(no subject)

I was planing to re-read Lifelode yesterday and feeling reluctant to start, so I had to puzzle out why. It was because I was afraid I wouldn't like it this time around, that the magic would be drained out of the book. This isn't and unjustified fear for me. It has happened. There are books I once loved that I no longer love. (It is a bit silly of me to worry about this in a book I 1st read I month ago, I suppose.) I felt like this was revelation -- I'd been thinking about re-reading or not re-reading and wondering why I had stopped re-reading and now I knew.

When I was in my early teens I loved every bit of SF I read uncritically. At this point I read all the time, and re-read books frequently. This when I 1st read many SF classics (Niven, Heinlein, ect). I took great joy and comfort in books. (I still do but maybe not it the same way)

At some point in the last few years I stopped re-reading. I've become more critical in general and more aware of gender and race in my reading. So I started to notice problems in books I once loved. And I hated that, I wanted to love the things I loved as young teen forever. This problem isn't even confined to things I loved as young teen. Other thing I found and loved later have also been tainted. Beauty seems to be slowly draining from my world. So without noticing it I stopped re-reading.

In the last few weeks I've been re-reading a bit. Every time I've picked up a book to re-read I've felt and unknown dread before starting. Now I know what that dread is. But still I have shelf overflowing with books. It would be a shame to never re-read any of them.