Rereading

I reread my favorite books, over and over again, for a very simple reason: I love the characters and enjoy spending time with them. Maybe I grieve their loss, maybe I bargain with the text: if I read you better this time, maybe Benji won’t die, maybe Manderly won’t burn, and maybe Lenny and George will get that piece of land and have something to call their own.

It hasn’t worked yet, but I keep trying. Hermione gets her heart broken by Ron every single time he wins that Quidditch match against Slytherin.

The bus breaks down.

The debutante doesn’t escape the bad man.

The marriage falls apart.

Snape dies.

But still I read them again anad again. I love the narrators, too. Sometimes a narrator is another character, the one who sees. Maybe I rush through, even skip over parts I don’t like. Suppose Ana never tapped send? Maybe I can make it not happen this time, for this reader. But there’s no escaping fallout or consequences, which aren’t the same.

I’ll read some books as many times as possible; some others, never again. I read a collection of short stories, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, over twenty years ago, and I’m still horrified by the depravity I met there and will never return to those pages.

Everyone rereads poetry—we even memorize it. Don’t be shy about rereading, about spending more time with characters you love; just enjoy it.