Nothing Remains The Same Rereading Amd Remembering [ Advance Reading Copy]

by Wendy Lesser

From the esteemed cultural critic and journalist Wendy Lesser, Nothing Remains the Same is a bibliophile's a book about the pleasures and surprises of rereading, a witty, intelligent exploration of what books can mean to our lives. Compared with reading, the act of rereading is far more personal -- it involves the interaction of our past selves, our present selves, and literature. With candor, humor, and grace, Lesser takes us on a guided tour of her own return to books she once knew, from the plays of Shakespeare to twentieth-century novels by Kingsley Amis and Ian McEwan, from the childhood favorite I Capture the Castle to classic novels such as Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, from nonfiction by Henry Adams to poetry by Wordsworth. Lesser conveys an infectious love of reading and inspires us all to take another look at the books we've read to find the unexpected treasures they might offer.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Essays, Literary Criticism, Memoir

Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Wendy Lesser a critic, novelist, and editor based in Berkeley, California.

She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Reviews

[Cherisa B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have struggled to articulate the pleasure I derive from rereading to those who wonder why anyone would bother. My rationale has always centered on the joy of revisiting characters I love, appreciation of the author's ways with language or storytelling abilities, or both. Having finished Lesser's book, whose subtitle is Rereading and Remembering, I come away with a new appreciation for revisiting beloved titles. I have always thought of rereading in terms of bringing the book back to myself and my consciousness, but she flips that and discusses bringing ourselves back to the book, a now older version of ourselves, with more living having been done, remembering ourselves and the circumstances of our lives during each visit to it, and how those visits may differ. Personalizing those visits is a wonderful quality that adds to the depth of the experience and the pleasure of a meaningful reread.

Lesser's essays are not only personal musings on titles she has reread, but literary critiques that make for interesting reads themselves. From the opening essay - The First Novel - on Don Quixote, and on, she offers insights into many books I know, and visiting them with her as a guide was a nice little journey. The Tempest, The Idiot, Paradise Lost, especially stand out. Her take on Huckleberry Finn was discomfiting but that was no less than what Mark Twain intended for it. The chapter on Orwell was almost cringe worthy given that today the Senate trial on the Trump impeachment begins in earnest.

The love of reading is like the love of music or movies. If you love music, you probably have a soundtrack of your life - musicians or composers you have listened to again and again over the seasons and years; if a cinephile, films you quote or rewatch for the stories, characters, actors or film makers you love. Books are unique in that they are products with older provenance - the Bible or Gilgamesh is older than any film or musical recording, and so critiques of them have accumulated over the years - centuries or millennia - that can add to our appreciation. But in the end, our relationship to the books we read are personal, and rereading them, for whatever the reason, adds to the texture of our life. Lesser's book adds to that appreciation as well.

[Carrie Lahain · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nothing demonstrates how personal reading is more clearly than rereading does."
--Wendy Lesser, NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME: REREADING AND REMEMBERING.

Lesser, editor of a long-running literary journal, revisits books that have been important to her over the years.

I was so happy to find this book. I'd heard about it back when it was first published but never actually grabbed a copy. It has come to mind on several occasions since. For some reason, I never followed through on the urge to read it. Thank goodness for Amazon's 1-click feature (so good, it's bad!) and the human weakness for instant gratification.

Lesser offers great insight into how, through the books we reread, we rediscover ourselves. Or, rather, get a glimpse at our multiple selves. She points out how aspects of a book that we skimmed over at twenty might hit us right between the eyes at forty. And how memory and life experience can exert opposing pressures, so stories that comforted us at ten might unnerve our adult selves, dark connotations and troubling symbolism emerging out of the friendly scenes of our old favorites.

But wait... The opposite is also true. Rereading can also act as a time machine that grants access to younger selves, to the very moment (along with a full "sense" track of sounds, smells, emotions) we first read LITTLE WOMEN or THE SECRET GARDEN.

I think what I love most about this book is the license it gives readers to step back from our towering to-be-read piles and revisit books we've already known and loved. It underscores that, whatever the marketing world would like us to believe, a book is not just another product, to be consumed and forgotten.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lesser makes interesting, even provocative observations, about some of my favorites, Don Quixote and Paradise Lost. Framing her discussion of Paradise Lost through her responses to three of her teachers was an interesting, enjoyable homage to how reading is far from a solitary experience (and who knew Empson was so irreverently down to earth). I didn't manage to engage with the other essays. Her central metaphor, the vertigo of rereading, unfortunately captures for me the disorienting experience of zipping along through multiple books. Maybe it's just not my time for more books about books.

[Sharon Stoneman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lesser is an thoughtful and thought provoking author. My issues with the book were mine, not hers. I found her explanation of why she decided to re-read certain books from her past, and how she would select those books very interesting. I've certainly had the experience of re-reading a book from my past and finding it to be an entirely different thing from the first go-round (I'm talking about you, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'). My problem with this book was with chapters where she was talking about books with which I have no familiarity. While I found her reflections on the change in herself interesting I struggled with the literary criticism of books I don't know, even by reputation. So - interesting book, but one that wasn't a successful read on my part.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about re-reading books, which is a fascinating concept: exploring what we bring to books when we come back to them after a gap of years. Unfortunately, the authorial voice did nothing for me--too anxious to draw sweeping, absolute conclusions; too self-conscious about what her reflections reveal about her. I suspect it would work better for people who happen to sync up with her opinions and tendencies in reading.

[Theresa F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using herself as a test case, the author effectively demonstrates how the passage of time and specifically the evolution of a person's mindset/worldviews as shaped by the person's life experiences, can change a reader's past perceptions of a book. In showing this, the author also shows the value or rereading as a practice in general. Though I can't help thinking that I would've gotten even more out of this book if I'd already read more of the classic works of literature that the author included in her personal rereading project.
Did I like it? Overall, yes.
Would I reread it? Not sure.
Would I recommend it? Yes.

[Christophe Charland · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's the third book I read on rereading this year and it happens that I feel like I read the same book three times (some kind of rereading in itself). Why do ALL American literature "scholars" hide themselves behind a shit ton of books that are merely namedropped, and then use these books to talk about their privileged lives, using a false modest rhetoric to convince themselves that their life is not as boring as it is. Is this all the phenomenon of rereading has to offer? Really?

[Kyra | Scales And Tales · Rating 3 out of 5]

This got less stars than I expected it to because I was looking for a memoir and was met with more literary criticism than I expected. This doesn't mean it's a bad book; just not my cup of tea. I'm sure there are many people who would absolutely adore it!

[Althea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This title was a bit more academic than I would have liked, though it makes sense given that the author is a literary critic. For my purposes it wasn't entirely applicable; for example, I can’t imagine recommending Middlemarch to a library visitor, especially when I was not able to finish it when it was assigned in one of my undergrad literature classes. I also struggled to get through the sections on Orwell, late Shakespeare, and Paradise Lost, which felt like reading a paper for a class. I had less strong feelings about Lesser’s musings on Huckleberry Finn, Don Quixote, and Lucky Jim. I can’t say that I uncovered a lot of new information in this work, except some biographical details about the author and the authors she discusses. Overall, while I enjoyed the book, I had some difficulty extracting practical RA knowledge from it.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite all the books I have yet to read, I often find myself going back to books I read when I was younger. Sometimes I do this with disastrous results - discovering that a character I once identified with and admired is now simply irritating and immature (Holden Caulfield, Howard Roark). Other times, I find that a book I struggled to get through and found boring is suddenly transformed into a highly relevant story (anything by Dickens). So, I was interested in reading this book - which is about the very act of re-reading old favorites. Lesser has a deep literary background having studied at Harvard, Cambridge, and Berkeley, so sometimes her references are a bit esoteric, but I thought she really captured the idea that as readers, we like books that remind us of ourselves. As a young 20-something in a tumultuous relationship, she identified with free-spirits, while decades later she finds their choices impetuous and ill-conceived. Also, with more years under belt, came more reading, and as a result more points of reference from which to enjoy or criticize a given book or author's perspective. Nothing Remains the Same is a good concept book to me. I like the idea of reflecting on reading - what books mean to the reader and why - and how as life changes, so too do the things that bring us meaning.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[...] part of what I am trying to suggest, in writing a book that is both autobiographical and critical, is that even the extra-literary is literary." Lesser situates both her original reading and her years-later rereadings in the physical and intellectual contexts in which she read: what chair she was sitting in and how the light hit the page; her state of mind and her knowledge at the time. She doesn't find the same dynamic happening with all books - she is swept away by feeling in her first reading of Anna Karenina and has a more cerebral and negative response to Anna the next time (and the positions reverse depending on the novel). Lesser is a fine critic and I was comfortable reading her insights on even books I haven't read, such as Don Quixote, because her writing was so interesting. My personal note: recently re-read Madame Bovary and was much more sympathetic to the characters' situations; when I reread Walker Percy's The Moviegoer a few years ago I was surprised at how sad it was, the poignancy of the characters' problems - in contrast to my college reading experience when I was more concerned with MG symbols and conversational dyads and Kierkegaardian levels.

[Heyrebekah Alm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a series of essays about how our perceptions of books change over time as we ourselves change. Wendy Lesser describes her experiences as she rereads books she first encountered years before. Some old favorites seem narrow and trite after 20 years, while others gain new meanings.

I thought this was a great concept for a book and I was excited to read it. However, I felt that Lesser made too many assumptions about what other books her readers have read and what they thought of them. For instance, she has a chapter on The Education of Henry James. I've never read this book, nor do I know anyone who has, but Lesser writes about it as if it is a cultural touchstone for everyone. My reading history is in some ways very similar to Lesser's, but also quite different, and moments like this made me feel somehow inadequate or inferior.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read this because I have re-read many of the books Lesser chose to revisit. It's a well-written book and I agreed with many of her observations, but disagreed with others. (I thought she was WAY too hard on Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch.) My main gripe is that Lesser's tone is highfalutin; she preaches like she's the smartest one in the room.

[Kirsti · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an excellent writer Wendy Lesser is. I got a lot out of this book, especially the parts about pieces I know: I Capture the Castle, "The Rocking-Horse Winner," Anna Karenina, The Tempest, and the movie Vertigo.

[Betsy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not for me. Too intellectual. I couldn't quite catch what the author found pleasurable about rereading. Certainly not the same things I do. The books chosen for discussion were mostly titles most of us would only read when forced to for class.

[Michele Hush · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I didn't love this book, I emphatically agree with Lesser's main point -- that our understanding of literature often changes dramatically over time.

[Peg · Rating 2 out of 5]

anne 3 stars about re-reading old books

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring.