Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utah-gr.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!utah-cs!utah-gr!donn
From: donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Rereading
Message-ID: <1502@utah-gr.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 21:05:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: utah-gr.1502
Posted: Sun Jul  7 21:05:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 15:32:25 EDT
References: <120@aplvax.UUCP>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 39
Xref: watmath net.books:2028 net.sf-lovers:8631


	From: mae@aplvax.UUCP (Mary Anne Espenshade)

	...  I have one question for all of you on this -

		HOW DO YOU HAVE TIME FOR THIS?????

I don't.  But I do it anyway...

It's just one of those things.  I start thinking about a scene or a
character from a book I really liked so I take it down from the shelf
and before I realize it I'm halfway through.  I've learned to stop
worrying when this happens; I no longer put myself on a schedule that
forces me through a pile of books at a rate I don't like.  In fact I
never read anything any more unless I'm in the mood for it -- there's
no sense in making a duty out of something you enjoy.

There are added benefits to rereading, less important than having fun,
but still worth considering.  I often notice different things on a
multiple reading -- for example, I might be confused or puzzled about
some point in the plot of a book, and upon rereading it will suddenly
become clear.  Or there might be a clever touch or two that didn't
register on a first pass.  Some books seem to have the sort of
architecture that won't permit you to read them in a single linear
pass, whose events can't be analyzed unless you can see them in a
different order.  (Gene Wolfe's PEACE comes to mind...)  Sometimes the
structure of a book, hidden before, is beautifully and unexpectedly
unveiled by a later rereading.

One day you'll happen to pull a book off the shelf and scan through it
for something and maybe you won't really be paying attention and the
pages are just flipping past but a word or a sentence will flash in
your eye and you'll stop and stare and exclaim, 'What!?  I don't
remember anything like that!' And then you'll be hooked on rereading...

I don't have time to read netnews either,

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    donn@utah-cs.arpa
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    (801) 581-5668    decvax!utah-cs!donn