LA
Author
LATRAME
@latrame
You've never reread the same book twice. It's impossible, even if the words haven't shifted by a comma.
Because between the two readings, you're the one who changed. At twenty, that character seemed wise to you ; at forty, you see his cowardice. The sentence you'd underlined says nothing to you now, and another, which you'd walked past without seeing, stops you cold.
There's also the rereading that knows the ending. A good novel's second pass is a different pleasure : you're no longer racing toward the resolution, you're watching the author lay his traps. All those clues he'd planted, invisible the first time, now shine like markers.
For an author, this changes something concrete : you don't write for a single reading. The best texts keep something in reserve for the second, a sentence that only yields its double meaning to those who come back.
Because between the two readings, you're the one who changed. At twenty, that character seemed wise to you ; at forty, you see his cowardice. The sentence you'd underlined says nothing to you now, and another, which you'd walked past without seeing, stops you cold.
There's also the rereading that knows the ending. A good novel's second pass is a different pleasure : you're no longer racing toward the resolution, you're watching the author lay his traps. All those clues he'd planted, invisible the first time, now shine like markers.
For an author, this changes something concrete : you don't write for a single reading. The best texts keep something in reserve for the second, a sentence that only yields its double meaning to those who come back.