On Rereading

A few months ago, I completed my ninth reading of Shirley Jackson’s classic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House. It is by far the most reread book in my collection, and in the list I keep in a beat-up notebook of the books I read each year, Hill House appears on almost every page. I am drawn back to this book again and again, and each time I read it, it feels brand new. This is a testament to Jackson as a writer, but also a testament to the idea that you can never step into the same river twice.

I am not the same person I was when I read Hill House for the first time in 2014, lounging in my attic bedroom in the college house I shared with five roommates. I am not the same person I was when I read it in 2017 during the initial whirlwind days of my first teaching job with high school freshmen. I am not the same person I was when I read it in 2019 after a bad breakup, nor am I the same person I was when I read it in 2020 for a sense of familiarity and comfort amidst those first uncertain days of the pandemic. (Yes, The Haunting of Hill House is my comfort book; we don’t need to psychoanalyze it.)

"Woman Reading" by Edouard Manet, 1880-82

I encounter so many people who ask me, “What’s the point of rereading something if you already know the story?” I usually give simple answers like, “Oh, it’s just like rewatching your favorite movie,” or, “It’s still scary even after all these readings!” But it goes so much deeper than that.

I read a quote from David Foster Wallace recently in which he said, “We all suffer alone in the real world. True empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might more easily conceive of others identifying with their own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside.” And this is the crux and core of why I reread the same book, over and over again, once or twice a year, and will probably continue to do so for many years to come. A good book is a companion through life, through challenges, through the many iterations of our selves as we move and grow in the world. What if we looked at reading as more than just absorbing information and plot points? What if the purpose of reading is not to close the book and be able to recite what happens, but to have an emotional experience, to be connected to others through the empathetic experience of art? 

My first experience with rereading was intense and borderline obsessive. I was going into my freshman year of high school, was playing in the school marching band with students far older than me, and was having a hard time making friends. So, my introverted 14-year-old self read and reread The Catcher in the Rye. Nine times in one summer, I read the story of Holden Caulfield and felt a little less alone. I would get to the back cover and instantly flip back to the front to reread; Holden felt like a friend, someone who understood me. (Were my parents concerned? Yes. But I turned out to be a fairly well-adjusted adult.)

Rereading something is an exercise both in familiarity and in strangeness. Yes, you know the rhythm and flow of a particular book; you know the characters well and know exactly what happens next. But at the same time, there are new things to discover every time you open a book. Your life outside the pages changes and flows, affecting how you see, understand, and connect with the written word. Maybe you read Beloved in school and found it a strange, tragic book and nothing more. Perhaps you reread it ten years later, with your newborn baby fussing in her crib, and Sethe’s impossible decisions wrench a knife into your heart in a way they never did before. Your appreciation for language, detail, the art of prose itself may have evolved as well. The rhythm of a Hemingway story that you once found tedious may at some point become a comfort or a challenge, or a fascinating study in minimalism.

Of course, rereading works in the opposite direction as well. Take my whirlwind romance with Catcher in the Rye, as an example. I read it again in recent years and did not connect with it in the same way that angsty teen me did. She and I are the same person in many ways (like still listening to Blink-182 and crushing on Robert Pattinson), but in the 16 years since I first picked the book up, I have changed significantly. Where I once saw Holden as a sympathetic character, calling out the “phonies” and raging against the hypocrisy of adults, now I see a kid with a lack of empathy for others around him. His feelings and his rage are valid in so many ways, but he also cannot see outside of himself in that maddeningly myopic way of teenagers. Maybe 5 years of teaching 9th grade English has lessened my compassion for Holden, but the 16 years since my reading of Catcher have changed me immensely too.

Truly, the most valuable thing about rereading a book that you love is revisiting all your past selves, all the versions of you that picked up that book in a time of crisis, or boredom, or in a reading slump. The you that found that book on the bookstore shelf and was enamored instantly. The you that packed that battered paperback on vacation and barely saved it from a dip in the pool. The you that hunkered down in your blankets on a rainy evening, after a long day at work, to turn off your phone and all the other distractions to read to your heart’s content. 

I think that rereading is an act of self-love, a way of remembering who you are, who you’ve been, and who you’re becoming. Whether you’re turning to a cherished religious text, a childhood favorite, the tattered copy of a classic you (accidentally) stole from your high school, or a pulpy paperback, you are allowing yourself comfort, peace, and time to yourself. So, without any guilt, without the thought of your TBR looming over your head, grab your favorite book, curl up on the couch or bed or floor, and reread, reread, reread.