Tag: reread

On Second Chances: Rereading Jane Eyre

~ Sarah Joyce ~ 3 Comments

When I was 14 my freshman English class assigned us a book report. They gave us a list. There was a paper, a presentation, and otherwise little guidelines. As an early teen I wasn’t super interested in reading for school. I was a voracious reader in my free time but didn’t care to read for class. At this point in life my opinion of the classics was quite low. Didn’t my teacher know about Harry Potter and all of the amazing books being published in the early 2000s?

Like a true procrastinator I put off selecting a book, and then put off locating a copy of my chosen book. To this day I cannot remember what book I had intended on reading, but I can tell you I wound up with a heavy bound copy of Jane Eyre, because it was available on sale at Costco and suddenly my report was due in 3 days.

Reader, those next three days were pure hell. I don’t like to read on command. If a story doesn’t grab me I really struggle with completing it. I felt like I was being tortured with the occasional decent chapter, only to be set adrift in boredom for another 50 pages on the regular. After 3 days of stops and starts I had made up my mind on Charlotte Brontë and all of her sisters.  

Sidenote: By the time I gave my book report I had my teacher fooled. I nailed the presentation, and it wasn’t until the very end when I revealed how much I loathed the Charlotte Brontë classic did my teacher bat an eye. 

Needless to say I wasn’t chomping at the bit to reread Jane Eyre. 

Last month I was looking for a lot of romance. I was counting down to the release of the new Emma movie, and still suffering from book hangover from Red, White and Royal Blue. It was during this phase that I made the mistake of mentioning to a friend how much I hate Jane Eyre during a very riveting conversation about Regency and Victorian era novels. She asked why wouldn’t I give Jane another chance? It’s a classic, and in theory it checks all of my current favorite boxes. 

I had a long internal monologue before I responded: Despite 15 years and a lifetime a growth  hate for Jane Eyre never died. My reading habits have changed. My tastes have evolved. I never once entertained the idea of giving Jane another chance. Sure, I’ll reread books on the regular. Pride and Prejudice gets taken out once a year. I’ve already reread Circe this year. In theory, I could just read Jane Eyre again and be done with this conversation forever. 

So I did. The results were mixed. I will say reading Brontë as an adult is a different experience. I appreciate a lot about Jane’s character. I actually enjoyed the first 80% or so of the novel. Up until the big twist. I have never really been a fan of Rochester but as a 30 year old woman I am super not here for his creeptastic ways and locking women up in attics. Nope. Not here for it one bit.

I was surprised to find that wasn’t my hard stop. As soon as Jane is in contact with her cousin, St. John I lost absolutely all interest in the story. Despite tackling Eyre as an audiobook to ensure I actually finish it I found that the last 5 hours took me forever. I found excuses not to listen. I even picked up other audiobooks to fill my work hours so I didn’t have to hear more about Jane and St. John’s boring ass life. 

In the end I didn’t hate Jane Eyre as much as I remembered. Don’t get me wrong, I am still not thrilled by the book. It is not my favorite. I will not be championing Jane and Rochester’s relationship in any capacity. In fact, the Hark a Vagrant comics remain just as true as ever.

But I am happy I read it. I am glad to say I went back with a critical eye and gave a book a second chance. 

Just don’t expect me to do the same for Dickens. 

The Art of the Reread

~ Sarah Joyce ~ 17 Comments

This year I am nostalgic. 

Okay, most years I am a bit nostalgic. But this is the year I turned 30. My boyfriend moved in. We are fully settled in our careers and the future looks a lot more like house work and zero free time then carefree vacations and summer’s reading by the lake. 

That’s fine. I’m really happy. I just find myself thinking back to books of times past. The books I read in the heat of summer when I was savoring in the break between spring and fall semester, the books I read in fall that inspired me. The winter tomes I somehow spent hours reading with nothing but homework to break my concentration. 

More than anything I find myself nostalgic for the books I read when I was very young. Middle school and high school me was both a pretentious reader and a ravenous reader. However, younger me was also not afraid of a reread. When I found a book I loved I ate it up. I did it again. I read it over until the spine was cracked and pages were falling out. Then I would read it again. 

My first favorite author was Tracy Chevalier. A waitress at my family’s favorite restaurant gave me a copy of Girl with a Pearl Earring and I devoured it. My parents took me to WaldenBooks (watch me date myself) and buy EVERYTHING else she had written. To that point it was just 2 books. I read them with the same all consuming passion. I learned about different times. It was my first experience with historical fiction, with fiction set in a truly different place

Throughout the rest of middle school and high school I continued to return to these stories. Of course I bought new books as well. I found a new temporary favorites and read everything required for my English classes. I just occasionally needed the reassuring settings of these books I first learned to love.

I did a similar thing with Harry Potter. Last year was the first time I didn’t read the complete series in well over a decade. My summers used to consist of reading through, at first all of the books that had been published, and then reading the entire series and discussing with friends. 

I always counted these books to my yearly reading goal. I still do. I know there is a debate on this front. I’m not truly reading something new. However I get something different out of a book each time I read it. 

This is why I find it so difficult to participate in a book community that seems to care exclusively about the new, the fresh, the unknown. Sometime in college, the first time I started blogging about books I did the same. But now I want to count my rereads. I want to enjoy what I am reading. I want to acknowledge the stories I loved as a teen. I want to spend my precious reading time in a way that is best for me.

This year I reread Pride and Prejudice and loved every second of it. I revisited the Raven Cycle so I could spend more time in Cabeswater with the Latin speaking trees. I have no regrets about these reads. I could them towards my yearly goal because I did in fact read them. They did actually mean something. I was still learning. 

What are your thoughts on rereads? Do you have a few novels you like to revisit every few years?