First Reads
Dear Reader,
There’s something about that first read. Even if the read has been recommended by a friend whose taste most nearly mirrors your own, it’s rare that you know in advance that this will be one of those reads.
Any first read, of course, qualifies as an experience. But what I’m thinking about here are first reads of the kind where you either re-read the book or shorter work extensively afterwards or intend to do so, at least. Even that boundary might not quite be right, as I think there are certain memorable reads where you don’t know whether you ever will re-read, but that first read is just such an experience that you reveled in it.
Sometimes a line hits you just so, right at the outset. Stephen Booth’s Precious Nonsense was one of those for me. In the midst of a charming opening paragraph to what is, in fact, an intellectual treatise of the highest scholarship, Booth writes, “The roots of this book are personal, and I don’t see reason to pretend otherwise.” Now, if you don’t spend much time reading academic treatises, you might not realize how strange such a line is. Academics, by and large, like to present themselves as academically distant from their subject matter (often termed “the critical distance,” though whether critical is intended to mean important or necessary or critiquing is left perhaps intentionally nebulous). And Booth has just upended that charade—which is what it largely is—and decided he’s going to be completely personal. And as the rest of that paragraph highlights, he’s writing about what he loves.
Booth also came to mind for this particular piece because he feistily argues for us “normals,” the nonacademic set. Put another way, he often argues against scholars who treat reading as if second reads were the superior ones. And Booth even has this great fisking line in his first chapter where he notes that most scholarly theses are predicated on people doing more than a first read. That is, those scholarly theses about the reading experience have no legitimate basis unless someone re-reads. Ouch.
I’m all for the joy of a first read, and Booth is right alongside me in that appreciation. (And that’s why he’s my favorite English scholar.) Booth isn’t opposed to re-reading—he notes its place—and neither am I, obviously enough, but there’s something refreshing about a scholar who’s chill enough to acknowledge and even celebrate normal people going about their lives and enjoying a first read, without necessarily worrying about the prospect of re-reads and fanciness of analysis. (Yes, for those wondering, my first read of Booth was incredibly meta.)
It is in fiction, though, where the real delights of first reads often are. (Okay, maybe in some poems, too.) A Confederacy of Dunces was an unexpected ROMP my first time through. There was this preface from Walker Percy—who I didn’t know was a writer I should be familiar with until A.D. 2020, so yeah, I’m an ace intellectual over here—who basically said it takes about fifty pages. At first you’re wondering what’s going on, trying to figure out if it’s good, and then, if you have any liking for the absurd, you realize you’ve got gold in your hands. And that’s exactly how it read for me.
The Lord of the Rings was read aloud to me the first time, so whether that counts as my first read is in question. (In fact, in this archival interview I note how difficult the task of identifying my “first” Tolkien experience is.) Regardless of my actual first read, it’s one I knew I’d inhabit again. I didn’t realize then quite how spoiled I was, as no fantasy has ever gripped me so since, and few novels in any genre have matched Tolkien’s elusive charms.
Still, the nearest I’ve found in fantasy was Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a work that I read the first time after finding a copy for $0.50 at a used book sale. I think that’s a contender for the best fifty cents I’ve ever spent, not least because I later gave that edition away and its recipient still raves about my gift near a decade after. When I did “re-read” it, it was via audiobook, though that was in large part because I had a minor concussion and couldn’t read anything. Surprisingly, as someone who’s not an audiobook enthusiast, I very much enjoyed hearing it told aloud. Because of this experience, my expectations for my first read of Piranesi are sky-high. It’s one of the rare you-know-in-advance first reads. Well, that’s my expectation, anyway. (If you enjoy a good footnote and a slightly wry wit, Susanna Clarke is a wonder worker; otherwise, don’t read her!)
It’s hard to pick out a first read before you read it, even among good options. I expected Precious Nonsense to be interesting; it was revelatory. (For the record, I’ve had maybe one student for whom this was their experience, though I’ve also had one friend who echoed my appreciation.) A Man for All Seasons convinced me not to go to law school, strangely enough, and that play hit me with its beauty and weeping portrayal of justice. Among other odds and ends are Sherlock Holmes’s mad reasoning skills and the full magic of Half Magic.
A great first read that may never turn into a second read (unless I learn Russian) is Crime and Punishment, a work that no high school teacher should ever assign and yet…. I’m thankful that I’m among those who encountered it in college, when you’re actually in the setting in which the protagonist finds himself. I’ve met few high school students who appreciated their experience with that novel, but college students? Uh yes. That aside, I don’t know if I’ll read it again because it is so long and so psychologically draining. You have to be in the mood for that sort of read and have set aside the time for it. And while such mood and time do occasionally coincide for me, Dostoyevsky wrote other books, and I’d rather attend to those (or some other such taxing book) instead of Crime and Punishment once more, even if I’ll never forget reading and delighting in it as a college student.
Othello is another unlikely second read, one I read for a book report in high school. It takes a while to adapt to the language, but once you do—if you have any ear for words, you can’t help but be enchanted (even as the storyline haunts you). I can’t forget that first read: few of my subsequent first reads would exist—or at least have been enjoyed—without it.
One of the fun things about a first read, is that you don’t have to go fumbling around trying to retrace why you found it so remarkable the first time. You just get to find it remarkable. You might pause to delight over a line here and a singular word there, but you are wrapped into the read in a unique way.
Sometimes you can’t control yourself and you find how gluttonous a reading can be. Speed goes unchecked, bedtimes abandoned, duties delayed. This can happen with any sort of book, to be sure, but for one that you delight in thoroughly, you will find the finish to be not dissimilar from having overconsumed certain desserts. (I’m most definitely not thinking of my various attempts at housing whole cheesecakes in my youth.)
On other occasions, you find that you can’t bear to part with the read. You luxuriate in its majesty. Though you want to know how it ends, you also want the read to never end. It’s too enchanting, too moving. It might take months to complete. (Of some amusement to me, as this is precisely the wrong sort of book for this treatment, this is how both my sister and I read Hyperbole and a Half. Good humor is hard to come by, what can I say?)
And when you finish a great first read, whatever your pacing throughout, there’s this keen satisfaction, one not otherwise available. Oh, sure, there’s that bittersweet joy. That’s kind of a given. But the satisfaction is curious. Why would you be satisfied with finishing something in which you can no longer take part? And yet, maybe that’s what satisfaction is, or at least part of it. There’s a contented sigh, audible or internal, and it’s done.
Happy reading to you,
Kreigh