Actually, I don’t re-read myself very often (although The Memory Project is turning into a nifty alterna-journal), but I couldn’t resist the literary allusion. Some people find it insane to re-read when there is so much to be read. I usually invoke the Valium defense, saying that re-reading is not reading but a narcotic experience, one in which familiar words wash over me until I’m in a trance-like state that otherwise could be achieved only via rocking back-and-forth and sucking one’s thumb. And I haven’t sucked my thumb since I was . . . seven. I’m not proud, but I’m truthful.
Anyway, there is another kind of re-reading, as I’ve been reminded the past two weeks; I’ve re-read PISTOL POETS and ANOTHER MARVELOUS THING for my Goucher class. Because of the snow day last week, I have to choose between the Feb. 14th lesson plan (PISTOL POETS and Mary Gaitskill’s “Daisy’s Valentine”) and the 21st (ANOTHER MARVELOUS THING and “Goodbye Columbus”). I chose the 14th; I see now that I should have cross-pollinated and picked the two from Column A, PP and AMT. No knock on Gaitskill and Roth; I just have more to say about Victor Gischler’s novel and Laurie Colwin’s short stories, one of those rare collections that really does cohere into something more than just a set of linked short stories.
Given my poor memory, it’s striking to me that I have such a vivid recollection of my first encounter with the first story in Colwin’s collection, “My Mistress.” It was in Best American Short Stories, possibly ’82 or ’83; I read/re-read it to pieces — that book might also have included the superb Bill Barich piece, “Hard to Be Good” — but the first time was on the beach in Fenwick Island, DE. Here, on a frosty February day in Baltimore, I can feel the heat beating down on my shoulders, remember the bathing suit I wore that summer, see the cover of the book (mauve?), feel sand between my toes. The story was a revelation to me. A woman writing in a man’s voice! A story about adultery that was melancholy, but not punitive or judgmental! (I was very young.) Plus, there was the character of Billie (the woman in the affair), who was nothing at all like most mistresses, with her shoes held together by duct tape and her hair falling in her eyes.
I also always remember where I was when I learned that Colwin had died, unexpectedly. (She was 48 and it was from a heart ailment.) I was covering the a.m. police shift for the Sun, sitting in the messy little cubicle at police HQ, reading the New York Times on a slow morning. I felt as if I had lost a friend.
It was only a year ago, almost to the day, that I read PISTOL POETS. I assigned it to my Goucher students in part because I always like to shake up their sensibilities by forcing them to consider “genre” fiction. (I’ve taught RIGHT AS RAIN, too.) Plus, it’s set in a writing program and it takes, as its thematic climax — to borrow a phrase from Gischler — a poetry reading. Yes, a poetry reading as the emotional climax of a satiric crime novel. Granted, a gun battle follows, but what you will remember, I aver, is the poetry reading.
But here’s what I didn’t remember, a simple-yet-profound meditation on reading, inspired by the poetry reading I just mentioned:
“The crowd roared, the applause shaking the building. It was right up their alley. A whole generation who’d thought poetry had to be about flowers and bumblebees. Now they’d heard poetry on steroids. Gritty Extreme poetry like in a Mountain Dew commercial . . . .
“Perhaps they enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. Maybe there are no right or wrong reasons.”
Sometimes, you find passages like that only through re-reading.
Gotta make some phone calls. Like Danny Deck, I have problems with my locks. And you know what? If you can tell me about Danny Deck and why he has problems with his locks, I might just send you a free copy of WHAT THE DEAD KNOW. Oh, you can Google your way to Danny. But you’ll have to share my affection-verging-on-obsession for a certain novel to know about Danny and his locks.
Meanwhile, feel free to confess to re-reading, thumb-sucking, whatever makes you feel safe and secure in the world.
Give me a book and I am safe and secure. There can be a cozy chair or bed, a public waiting room, whatever. Just let me immerse myself in a world different from mine and all problems are shut out for awhile.
Yep, same here, June. Love to read. And Laura, I don’t generally re-read a book but will admit I’ve re-read The Cider House Rules a couple of times just because it’s so damned good.
At times of real stress- when I can’t sleep, I read Jane Eyre or almost any Jane Austen. Also Jane Eyre is useful when I have a migraine that is not blinding – I sit in an extremely hot bath and read with the aid of the shower light(the shower is separate from the tub and has its own smaller light fixture) since no migraine is without light sensitivity(for me). I buy my Jane Eyre in paper from the Wheaton Library used book sale- so if it gets damp or eventually falls apart, I have only ruined a $.50 book.
Off topic- I have been driving on Baltimore 695 recently for the first time ever(although now it has been several times). What is the factory(?) with two giant golden yellow vats that reminds me of beehives? Across the top of the vats is a large black walkway?
Laura: How have your students enjoyed the fact that THE PISTOL POETS is a screamingly funny satire of academia? I really think it’s Gischler’s best work to date.
Steve,
We’ll find out Wednesday what my students thought, but that is another reason I chose it. In fact, the questions for discussion include: “Why do you think I want you to read this?” Victor has been extremely forthcoming, answering some questions I had about intent, satire, character, etc.
The thing is, Goucher students can be a little PC. I met with a class who read To the Power of Three and was surprised by one student who felt one key scene was “anti-feminist” and had a very hard time with a police detective who was a bit of a, um, noticer of women. So I think the character of Morgan, in particular, is going to be challenging. (Let’s just say that visiting professor Morgan, unlike visiting instructor Lippman, would not score a 93 percent on the sexual harassment test. And I would have gotten 100 percent if it weren’t for the wording, which confused me.)
Andrea, I think you’re referring to the place we call “Madonna’s bra,” but I always forget what actually goes on there. I love Baltimore’s industrial landscape, but I often lack the vocabulary/knowledge to describe it.
Rereading is kind of like rewriting. The first time you read a book you get the basic form and feel for it. But it’s only when you reread a book that the details start to come through. Only on rereading do you get subtext and the personal impact of a work.
Sometimes I like to pull a book off the shelf and start in the middle or near the end. It’s kind of like catching a movie on Saturday afternoon that’s already been on for 20 minutes.
And I so want to google Danny Deck and his locks and then find how it matches to your obessesion-linked book and try to impress you, but I got nothing and I hate admitting that.
I only reread adult books inadvertently. Except for Jane Austen perhaps. Children books seem to exert a more irrestible pull: Tom’s Midnight Garden, Tuck Everlasting, The Secret Garden, the books of Evelyn Nesbitt. Looking at this list, I wonder if I should be reading fantasy instead of crime.
Bryon,
But I’ve been impressed with you since the first time we met!
I do a lot of rereading, children’s stuff; the Betsy-Tacy’s, the Beany Malone and other Webers. When I need comfort, I reread Elswyth Thane’s books. I love to know that people once lived in a world where they dressed in their best for dinner, had country homes in the Cotswold Hills and never, ever had to worry about paying for it all! I even reread mysteries, most of the time I can’t remember “who did it” and get surprised all over again!
Thanks to you guys, I’ve been on a memoir jag recently and reread Frank McCourt. Liked “‘Tis” better than “Angela’s Ashes” this time around. I reread frequently. A line or a character will come into my mind and obsess me until I satisfy the urge by visiting the book again. That’s the biggest reason why I buy books instead of renting them at a library. Just have to have them when I get bitten by the bug.
I admit it, I googled Danny. One of my favorite writers ever, and I still got nothing. CRS!
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is every bit as good as people say.
And all of Beverly Cleary’s books are as good as I remember them. Henry Huggins counting the coins is his pocket and deciding that he could look at the funny books, “but it would have to be a free look”…and the kids of Klickitat Street meeting on street corners on Halloween night to discuss which houses were giving out CHOCOLATE…!
Oh, and I just found some copies of Jean Kerr’s books of essays that are long out of print. They are hilarious, and so many of them had stayed in my memory, almost word for word, even though it’s been thirty-some years!
Danny’s locks got him roughed up and tossed into a prickly pear by some Texas Rangers.
He just never seemed to get around to getting his hair cut.
If the yellow vats/Madonna’s bra is on the east side, I think that might be the waste treatment plant. My son’s soccer team used to practice right next to it. Yikes!
Danny Deck is the protagonist of ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO BE STRANGERS, a novel I love, possibly reyond reason. (That is to say: I wouldn’t be surprised if it left others cold, but I read it at the right age — 23 — in the right place — on a Greyhound bus, between Waco and San Antonio.)
But the locks to which I referred are not his uncut hair, but the locks to his doors. A curse is placed on Danny midway into the book, and it includes the prediction that his keys will no longer fit his locks. That was my problem, too, but it wasn’t a curse — it was Super Glue!
I reread Walker Percy’s THE MOVIEGOER every year, right around this time of year, and every time I find something new in it. In times of stress I go back to the books of my childhood — JOHNNY TREMAIN, THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND, A LITTLE PRINCESS — because they’re my friends, even if they’re imaginary.
And I think I’ve said before that JANE EYRE is probably the reason I’m still single…
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I reread Joan Didion’s THE WHITE ALBUM and BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER every couple of years. Also THE GREAT GATSBY, which I think of as a fraternal twin to BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
I reread the final chapter of Richard Powers’ PLOUGHING THE DARK, every couple months. It’s the perfect example of how to write sadness & beauty at the same time without manipulating the reader.
/jmb
Are we ever going to find out more about Danny Deck’s problems with locks? Pleeeaaasssseee???
I read the book over 30 years ago and Danny getting hassled by the Rangers is all that remains, and I had to Google a while before that came back. It always impresses me when people remember details of books, movies, and tv shows they saw years ago. I can’t tell people much about what I’ve read in the past month, except a basic outline of the main characters.
Laura, perhaps thumb-sucking is a memory aid, as both my brother and sister did when they were young, and they have wonderful recall of details — I didn’t and don’t.
Hey Laura,
I rarely re-read, not because I don’t have the desire but I don’t have the time. There are too many new books popping up needed to be read. But, the movie release of THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA forced my hand. I simply had to re-read the book before I saw the movie. And even though it’s a children’s movie, I have to see it. The first time I read TERABITHIA as a child, it changed my entire attitude about reading. It made me cry (unprecedented), and made me realize that books are more than diversions, that they can move us and instruct us more than actual moments in our lives. Re-reading TERABITHIA almost 30 years later just convinced me of that even more. And yes, I found many passages that had been forgotten — or not fully understood — the first time I’d read the novel, at a more tender age. This reading, they rolled up and presented themselves to me like a gift.