Read the books twice, have two different opinions?

[Shep]

LOL

[David]

I read Catcher in the Rye at 20 and loathed it too, but then I read it again a few years ago and loathed it even more.

I loathed The Invisible Man when we read it at school, and loved it when I read it myself years later.

Wuthering Heights was also much better second time round.

War and Peace was awesome when I finally after many attempts forced myself to read 1 chapter every night in bed after watching the same scene on the Bondarchuk film version with subtitles.

Anna Karenina is still sitting there since 1977, with Nichola Paget staring wistfully and reproachfully at me from the cover.

Don Quixote I never managed to like although I really really tried after reading how Borges was so influenced by it. I think it would have made a good short story, and is probably better if you can read it in Spanish.

[David]

You might know what will happen to them, but how it will happen to them is a moot point that is only made clear as the story unfolds. The real story often doesn't come out in the film, which can only follow a certain line, usually the most superficial and blandest one. The actual plot is usually hackneyed. There are a limited number of plots, but actually living them is something else. The girl at the bus stop may be suffering just as much as Desdemona.

[Shep]

The first time I read The Neverending Story I thought it was weird and confusing. The second time around, a few years later, I marveled at its unique scenery and its out of the box ideas. Never have I read a more strange, wonderful, and imaginative fantasy novel. I think I just needed a few more years of maturity to truly appreciate Michael Ende's masterpiece of a story.

[Matt]

I just read "Dune" for the second time and really enjoyed it this time.

It is a much more cerebral book than I remembered it to be, and Herbert describes his world (the environment and the people) in much greater detail than I remembered. The political intrigue was very interesting, and the diplomacy and posturing between the major organizations was good mind candy.

The first time I read it, I think I was looking for a more action-oriented sci-fi book.

[Leigh]

Tried to re-read Dune and thought it was ridiculous rubbish. Loved it when I was a teen. I've reread alot of picture books as an adult and wondered why I liked them. Don't like Dr. Suess at all anymore and loved 'em as a kid.

Never could get into Wuthering Heights-thought both main characters were self absorbed neurotics. Like Bella and whatshisname from Twilight.

[sonya]

@David -- i have a lot of the classics on my ereader.

[Laura]

The Fire Within, Icefire, Fire Star, and The Fire Eternal
This series, I read when I was 12, and I thought they were great.
Finally got around to rereading them before the reading the sequels just three years later - could not even get through the first three I'd previously read. They were so terrible!

[Helena]

Heart of Darkness was like that for me. The first time I read it, I just didn’t get it. I liked the writing, but I didn’t get the point. The second time, I got it and appreciated it much more.

I found that with The Catcher in the Rye also. Not that I despised it the second time I read it- but it was a different sort of experience, and tedious at times. I remember loving it the first time I read it.

[Brenda]

I agree about Twilight..I don't know why I thought it was so good when I read it the second time, but was in love with it the first time...even with the terrible writing.

Oh, also, in high school I absolutely couldn't stand All Quiet on the Western Front (it was a mandatory read). I want to know if any of you felt that way and if it's worth another chance.

[Ellen]

I loved Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy the first few times I read it. Now I can't read Hardy at all. :( I think I've just lost my patience for the slower pace.
Well, the much, much slower pace.
I'm kind of afraid to try reading another favorite of his, Jude the Obscure. And where do I put Tess: favorites? Do I deduct stars because I've changed? And what happened to the girl who loved Tess?

[Heather]

So with the upcoming movie for Something Borrowed, I have been thinking about re-reading the that book.

Here is the Loathing part, I have since tried and hated all of her other books. I have found them un-relateable and/or whiny, and fear re-reading something borrow will leave a similar opinion of the book that I really liked. Any suggestions?

[Lisa]

Some of you have already touched on some that came to mind. Gatsby just gets better every time I read it. It was just an assignment for 9th grade English, albeit a not-so-arduous one to have to read, and then it was a decent repeat assignment, and then it was my favorite book ever, and I'll read it every few years for the rest of my life. Fitzgerald manages to use words that convey scenes that describe characters, parsimonious yet beautiful.

Rushdie's novels grow for me every time I read them as well. His India novels grow exponentially. His British novels (well, novel, really, Satanic Verses) is slightly less tedious with each read, his international period (The Ground Beneath Her Feet) develops its complexity more the more I know about Rushdie's history, and the American books (Fury especially, though also Shalimar The Clown) are once again more coherent (much like the India stories) and not only show Rushdie as knowing himself better again but also are very dense reads which require more than once to really get.

Anything by Nabokov has taken me more than one read, but the only two that have really grown on me are Ada and Lolita. Ada still feels like high-literary pulp trash, but is fun to read. Lolita, on the other hand, required reading Reading Lolita In Tehran to finally explain to me what I felt running through the novel but couldn't put my finger on. It's about a character we never know directly, but hear only through the incredibly distorted lens of our narcissistic narrator. Lolita's loss of voice is the story, and is a good one.

Loathing: Anything by Stephen King, who used to be able to write a trashy but up-all-night story with some moderately genuine characters, and can't really even manage trashy horror these days. The more books he writes in his current formula, the more formulaic his previously kinda-interesting books seem.

Another one I'm kind of loath to admit to is that Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead managed to grab my attention when I was seventeen and impressionable. As I got to know more about Rand's history, her story made more sense in context, but then (I was deathly ill and it was literally the only book I had to read!) when I read Atlas Shrugged, there was no novel and all philosophy, and depressing and selfish philosophy at that. I described it as attaching The Fountainhead to a sledgehammer and hitting you with it and calling it literature.

[Ellen]

Thank you Lisa, I loved your post.Lots of stuff to think about.

For me, too The Great Gatsby gets better with each read. So does The Scarlet Letter but my ability to read it, my patience seems less than when I was younger. But when I've stuck it out, I've always ended by loving it.

Interestingly, A Wrinkle in Time holds up as about the same reading experience: wonderful. The quotes no longer amaze me as they did when I was a child because I'm more familiar with them and their context and the entire theme is one which I've now read many, many variations on. Butnever any done better than this.

And, if I can include a poet, Emily Dickinson just gets better and better.

I have to go off and think some more about this.

I know it's been a topic for a while but the way you put it together somehow really helped focus it for me.

Thanks again.

[Rachael]

Fried Green Tomatoes. I read it when I was 14 (I think) and loved it. I read it again a few years ago (I think I was 27/28) and didn't even finish it.

[Karen B.]

I have had to read "Julius Caesar" over and over. Each time I start to re-read it (for teaching) I start to get into it again. It's the strangest thing. I would think "Oh I don't want to teach this again" but I like it. I used to alternate it between reading "Twelfth Night" 2 or 3 years in a row, then go back to Julius. But "Twelfth Night" gets better every time I read it!

[Karen B.]

Believe it or not, I don't care for teaching Hamlet either. I read somewhere that the problem is high school students haven't had enough life experience to appreciate the character. In my own high school the choice was either Hamlet or MacBeth for senior year. When I got to college I liked MacBeth and for teaching purposes, MacBeth is always more fun to teach. Sometimes you can jump on the teacher's desk and do a song and dance and not get the students into something. For personal reading though, I preferred Hamlet over MacBeth.

[Autumncandy]

Read The Immortals 3 years ago and thought "Omg Ever is so brave and smart and Damien is so cool"

Read The Immortals series this year and realized how narcissistic and dumb Ever is and how Damien is an undeveloped and wasted character and how unrealistic Jude is