treat. My own re-reads are a bit different, and I’ve even received a certain amount of harassment from other readers when I mention them. I admit I’m a shallow reader. My most-read book is probably Delany’s Dhalgren. 20 years ago I finally bought the Gregg library edition, just so I had a copy that wouldn’t wear out! It’s held up well. Beyond that I’d say the mostly unknown book by Donald Kingsbury, Courtship Rite, is one of my all-time favorites and one I read every two or three years. It’s aged well. Another, one that hasn’t aged so well is C. J. Cherryh’s The Faded Sun trilogy. Last time I read it I had a growing sense that it’s formed of rather stiff clay in broad strokes. Yet it had a lot to do with determining how I wish to conduct my own life. And Earthsea … Wow. Thanks for the reminder, that is going to be one of the best things I’ll read this year. I don’t think my wife has ever read it, either. What a treat! Thanks to all for a fantastic voyage.

By: Fábio

Fábio — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:39:17 +0000

Michelle, good to know you´re also a fan of Barthelme´s short stories. I just forgot to add I also love to reread Conrad and London. At least once a year I must read London´s To Build a Fire (which I used as inspiration to write a recently published story, O Grande Concerto (unfortunately only available in Portuguese for the time being, I´m sorry), and Conrad´s The Duel (I also make a point to see once or twice a year the excellent Ridley Scott adaptation with Harvey Keitel).

By: Corey Redekop

Corey Redekop — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:38:18 +0000

I find myself drawn again and again to Vonnegut, no matter what novel it is. As well as Eric McCormack’s The Mysterium, and Jim Dodge’s Stone Junction.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:09:19 +0000

Thanks to all of you for sharing your reread lists. Fabio’s post reminded me that short stories are particularly ripe for the return visit. There are a number of short stories that I reread because I discuss them with my grad students, but I think I’d probably dip back into them now and again even if I hadn’t assigned them for class–one of these is John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse. Black Tickets, by Jayne Anne Phillips, calls to me every few years. Like Fabio, I find that the stories of Donald Barthelme really lend themselves to multiple readings over time.

As for novels and novellas, I find much of Paul Auster’s work highly re-readable.

Thanks to John, Will, and Juha for your conversation on Earthsea: I will definitely be adding this to my list of (dare I say it?) first-time reads.

By: Fábio

Fábio — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:13:35 +0000

Beautiful post. I didn´t know Gustafsson’s work – mea culpa.

As for revisiting books, this is a habit I only acquired recently (maybe because of that feeling impending of impending doom which strikes us when we get 40 – careful, Jeff!!). I´ve been reading again Brazilian classics, as Guimarães Rosa´s Grande Sertão: Veredas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands is the English title, though it doesn´t carry out anything of the beauty and strangeness of the original).

As for SF, a book I´ve been reading again and again for a while is Neuromancer. The short stories of Donald Barthelme and Thomas Pynchon have just entered in my rereading list (I just read again the proto-steampunk “Under The Rose”, which is in the collection “Slow Learner”).

By: Juha

Juha — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:55:37 +0000

The Earthsea cycle are also among the books I most frequently revisit. I’ve often wondered whether part of it is nostalgia–I first read them around age 10 and a couple of times again in my teens–and I think that they played a part in the development of my values. On the other hand, having reread them again in my mid-twenties, I’m still amazed by how LeGuin manages to convey such engrossing characters and places with what seems to be such a magnificent elegance and economy of style. Other books I read as a kid haven’t weathered nearly as well.

Another series that I’ve found myself revisiting is the comic The Maxx by Sam Keith. Even though originally I only read the odd issue here and there, the comic stuck in my head. I’ve since bought the collected version and read through it a couple of times. Great stuff.

By: Will Humphreys

Will Humphreys — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:14:25 +0000

I first read Earthsea first when I was very young – 11 or 12 – so it was maybe the first ’serious’ book I’d read and it told me a lot about how people relate to one another, the changes they go through as life moves on – Serret and Vetch for example – and also how you are alone through life, despite friends and attachments and that you have to face the world that you make. Alongside that is the incredible beauty and accuracy the book captures in terms of landscape. Le Guin conveys grey seas and skies, rocks and cliffs better than anyone else I’ve read. In cinema Tarkovsky achieved similar effects, as though you are seeing through to something absolutely real and maybe that is the best thing you can achieve in art.

By: John Coulthart

John Coulthart — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:05:17 +0000

Hmm, oddly enough A Wizard of Earthsea is also a book I seem to re-read every few years and there isn’t much fantasy I’d say that about. I wonder what makes it so compelling?