Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend


Literary Disillusionment and its Effects.
I have a complicated relationship with some books. I have old favorites that I reread. These books range from classics to the less demanding class of literature. I reread mostly for two reasons: the first is comfort. I have old favorites containing lots of humor and fairly unambiguous happy endings. They provide escapism, pure and simple. Then there are the books I reread to put my head in a different place. These generally fall into the category of "classics" - the writing is uniformly excellent, the music of the language itself tends to change the way I write and even the way I think. I hear myself thinking in the measured, wordy cadences of Dickens or I reframe the things I see and hear in the wry sarcasm of Austen.

The classics may frustrate or confound me, but they have yet to disappoint. Not so with the less durable forms of literature. I recently reread a book whose cover is worn and creased. I have owned it since my college years and it has followed me around through many parts of the country. It has several story lines which converge and thread together. The characters in the various story lines are very different in outlook, upbringing, employment, and aim. I used to reread that book on a fairly regular basis. I would even sometimes reread just one of the story lines, picking over the thick paperback to lift the thread of one character out because that was what seemed the most comforting at the time.

My recent rereading of this book was a huge disappointment. The characters seemed like manipulated game pieces on a big board, shoved around to suit the omniscient narrator's whim. Supposedly wise characters behaved irrationally when it suited the plot, supposedly intricate plans gone awry were referenced without any indication of what those plans were, leaving me suspicious as to whether the author had any idea of what they might be either. A truly inexplicable love at first sight is resolved by a happy ending contrived from a deus ex machina loophole. My memories of the book, which smoothed over the rough edges and skipped over the plot gaps, were better than the book itself.

I would have been happier leaving that book in my memory, rather than bringing it into the present's light to expose its flaws. But it is there now, sitting in the glare of the spotlight of my current tastes and knowledge. I am doing my best not to sit in judgment of the youthful selves who loved it, because I know that what I loved then and what I am irritated with now are not the same. I loved its spirit of adventure and the play of new ideas then. I find its technical flaws and overwrought romanticism unbearable now. But what is most sad is that my shelf of comfort reading is now one book lighter.
Posted: Friday - May 27, 2005 at 08:11 AM         | |

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