Different Versions of Yourself
There was one perfect line in the novel Eight Perfect Murders, and it has nothing to do with the mystery at the heart of the book. On page 45, the narrator comments that “Books don’t just take you back to the time in which they were written; they can take you back to different versions of yourself.”
I’ve been thinking about that line because there is an impulse to re-read favourite books during this time period. It’s less taxing, and you’re certain about what you’re going to get unless you’ve forgotten the plot. But re-reading takes you back to who you were when you first read the book.
I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing for most books, but there are a few that stand out in my mind. I know I read Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver while in Israel. There was a night when I didn’t feel well and stayed back in bed, reading short stories until my cousin came home. Whenever I read any Raymond Carver story, I think about myself alone in the house, curled up under the blanket with my book.
Or I once I re-read Lolita four times in a row because I didn’t have another book. We were in a city with a few English bookstores, but I was broke and trying not to spend money. So I ended up reading Lolita in a loop. I can still recite the opening of that book, and I cannot hear a reference to Nabokov without thinking of who I was during that time period.
So re-reading has the danger and/or wonderful potential to transport my brain out of this pandemic. Not just to another place in the world, but to a different version of myself. A version who had no clue what was going to happen in 2020.
4 comments
I listen to a lot of audiobooks and sometimes, because I was listening to a book in a certain place I associate the book with that place, and then when I’m in that place I associate the place with not only that book but with the time I read that book. I listened to over 100 hours of Game of Thrones will redoing my backyard when I was very pregnant with my second kid. I still randomly think of characters from those books when I’m out there and when I do it always remained me of that summer and being pregnant and how promising everything felt. I listened to The Martian while training for a half marathon one summer and I still think of it randomly when I run one of my favorite trails and can vividly remember that summer and how accomplished I felt for training again after so many years. I also remember books I read on trips a lot and they become a second layer of the trip, almost like a filter. But again, the association of the place us important. It’s a little different than what you’re talking about, but also very similar.
I love that. Unfortunately, Lord of the Rings always takes me back to my final year exams at university. Talk about bad timing to discover these books. Whenever I picture the books, I feel guilty.
I’m a compulsive re-reader and yes to all of this! When I was a kid, I’d use books as cognitive behavior therapy (kinda)… When I read a book where the kids usually behaved themselves–Pollyanna, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Women–I was nicer than when I read something more subversive–Matilda, for instance.
I’m on a Facebook group right now that’s doing an in-depth read of “Rilla of Ingleside” by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I’ve read it several times before, first time when I was about 12, I think — but it’s amazing the different perspective your bring to things as you age. For example, I never noticed all the references to motherhood before…!
Likewise, my D.E. Stevenson fan group is reading “The Baker’s Daughter,” one of my favourite Stevenson books that I first read when I was a teenager. All kinds of things are coming up in the discussion that I never considered before.