Read it Again, Sam

Looking through my bookshelf is effectively viewing a timeline of my life thus far as a reader. Some of the “chapter books” I began savoring as a first grader sit, collecting dust, not reread since I discovered Harry Potter. Then there is, of course, the Harry Potter series, all seven books, the companion books written by JK Rowling, and an extra copy of the third one, because it was my favorite book for at least five years. There are Babysitters Club novels, Agatha Christie mysteries, and Lee Child thrillers. Among the middle and high school-assigned readings are the ones I read the obligatory time, if even that, and the ones that became instant favorites on my shelf. The ones that I loved but haven’t touched since and the ones with pages falling out from use. Two books have severe water damage—a young adult novel that a friend borrowed and then returned after dropping it in the bathtub, and one that I’ve cried while reading so many times over the years that it may as well also been plunged into a full body of water.

Dedicated readers have a few books on the shelf that they just know: exact scenes, chapters, pages, even lines that have stuck with them for years. They can select a familiar spine, feel its familiar weight in their hand, and flip almost effortlessly to their pages of choice. Rereading may be a guilty pleasure of sorts, but it also offers a lot of novelty and value. Just ask any English teacher.

ClassicBookStack_zps38bf6f0dMy parents used to hate that I reread books. They wanted for me to keep expanding my library and literary education. I distinctly remember being “caught” rereading a book and receiving a bizarre chastisement from my mother. She argued that there was no merit, no growth, from reading a book more than once. Fast forward to high school English classes, where standard procedure involves reading a book twice, annotating, highlighting, bookmarking key passages, skimming notes for themes and motifs, and close reading certain pages.

 Clearly, this exhibits that there is value in rereading; it is simply not expected that someone will glean all the information a book has to offer from just one go through. An article published on bustle.com illustrates a similar mindset to mine—the author is in love with second and third and tenth readings of her favorite books, and with a mother who simply “can’t” do it. She links to a bbc.com article that deems rereading a “guilty pleasure” and a “security blanket.” Revisiting a childhood library probably corresponds more with this idea. You probably will not discover a profound literary statement reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Rereading a novel assigned in middle or high school though, with added years and a broader vocabulary and just a different perspective, can totally change a person’s perceptions of a book. In some ways, rereading a book is also more challenging because the surprise and novelty is gone. While a second read offers the comfort of familiarity, it also grants the reader a chance, even a dare, to look further and think more deeply.

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I have read each of my favorite books time and time again, with new interpretations and observations and life experiences coloring the way they are read. Just like children like to hear their favorite bedtime stories, I will always love flipping through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The plot, the characters, and the magical setting are of course, captivating for young readers, but only in a more mature rereading do themes and motifs, even hidden meanings, begin to surface. For example, Prisoner of Azkaban draws strongly on themes of innocence and justice among many different plot lines. It is also wrought with symbolism in character names and animals. Until the book is experienced through the lens of a reader who knows to think more deeply and critically, it’s just about a bunch of kids on brooms and an escaped murderer. Just like a film enjoyed by people of all ages, or a work of abstract art, many of the more intricate nuances go unnoticed by a young or unfamiliar viewer. A second impression reveals a deeper look, guided by the knowledge that comes from age and learned approaches to viewing and reading.  Would you debate the merits of listening to a piece of music more than once, or seeing a famous Van Gogh more than once?  Would anyone question the merits of rereading, say, the Bible?

Revisiting a piece of writing certainly provides a different experience then the first read-through and creates an exciting mix of familiarity and new discoveries. So the question is, how many times have you read your favorite?

— Emily Danzig


Mockingbird, Be my Valentine?

by Anna DiBenedetto

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This Valentine’s Day, some people will take their loved one to a romantic dinner, others will send their daughter roses and some will even venture to the premiere of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” But my plan for this year is to snuggle up on my sofa and celebrate my love of literature by rereading my favorite book, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

I will admit that staying in and reading a book is not my ideal Valentine’s Day evening. However, the recent news that Lee will soon publish Go Set a Watchman, an accompaniment to her beloved classic 1960 novel, sparked my interest to revisit the novel.

mockingbird-coverLee’s first novel (widely thought to be her only) is well know, having sold over thirty million copies and been translated into forty different languages. With the announcement of the release of Watchman, fans are re-reading the tale in preparation. According to The Telegraph, “sales of To Kill a Mockingbird [have rocketed] by 6600%.” I think it is safe to say that I’m not the only one who thinks of Lee’s novel as a favorite.

But what exactly about Lee’s novel makes it such a cherished read? After thinking about the question for a while and thinking about the new novel, set to publish in July, I came up with three specific reasons that I love the book as much as I do.

The first reason I love Mockingbird is because of the nostalgic feeling that comes over me when I think of the first time I ever read the novel. The book was first introduced to me in my 7th grade English class. I remember reading the Pulitzer Prize winning novel and discussing racial issues for one of the first times in my sheltered, predominately all-white school. In high school, another one of my English classes read the same novel and examined the book’s title and the theme of loss of innocence (seemingly fitting for high school students). Perhaps my sentimental feelings surrounding the book exist solely because I read it when I was younger, but I think there is something more to it. Just as most people have beloved books from childhood years, I think of Mockingbird as a milestone book for me in forming my interest in literature as a young girl.

Scout Finch is the second reason I admire this book. Scout’s tomboy persona and mischievous attitude aligned with myself as a young girl. I found her youthful and innocent nature to be a sense of comic relief in the narrative. This is exhibited in the part of the story when she, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill decide to play “Boo Radley.” The three create a game of acting out the life and times of the Radley’s, the odd family of Maycomb. Scout elaborates, “As the summer progressed, so did our game. We polished and perfected it, added dialogue and plot until we had manufactured a small play upon which we rang changes every day.” Her enacting the reclusive Boo reminds me of “playing house” with my own siblings. Her carefree attitude speaks to a young girl that I could identify with as a young girl, and even now that I am older.

Finally, and most importantly, Scout and Atticus’s relationship is the third reason I love To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout’s relationship with Atticus emulates a picturesque bond between a father and daughter that I did not appreciate the first time I read the novel. But having matured since 7th grade, a relationship with my dad is something I value and cherish greatly. In the novel, Scout goes to Atticus after she and Jem have been attacked by Bob Ewell and saved by Boo Radley. After imagining Boo’s character in the first half of the book and listening to Atticus’s demands to stop messing with him, she finally tells her father:

‘When they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things . . . Atticus, he was real nice. . . .’ His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. ‘Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.’

Her recognition of Boo’s character and harmless nature align with everything that Atticus had previously told her. Scout’s admittance to him that Boo is “real nice” acknowledges Atticus’s influence on her. His fatherly role is solid and resilient, and his sense of right and wrong remains constant throughout the novel. Atticus’s strong presence in his daughter’s life stands as one of the most important bonds in the book and is one of my favorite relationships in literature.

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My favorite novel may very well be shared with a million other readers out in the world. So maybe I won’t be the only one reading it alone this Saturday night. But who knows, maybe with another reread of To Kill a Mockingbird, I will have to expand my list of why I love Lee’s book so much.


“We’re Done When I Say We’re Done” (or, The Author’s Dilemma)

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Unless you have successfully managed to live completely off the grid for the past year-and-a-half, you’ve probably heard of the critically acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. The series’ final half-season, which aired from August to September of 2013, became an entertainment and social media phenomenon that cemented the show’s status as “highest-rated TV series of all time” according to Guinness World Records. On February 8, Breaking Bad creator and show runner Vince Gilligan will return to Albuquerque with the spinoff Better Call Saul, which expands the backstory of criminal/lawyer Saul Goodman and is said to take place before, during, and after the events of the original series. While I eagerly anticipate once again seeing the familiar sights and characters of the Breaking Bad universe, I can’t help but wonder if Gilligan’s decision to expand on the storyline is a good one. If Better Call Saul is significantly inferior to its predecessor, he risks undermining the reputation of the original series, and even his own as a writer. From an authorial perspective, I think this choice poses an interesting question: how do you know when it’s time to stop adding onto or revising a completed work? And in the end, is there ever really such a thing?

In the case of an immensely popular series like Breaking Bad (or Harry Potter for a book series), writing as much as demand dictates has obvious appeal thanks to the allure of the almighty dollar. Giving the people what they want and letting their willingness to pay for more content determine when to end a popular series should end is a simplistic approach that ultimately takes the decision out of the author’s hands. Better Call Saul has already been given the green light for a second season by television network AMC. The justification for doing so is easily understood: regardless of quality, like the meth-addicted drug users of the original series, many fans are clamoring for more Breaking Bad product and will ensure even a subpar product proves to be enormously profitable.Better-Call-Saul-promo-art

The loyalty fans of popular series have demonstrated in recent memory has led to a trend in Hollywood and television in which many works, especially the film adaptations of book series, favor quantity over quality. The Harry Potter film series started a trend when the adaptation of the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was split into two parts. The adaptations of Twilight, The Hunger Games, and even Tolkien’s The Hobbit have taken a similar approach in stretching a single novel into two or more movies. Hobbit director Peter Jackson also directed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, which was both critically and financially successful. His decision to split the prequel novel The Hobbit, a book that has fewer pages than any single novel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, into three separate movies has largely been met with criticism and deemed unnecessary. While some may interpret his choice as a cheap cash grab, it also stands to reason that Jackson may have simply tried to apply a previously successful formula in hopes of achieving the same results.

The choice both Vince Gilligan and Peter Jackson made to expand upon their original work is one many authors are tempted to make. While I’m sure everyone would love to face the same dilemma of potentially sacrificing the integrity of a story in exchange for millions of dollars, the rest of writers will have to settle for simply knowing when it’s time a story should end for its own good. Most of the time this is simply a matter of letting plot or narrative dictate a natural conclusion. On the other hand, there is anHuckleberry_Finn_book authorial justification for continuing a story even after its initial ending point. The inclination as a writer is to write whatever stories are worth telling, and if a completed work generates another story to be told, then let it be heard. What if Homer had decided that after the Iliad had been completed that there was no need to continue Odysseus’ exploits in the Odyssey? Or if one of America’s seminal works of literature had been omitted because Twain stopped writing about Huckleberry Finn after his appearance in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

It can be difficult to put down the pen to finally declare a personally meaningful work or the story of a beloved character “complete.” Whitman made the revising and editing process for Leaves of Grass a lifelong pursuit while J.D. Salinger spent so much time writing about the Glass family that one would be inclined to believe they were real people. Being able to identify whether or not a piece of writing has reached its full potential can be challenging, and having the discipline to leave an outstanding story in the rearview mirror can be an even more difficult task. With cases like Better Call Saul, the impulse as both a writer and the creator of a series with passionate fans clamoring for more material is to give the people what they want and continue a previously successful story. Time will tell how viewers will receive the spinoff series, but in the end maybe there’s something to be said for always leaving ‘em wanting more.