Much Ado About Nothing

Old Friends

I consider some books to be old friends. I can re-read them again and again, and it is like sitting down and talking to someone who's company you truely enjoy. There are some I re-visit more often than others, and those I consider my favorites I can almost recite from memory. In fact, I no longer even need to read them cover to cover, I can just pick them up, open to any place I want, and read a page or a chapter or more, stopping whenever I feel like it, since I know what happens at the end.

Most people don't really enjoy re-reading. They figure they know how it ends, so why go through it all again. I guess for me, the appeal isn't really the story line -- that is secondary. I am interested in the characters, what they start out as, how they change and develop, what makes them who they are at the end of the story. So once I have finished a novel and know how that person evolves, I want to go back and see again how they got there, kind of like that old saying of hindsight is 20/20. It is always amazing to me how much I catch that second or thrid time through. The foreshadowing of what's to come and what will change that you miss that first time. The phrases or events that don't seem very important suddenly make a lot of sense when you know how they fit into the grand scheme of things.

I found myself craving a few old friends I hadn't visited in a long time this past weekend. Shakespeare's characters from Much Ado About Nothing, one of my favorites by him, were calling my name. Another book I went searching for on the shevles was a book I first discovered in college called The Things They Carried, which is one of the few war-time novels that really captured and held my interest. These are classics that can remain on my shelf for years at a time without provoking the urge to revisit, but every now and then I like to dust them off and remember how much I liked someone, or how great that one was to hate.

And the best feeling of all is knowing how many new friends are out there, sitting on shelves, just waiting for a chance to meet me.

posted by Toni @ 6:52 PM Comments: 1