Fantasy Aficionados discussion
Discussions about books
>
Re-Reading FAIL
You have me all worried now and I want to go back and re-read my overflowing shelves, but I just don't have the time. However, I find I am sitting here looking at the titles/authors thinking, "No, that one's good. I really liked that one." on and on and on!
Here is my little story: I loved The Giving Tree as a child and into my 20s. I even bought copies to give to other people as gifts. Then I hit about 30 and read it again. I hated it. Not the quality of the book (writing/art), but the message of the book. My experiences had changed my thinking about the world so much that I found the message to be damaging (to everyone). My best friend does not agree. It is still one of her favorite books.
That happened to me with Dune. I absolutely LOVED it when I was in my twenties, but reread it last year at a much much further advanced age and found it mostly laughable. The fat evil guy who was over the top, etc. The basic idea was still intriguing, but the writing was hit big time by the Suck Fairy.And I agree about The Giving Tree.
The HobbitNot so much massacred by the, as you call it, Suck Fairy---but this last time, just didn't do much for me. The well of enjoyment is dry on this one. (Well, aside from Gandalf and Beorn. Those cryptic dudes still crack me up.)
Won't be reading it again. And isn't more than half a dozen times enough? LOTR, on the other hand, still a wealth and depth of pleasures to explore there.
hrmm....I really can't think of any run-ins with the Suck Fairy. The closest I can think of is the fact that I can't re-read thrillers or most mysteries. Once I know everything, there's no way to regain the tension of the first read.I've always hated the Giving Tree, even when I was a kid.
Sandra aka Sleo wrote: "That happened to me with Dune. I absolutely LOVED it when I was in my twenties, but reread it last year at a much much further advanced age and found it mostly laughable. The fat evil guy who was..."I have to admit, I am afraid to re-read Dune (and sequels). I quite liked them, but worry they won't hold up with age. There are a number of books from my younger years that I will likely never read again for that very same reason.
When I started re-reading Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who mysteries I was totally astounded by the amount of suck that was piped into my books.
When I was living in Ireland - so 9-11 years ago - I discovered a trilogy called 'The Ultimate Dragon Saga' by Graham Edwards. I loved it. It wasn't just a fantasy book with dragons, it was a fantasy book about dragons, and the world was shifting in balance from magical to non-magical, and there were quests and whatnot.When I left Ireland I, unfortunately, lost most my books, and the books were out of print and hard to find and sometimes when I did find them they were insanely expensive.
Eventually I found copies that were reasonably priced, through various sources, and I was able to reread the series.
And I was not impressed.
I mean, they weren't horrible... but... they were overlong and draggy and I don't know if it's 'cause I read them at a time when I was enamored with all things dragon or because I was younger and not yet burned out on epic quest type stories or what... but rereading them was kind of a let down, especially after all the trouble I went through to get a hold of them.
I almost - *almost* - want to sell them, because whenever I see them sitting on the shelves I'm reminded of my disappointment with rereading them.
But I figure that, who knows, maybe I'll reread them in 20 years and love them again. Or something...
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "When I was living in Ireland - so 9-11 years ago - I discovered a trilogy called 'The Ultimate Dragon Saga' by Graham Edwards. I loved it. It wasn't just a fantasy book with dragons, it was a fan..."Ooh. That's a horrible feeling. :(
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "But I figure that, who knows, maybe I'll reread them in 20 years and love them again. Or something..."That would be quite interesting, wouldn't it? I can think of adoring a book years ago and thinking quite opposite now, but I wonder how would it be to love it again some later years.
It's sort of happened to me - but with movies.For instance, when I was a kid I loved Labyrinth. When I was a bit older - college aged or so - I watched it again and I saw the cheesy 80s-ness of it, and the kind of crap effects and whatnot, and was less than impressed. But I watched it again sometime last year, and appreciate it again. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I could look past the cheesy aspects of it (and David Bowie's bulge) and just enjoy the story again.
So I imagine it could happen with books, too. :>
I'm more willing to give movies another go, though, because they take up less time... so I guess it depends on whether I'm really hankering for a dragon story, at some point, and have it to hand. :)
Ena wrote: "That would be quite interesting, wouldn't it? I can think of adoring a book years ago and thinking quite opposite now, but I wonder how would it be to love it again some later years. "I would love for that to happen. It would everything worthwhile. :)
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "It's sort of happened to me - but with movies.For instance, when I was a kid I loved Labyrinth. When I was a bit older - college aged or so - I watched it again and I saw the cheesy 80s-ness of ..."
That sorta happened with me with The Goonies.
Sorry to not have a re-read to offer (not in the negative, anyway), but that happened with Land of the Lost for me. I adored that show as a child. I thought Holly's lines were HILARIOUS. What a card. Harumph.More recently, I tried rewatching the Subspecies movies. Couldn't do it, even with the knowledge that I only appreciated them for that creepy shadow effect of Radu's and B-movie camp the first time around.
I used to have a thing for really bad action flicks...my favorite of which was Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. OMG. Last time I watched it...it was worse than ever. Total disappoint. But I still love Predator 2 (cause it's not scary in the least...but it is funny).
I think there is a weird magickal incantation that summons the Suck Fairy. If I read some books too many times or try to read them as reference to a later work, they suffer and so do I!
Unfortunately many of these are, ahem, 'great works'. Ranging from Dickens to Austen to Poe and let us not forget my example for all things I can't stand, The Scarlet Letter, the more I read/re-read the worse they become.
Am I being totally objective in all cases? No. (see http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... if you must) In this case it sucks for me, but I won't even presume to force that opinion on anyone else. I just have problems spanning decades with the book!
Does familiarity breed contempt? Yes. Some books and movies or songs or other popular cultural touchstones just become trite with repetition. Some things just don't age well, like fresh milk. I don't drink fresh milk but it is like a lot of 'entertainment', it just goes sour.
Two specific sets of work that just were not really that good to begin with (upon retrospection) are the "Lensman" Series of SF and the Charlie Chan series of books. I totally enjoyed some facet or another of both , Once upon a Time. No longer. I think still I have some of the Lensman works fairly highly rated and that's from an old reading recollection. I looked through one in the past couple of years and was shocked how well that mean ol' Fairy had done her thing. C'est la vie.
Don't get me started on film! Of course most of the really bad films just get worse on repeated viewing. A few are entertaining the first time only, but that's for another entry!
Ahhh, I hated that book. ANd I never understood why I was forced to read it so often. What was I supposed to get out of it? I'll never know. I never understood or agreed with any of the other commentary about it. I always felt it just showed how weak men can be without a woman there to prop him up.
Oh, I finally remembered one book from my read shelves that is appropriate to the thread: The Alchemist byPaulo Coelho . I was blown away when I first read it when I started high school or so. It was a 5-stars without a doubt. Years later I read Veronika Decides to Die and I was thoroughly disappointed. Then I went back and tried to re-read Alchemist again, hoping to capture the amazement I had before, but .. hello Suck Fairy. Barely finished a couple of chapters before I gave up trying.
My biggest Suck Fairy casualty is The Lark And The Wren. I loved, adored, this book when I was young. One of my first fantasies. My first borderline romance book. I read it so many times but ended up losing my copy and forgetting who wrote it and what the name was. Earlier this year I was so f'ing excited to find it online on baen's site. I downloaded it for free on my nook AND bought the book on b&n. I didn't even consider I wouldn't like it. ... I couldn't even finish it. So bad. Now I'm leery of rereads. The Dragonlance books are another one but I'll always love those a little even though I can definitely see their faults now.
Traci wrote: "My biggest Suck Fairy casualty is The Lark And The Wren. I loved, adored, this book when I was young. One of my first fantasies. My first borderline romance book. I read it so many times but ended ..."Oh no! I remember loving The Lark and The Wren! O_o
*scratches off list*
MrsJoseph wrote: "When I started re-reading Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who mysteries I was totally astounded by the amount of suck that was piped into my books."Aww, that makes me sad, because I just got my box of Cat Who books from over at my dad's house last week with the intentions of re-reading 'em one of these days in the future. Used to love 'em when I was in middle school and early high school.
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "And I was not impressed. I mean, they weren't horrible... but... they were overlong and draggy and I don't know if it's 'cause I read them at a time when I was enamored with all things dragon or because I was younger and not yet burned out on epic quest type stories or what... but rereading them was kind of a let down"I've had that happen ... but then I'm 70 now and it seems to happen more with books I read and remember liking when I was in my 20s. On my part, I think much of it may have to do with the fact that I have a wider view of things after 50 more years of experience than I did when I was in my 20s. I know some of the books that really do seem insipid to me now that I remember really enjoying back then had a lot of romance in them. I'm a bit more cynical about romance now, I think!
Some books are fails when I reread them because I can never capture the feeling of a first read. The most recent examples I can think of are Howl's Moving Castle and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I absolutely loved both my first time. But a big part of that passion was the question of if they would have a happily ever after ending. My second time I still enjoyed both but knowing the endings made a big difference for me and my rereads were a little disappointing.Now a book like Gardens of the Moon where I was lost the first time I read it giving it a second go and understanding all of it made a huge difference the other way.
Kit★ wrote: "Aww, that makes me sad, because I just got my box of Cat Who books from over at my dad's house last week with the intentions of re-reading 'em one of these days in the future. Used to love 'em when I was in middle school and early high school. "It might just be me...but it was something about Qwill's attitude that just did me in.
Twilight. And it's not just me. My nephew, a friend, and I all loved the book when we first read it. Then when we went back to reread a year or two later, we all hated it. I don't understand why, how we could go from such intense positive emotions about the book to just as intense negative emotions.
K.C. wrote: "Twilight. And it's not just me. My nephew, a friend, and I all loved the book when we first read it. Then when we went back to reread a year or two later, we all hated it. I don't understand why,..."Probably the emotional state at the time? Also, if you read them during the hype...well, you might want to join in the hype.
I tend to avoid really popular stuff so I wont be disappointed.
Maybe age? Did you read it awhile ago? Were you a teen? I thought the book was pretty cute. I liked it much better than the movies. And I know if I had read it when I was a preteen I would've loved it probably as much as almost every other preteen today.
No, I wasn't a teen when I read it. My nephew was fourteen and he reread it that same year and hated it. It's just weird. And I agree the books were better than the movies.
I don't know how anyone does it. The 're-read' thing that is. Unless someone comes up with an immortality fix, there is just not enough time to get through my list once and no matter how fast I read the list keeps growing.
K.C. wrote: "No, I wasn't a teen when I read it. My nephew was fourteen and he reread it that same year and hated it. It's just weird. And I agree the books were better than the movies."K.C.,
I know that for me, when I read a book the first time, I am reading for the story, and when I go back, I notice the writing much more. If it isn't strong enough to draw me in, my experience of the book really suffers, since I already know how the story will turn out.
Kamla wrote: "I don't know how anyone does it. The 're-read' thing that is. Unless someone comes up with an immortality fix, there is just not enough time to get through my list once and no matter how fast I r..."Well, for me a good re-read is like going to visit an old friend. It just makes me feel warm a cozy inside. :-D
My TBR mountain is outrageous but the thought of not re-reading my favorite books gives me the hives.
I've read about 70 or so books this year so far. And yet I feel like I'm in a funk. I read a lot...so the there are times when I only read for comfort, for encouragement or for education. I couldn't do this without re-reads.
^me too. When I'm in a particular mood, sometimes a re-read fits. And while I take the time to digest a few books the first time around, I go much more slowly the second, allowing me to pick up even more. There's a few I've come to appreciate even more with re-read, especially Connie Willis.
I like to reread books when no new books are doing it for me. But also there's books that give me a different opinion on a second go around. For example A Game of Thrones.(view spoiler) And sometimes a book will completely surprise me in the end and I'll have to reread to see if the twist was always hinted at. The Mistborn trilogy is a good example of this one. And then there's books like the Malazan series which I believe is almost impossible to understand with only one reading. Also I reread to prepare for sequels. I think I reread books more then I think I do...
MrsJoseph wrote: "Well, for me a good re-read is like going to visit an old friend. It just makes me feel warm a cozy inside. :-D."^exactly!
I'm a chronic re-reader. Especially for series, I read one then I get all enthusiastic and have to read the next one and before I know it I've set my TBR pile back a month or two. Starting a new new book takes a lot of concentration for me and sometimes I just want to tune off and be elsewhere. Re-reads give me the comfort of knowing what to expect while still being somewhat different than the last time I read it.
MrsJoseph wrote: "Well, for me a good re-read is like going to visit an old friend. It just makes me feel warm a cozy inside. :-DMy TBR mountain is outrageous but the thought of not re-reading my favorite books gives me the hives. "
That about sums it up perfectly for me, especially the thought of never getting to go back and re-read my favorites :D
I love to re read, especially a series. I could read any of david eddings series, and just as soon as I finish the last one start the first one again...its a comfort, and i'm still entertained.
see and i know there has been some times where i tried to reread and hated it, but I can't remember....but pretty sure there has been.
I am a big Mercedes Lackey fan and I love all of the Valdemar books, but when I re-read Arrows of the Queen, I was disappointed. I'm not sure why, maybe I was having an off day, but it just didn't hit me like it did the first time. On the other hand, a book that I read first in middle school and has stood up to all of my re-reads is Sabriel.
I don't re-read often, though.
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "It's sort of happened to me - but with movies.Wonder Woman! When I was, say 7 or 8, I absolutely, without a doubt, LOVED the tv show, Wonder Woman. Linda Carter could do no wrong. I would rush through my homework so that I would be done in time to watch.
Fast forward many years later..there's a new (at the time) network called FX, and what is the first show they decide to carry .... Wonder Woman. I was so excited...I ushered my younger sisters into the room, popped popcorn for us and plopped down in front of the tv.
15 minutes later, I think to myself..."What is this c**p!?!" My sisters had already wondered off to do other things and I was heartbroken!
Nyssa wrote: "± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "It's sort of happened to me - but with movies.Wonder Woman! When I was, say 7 or 8, I absolutely, without a doubt, LOVED the tv show, Wonder Woman. Lin..."
Oooh. I know that feeling. :-(
Sometimes (especially with TV from the 70s & 80s), you just have to turn off your adult mind and let your inner 8-year-old out to play and enjoy.Most of the stuff I loved then was...cheesy. Heck, even some of the "better" stuff from that era doesn't age well if taken by today's standards. I, Claudius comes to mind.
Cheesy as h#ll, but I still love:
Old-school Dr. Who
The Tomorrow People
Six Million Dollar Man
Airwolf
Space:1999
Original Battlestar Galactica
Yep, cartoons also fall under this umbrella. I tried to rewatch He-Man, knowing it was going to be bad and I couldn't manage more than two episodes before the novelty wore off and I questioned why I was wasting my time.Sad...
I remember watching--and loving--Wonder Woman series (not the cartoon). I found the pilot episode on Youtube and laughed my booty off. Super-size cheesy! All the Amazons were running around in pastel colored baby-doll dresses, and then when W.W. went to the U.S. and transformed into her dorky persona (always glasses and hair in a bun)--man!--there was a lot of sexual subtext I sure didn't get as a child. :)
Thunder Cats...
Pretty much anything produced by Hanna-Barbera...
lolETA: Not Scooby Do. It's just as cheesy as it always was.
I'm reminded of a time, many years ago. I had finally gotten a cable TV hookup, and one Saturday morning some channel ran several hours of old Warner Brothers cartoons. My sons, who were all quite young at the time, had been exposed to little more than Hanna-Barbera up until then, and they were absolutely fascinated and enthralled by this novelty. Afterwards, my oldest son came over and asked me: "Daddy, did they have cartoons like this when you were a little boy?"I had to laugh as I told him that when I was a little boy we had those exact same cartoons, and that some of them were older than I was.
I tried to watch the old X-Men cartoon not too long ago, and couldn't bear the cheesy dialogue. Sometimes I write it off as "well, I was a kid at the time", but my dad watched it with me and seemed to like it, so then I wonder if people just had lower expectations then. ;)
± Colleen (of the Crawling Chaos) ± wrote: "I tried to watch the old X-Men cartoon not too long ago, and couldn't bear the cheesy dialogue. Sometimes I write it off as "well, I was a kid at the time", but my dad watched it with me and see..."
lol
Fantasy Aficionados
Books mentioned in this topic
The Crystal Cave (other topics)The Mists of Avalon (other topics)
The Sirens of Titan (other topics)
Monster Hunter Alpha (other topics)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Paulo Coelho (other topics)Graham Edwards (other topics)
But this blog post: Books you thought were simply splendid 20 years ago that are completely awful today
Man! This post was right.on.time for me. I’m in the process of forcing myself through a re-read of If I Pay Thee Not in Gold and OMGWTFBBQ!!! This thing is horrible and chock-full of sexist crap and atrocious writing. I’m so totally squicked out by it right now. I can’t remember when the last time I read it but OMG I want to go back and slap my younger self!! Every bad thing you’ve heard about this book is true…and maybe an understatement. O_O
Do you have any re-reads that the Suck Fairy came to visit?
The Suck fairy: If you read a book for the first time and it sucks, it’s nothing to do with her. It just sucks. Some books do. The Suck Fairy comes in when you come back to a book that you liked when you read it before, and on re-reading — well, it sucks. You can say that you have changed, you can hit your forehead dramatically and ask yourself how you could possibly have missed the suckiness the first time — or you can say that the Suck Fairy has been through while the book was sitting on the shelf and inserted the suck.
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/09/the-...