There is No Reading, Only Rereading
Or, You are What You Read
I recently started a meeting by asking everyone to share what book they have read the most times. I was taken off-guard by the majority of responses, which were variations on: “I don’t really re-read books. After reading something once, I move on to another one.”
It wasn’t my point in asking the question to give a lecture on the value of re-reading. I asked it because in the next part of the meeting I was going to share something from Plato’s Republic — the book I’ve read the most times, having taught through it umpteen times for Intro to Philosophy class. But after hearing my co-workers’ responses, I decided I need to work out the rationale for why it’s good, and even important, to re-read books. Here goes.
1
My understanding of this topic is shaped by two books — both of which I’ve read a couple of times — and one brief exchange in another book. First the brief exchange.
In Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, he relates this episode:
Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON: “I have looked into it.” “What,” said Elphinston, “have you not read it through?” Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, “No, Sir, do you read books through?”
“Reading books through” is what most people mean when they say “I read that book.” That’s fine, but if that’s what you always do, I’d suggest you’re not going to maximize your reading life — either in the sense of learning from books or simply enjoying books. Instead (and here is the first book that has influenced me in this), I recommend Mortimer Adler’s approach in How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. (At this point you can insert a clever meta-level comment about not being able to read that book until you’ve already read it!)
I have not slavishly followed the approach Adler gives for different types of reading, but one thing that has stuck with me is that my first reading of a book is primarily to determine if I’m going to read the book again. The first pass is an attempt to get a big picture overview of the book, noting the key points and passages. I spend some time in the index (authors, please put indices in your books!) to see what topics and people the book is primarily engaging. I read the introduction and the conclusion fairly carefully, and then work through the main part of the text with a pencil in hand, marking it up as I go. Adler’s words are about writing in a book are worth quoting at length here:
Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says [they know] what [they think] but cannot express it usually does not know what [they think]. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author. (p. 49)
So, I’ve developed a system of marking up books: square brackets, pointy-ended brackets (what are those called?), and underlines for noting the outline of an argument and the main ideas. And I put check marks and asterisks in the margins for crucial sections. And then I’ll write some comments with initial thoughts, and often try to summarize each chapter in a sentence or two. All this helps in the re-reading of the book to home in on the really important bits and squeeze out as much as you can from a book.
At least that’s the ideal. I don’t always do it. But when I do, I find the experience much more rewarding. So here I am writing this, and I’m trying to convince myself to keep doing it as much as I’m trying to convince you to start doing it.
2
That kind of reading mostly applies to non-fiction. I also read a good deal of fiction, and I’m suspicious of people who don’t. Reading fiction is the best way of entering into the perspectives of other people, to see how the world looks from beyond your own experience. People who don’t read fiction can become very good at analyzing ideas, but I suspect they aren’t as good at empathizing with competing ideas. I don’t have any data up my sleeve for this, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn the different hemispheres of our brain are engaged differently in fiction vs. non-fiction (look up the fascinating work of Iain McGilchrist for claims in this neighborhood). And I attempt to read a good variety of fiction to get lots of different perspectives. But re-reading is also important here. Which brings me to the other book that has influenced my reading habits.
In a former life when I was an administrator, I was told we were going to have to read some leadership books. I immediately objected that I don’t read books without footnotes and bibliographies. The response from the boss was sufficiently tied to my continued employment that I decided to give them a try. To my surprise, I actually found some of them interesting and insightful.
Steven Sample’s Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership was my favorite. He was the president of USC, and his book seemed more applicable to my academic life than those that were primarily focused on business principles. Each chapter in the book was some “contrarian” way of approaching the work of a leader. For example, while lots of people advocate for quick and decisive action by the leader, Sample says it’s best to put off important decisions as long as possible. And when it comes to reading, the standard advice you might hear is to read widely. Sample, though, advocates reading narrowly and deeply. He says, “You are what you read.” If that’s the case, do you want to be the endless scroll of your Twitter feed? Instead, spend your time mastering a smaller number of really good books.
That led me to identify a list of books that I would read over and over. Some of those are non-fiction, like Plato’s aforementioned Republic, Unamuno’s Tragic Sense of Life, and Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines. But I’ve taken this approach to fiction too.
Why re-read fiction, you ask? Once you already know the story, what’s the point? That was what we used to say to Mr. Lanto, our World Literature teacher in the 12th grade. Whenever he introduced a new book, he gave the whole plot away. But his response was along the same lines as Sample would say: you shouldn’t be reading good books just for the plot. I’ve read some Dan Brown books on airplanes just for the plot — but I’d never re-read those books. The good ones are about more than the plot, and to get that something more, you need to read and re-read. Besides, how many times have you seen The Princess Bride? It just keeps getting better and better! And when my wife and I stumble across A Few Good Men playing on TV, we can’t help but watch at least the culminating courtroom scene again — even though we know how it turns out. My favorite movies are the ones that you know ahead of time how they end, like Apollo 13, but are super-engaging along the way.
For good literature, even more than movies, the more you read them, the more you come to inhabit the worlds that are created. You more fully enter into the mindset of the characters and come to feel like you know what makes them tick. There are very few books I’ve read a second time that I didn’t enjoy more than the first time through (though again, if it’s not a great book, with timeless themes, I wouldn’t bother reading it again).
3
So I’ve identified a handful of novels that I read over and over again. These have shaped my imagination in many ways, and I really really enjoy inhabiting their worlds. I hesitate to give you my list, since I don’t claim it is definitive or should be what everyone reads again and again. But if you’ve made it this far in the essay, you’re probably at least curious. These are novels (or series) I’ve read at least three times and plan to continue re-reading:
William Shakespeare, Hamlet and King Lear (not technically novels, but close enough)
Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Brothers Karamazov
CS Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia
JRR Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Gabriel García Márquez, 100 Years of Solitude
Chaim Potok, The Chosen
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Shūsaku Endō, Silence
David James Duncan, The Brothers K
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead
I’m fairly happy with the cultural diversity in my list, but I’m painfully aware that all but Russell in this list are men. I’ve been reading more female authors recently in first-readings, looking for some to add to the list. I’ve gone through Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, Home, and Lila novels once and may start them again. There are several Barbara Kingsolver novels I’ve liked, and quite a few other one-off female novelists I’ve liked, but not yet re-read. I’m open to suggestions.
To keep track of your readings, I recommend writing the date in the front cover of a book when you finish another reading. (You can see a photo of this in my copy of Francis Collins’ The Language of God in the blog post I wrote for BioLogos, appropriately titled, Rereading The Language of God.)
I still pick up new books to read, of course. I’m now trying to make it through the classic science fiction from Asimov and Herbert I never read. But my general strategy is to re-read at least as much as I read. I agree with Sample: really mastering fewer books is better than reading (and forgetting) a lot of books.
You are what you read.