by Mary Jo
"What books do you wish you could read for the first time again?"
I can't remember where I saw someone ask the question above, but I immediately thought how delightful the question would be for a monthly Ask A Wench topic. And indeed, the Word Wench answers are varied and fun. I did suggest that we didn't need to mention books by Mary Stewart and Georgette Heyer, which are pretty much a given in this crowd, but they did manage to sneak in. <G>
Pat Rice
I’m not entirely certain I can fully recreate the wonder of reading some books for the first time when the difference in experience is so enormous between then and now. I read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was nine years old. I still savor the joy in finding Real Books instead of the insipid garbage in the school library. Today—aging Britlit, even reading for the first time, would hardly be as engrossing.
What about Catch 22 or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? I was in awe of those as a freshman in college. They’re so brilliant, I might still experience some of the awe, and my cynicism now and then would still enjoy it. But after seeing the movies? Maybe not so much.
And I know many tomes don’t hold up to my more jaded eyes these days. I soaked up Woodiwiss’s Flame and the Flower as if I were a thirsty sponge back in the 70’s, but now? Please. Neither the story or writing would meet my standards today. I think experience impedes my enjoyment of most books these days. I’ll spend a few quiet hours of pleasure, but they’ll never reach the awestruck standards of those earlier books.
From Andrea Penrose:
Oh, this is an interesting question. I can think of a lot of books that made a really special impression on me when I first read them—that sense of joy and wonder when a story really resonates right to the heart.
Discovering Austen through Pride and Prejudice and Mary Stewart through The Moonspinners are ones that leap to mind, along with Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Du Maurier’s Rebecca and . . . umm, actually the list could run on for pages. However, the question also sparked the thought of a series, and how having a long string of related books can be such a wonderful thing to look forward to.
That immediately brought to mind Elizabeth Peters and Amelia Peabody. It was love at the first sentence when I picked up Crocodile on the Sandbank oh-so-long ago. I’ve lost track of the countless hours I spent with Amelia and family over the years, anticipating the new releases and glomming them up, and then in the re-reading the stories. They are my go-do reads when I’m feeling down—those wonderful friends who are always there to bring a smile to your face. So I guess I’d say, it would be fun to re-experience that first sense of wonder in finding “Croc" and have all those following books to experience for the first time.
It will be very poignant for me to read the final volume of the epic, when EP’s last manuscript, finished by Joan Hess, releases later on July 25th. It's called The Painted Queen.
Anne Gracie:
I've been trying to think of a good response to Mary Jo's question, and have found it very difficult. For many books, my enjoyment of them was inextricably linked with place and time and who I was then -- an eleven year-old eagerly gobbling up Heyer, a university student drifting on the words of Virginia Woolf and the poetry of Donne, a backpacker in Greece discovering the delights of E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia books.
I doubt my early pleasure in those books could ever be repeated. Perhaps my rereading of Heyer and Benson is an attempt to re-experience it, but I don't think so -- the pleasure in revisiting old book friends is very different to that of discovering new ones. And not all books and authors stand up well to a reread, but those like Heyer and Benson and Eva Ibbotson (such as her Magic Flutes) still please me enormously, as do favorite titles of Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz, Mary Balogh and many others on my keeper shelves, including Wench books. But for me, the joy of discovering new-to-me authors and books is all in the now, linked to time and place and what I'm currently interested in. I just hope I keep discovering fabulous new authors, preferably with a substantial backlist.
From Nicola Cornick:
What an interesting question! Being keen on time slip, I definitely hanker after the experience of reading some of my keepers as though for the first time. To recapture that sense of discovery and wonder would be amazing. The fantasy stories of Alan Garner such as The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath are two I would like to discover anew. They opened up a world of magic and fantasy for me, where the real world could co-exist alongside the supernatural. That’s an idea that has intrigued me ever since.
Mary Stewart (I’m sure I won’t be the only one to mention her) also opened up new worlds in a different way. My first book of hers was Airs Above The Ground and it felt impossibly exotic – the continental location, glamour, adventure and excitement. Perhaps it was because I was a teenager at the time and looking to broaden my horizons. The books seemed full of possibilities. I still read and enjoy them but in a different way now.
And on the historical side I’d love to read Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill for the very first time, or experience the sense of a rich and complex historical tapestry that I felt when I first read that book. Maybe it isn’t possible to experience that feeling of new worlds opening up in the same way anymore because it chimed with life and stage, but even now when I find a new to me author I savour a sense of being drawn into other worlds and that is very good indeed.
Susan King:
Oh, so many books--what to choose! These are the special reads, the reading experiences so vivid, the characters and story so compelling that as a first-time reader, I could not put these books down. I was gleaning something more than story, probably absorbing storytelling and writing craft without realizing it, mostly just falling in love with heroes and heroines, settings, and author voices too. There are far too many to list--from my all-time favorite Pippi Longstocking to books I've read just months ago--so here are a few that will always be very, very special to me and deeply affected me on some level.
I have to rank at the top Mary Stewart (I know, but it's Mary Stewart!!), Anya Seton, R.F. Delderfeld, Daphne Du Maurier, Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels, Ellis Peters, Lindsay Davis ... I first read historical romance through Woodiwiss, and so she holds a special place on my shelf too.
I discovered Mary Stewart in high school, as did we all, and The Moon-Spinners completely captivated me (though I remember seeing the Disney movie on TV before I even knew there was a book). Another unforgettable read for me was Green Darkness by Anya Seton--a revelation, a story that wrapped together so brilliantly a medieval story with a present day story. And Mary Lide's Ann of Cambray was a powerful read for me, beautiful fiction, medieval history--and perhaps more than any other story helped me to realize, as a new mom juggling grad school and babies, that there were other things one could do with a head crammed full of medieval history . . .
My bookshelves are filled with novels I loved upon the first reading, and I really do wish I could clear away all that I've learned since just to experience that magic of discovery on those pages again.
Joanna Bourne here:
What I want to do in some alternate world is pick up JRR Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring and say to myself, “Gee, this looks interesting.” I’d leaf through Volume One and Two and pick up Volume Three and say, “Looks kinda long. I don’t really have time for this.” This long list of things I’m supposed to do would unscroll in my mind, headed by “Change the cat box,” passing “Take garbage to the dump,” and going all the way to “Alphabetize the photos in my computer.”
Then I’d open a page at random, the way you do, just to check how the prose sounds.
About ten minutes later I’d stack Volumes One, Two, and Three up and head for checkout, still reading.
From Susanna Kearsley:
Oh, what a question! There are so many—far too many, really, to allow me to choose one above the others. But most of the titles that come to my mind straight away all share one thing in common---they’re mysteries. I think there’s something about reading a good mystery for the first time, without knowing who the culprit is or where the story’s taking you.
And of those mysteries, the first one I thought of was Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn.
I read this for the first time on a grey and windy autumn day when I was maybe twelve years old. It was the first book I’d read by Du Maurier, and I was pulled into those pages right away by her amazing imagery and prose.
To have that feeling back—the sense of growing dread, the windy moors, the danger and the dark compelling romance, and the stab of shock and realization when the villain was revealed—I’d love to have that all again.
It’s still my favourite of her novels.
Musings by Mary Jo
The Wenches' varied replies sparked interesting thoughts. As Anne said, a great reading experience is so often linked to a particular time and place in our lives. We may reread the books later with pleasure, or embarrassment about our earlier tastes, but we can't really recapture that time and the emotions associated with that first read.
Another point is that some answers were about Great Books, others are about Great Reads. I'm firmly down on the side of Great Reads, and I always have been that way. When I was a kid and had vague ideas that it would be really cool to be a writer, I knew without specifying that I meant a novelist: a storyteller. Great stories have always been my heart's home.
There are lots of great stories that I'd love to read again for the first time, but one that ravished me when I first read it in high school was Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings, the first book in her Lymond Chronicles. The richness of prose, the fascinating, complex characters, the drama and conflict and emotion were utterly captivating.
Dunnett was a brilliant and complicated writer and it made her books worth reading over and over. I wolfed down each new Lymond volume as it came out and was so desperate for the last one, Checkmate, that I had my sister buy it when she was visiting England since it wasn't out in the US then. And I paid for HARDCOVER! The first one I ever bought, but I wanted that book so…
Another Great Read is Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion. I've read and loved most of her fantasy and science fiction, but Chalion, the first in a fantasy series set in a world not unlike medieval Spain, was the one I love best. The hero is one of the most tortured and fascinating I ever read, and his story just gets better and better and better as the book progresses.
Bujold's world-building is amazing and includes a marvelous five god theology that is the warp and woof of the story. I first read the book in manuscript to give it a quote, and I've read it again several times in every available format: hardcover, paperback, e-reader. I can't read it again for the first time--but I can re-read, and have. And will again!
So--what books would you love to read again for the first time? And how much is that connected to time and place? I look forward to hearing the answers!
Mary Jo