Discussion

Main Board| Accommodation Wanted| Accommodation Offered
Start a new discussion on this board

Let your next career move come to you.

Am re-reading Catch-22

Last read it when I was 19. Quite a different book after the substantial part of a life since my first go. 
 

We do tend to read in sequence but should read in circuit. It is us that changes, after all, not the written word. I re-read War and Peace once every two or three years and there is something new every time. New in me. 
 

Amused to learn that Catch-22 was originally titled Catch-18 by Joseph Heller.  Heller's agent, Candida Donadio, asked him to change the title, to avert its confusion with Leon Uris's recently published Mila 18.  How interesting - a phrase we know, like Groundhog Day which is gaining on Catch-22 in linguistic adoption terms, would not be in our lexicon.  

 

"We do tend to read in sequence but should read in circuit. It is us that changes, after all, not the written word. I re-read War and Peace once every two or three years and there is something new every time. New in me. "

Mutts, r u famous enough for it to be worth me sending this in to Pseud's Corner ?

Funny thing is that you start reading War and Peace and you fall deeply in love with Natasha Rostova, you think Pierre Bezukhov is a fool, you slightly resent Andrei Bolkonsky’s aloof arrogance, you identify with Nikolai Rostov’s anxious youthful confusion and you think Princess Maria Bolkonsky is a stodgy dirge. 
A few decades later and you are irritated by Natasha’s flightiness, admire Pierre’s humility, see Andrei’s leadership principles and sense of duty, forgive Nikolai and sympathise, and you fall in love with the ever loyal and worthy Maria. 

More seriously though, I've read W&P twice, with ~15 years in between. When I read it the second time I found myself not remembering anything about the book and it's as if I were reading it for the first time. It's not uncommon for me when I reread because I retain very little of what I read generally.

You are probably one of those bastards who has a good short term memory capacity, reading speed and ability to digest info but not feel the obligation to draw it into the long term memory and process it. That makes lectures and exams and reading lists a doddle for you when a student. Read it once move on. But you have probably forgotten it all. I have a very poor short term working memory. If I am to understand it then I need to process and retain long term or it is not there. This means I remember to aspergic detail every fibre I have actually dug into. I remember details of cases from law school and of books read as above. I do not know the names of new colleagues in front of me and cannot capture them. Exams were heavy work. 

Thanks for reminding us of the characters Muttley. I’ve read W&P and remember drawing up family trees in order to follow the characters. I also remember skipping a great deal of war parts, but was puzzled to read that Pierre was a freemason as he wore a masonic ring. I obviously knew nothing about freemasonry at the age of 14-15 when I was reading it. 

I’m not sure I’d go back to W&P as I’m a fast reader and slow-moving stories are not for me.

Having said this one novel stayed with me and that is Marquez’s 100 years of solitude. I remember it took me three attempts before I read it in one go at the age of 16-17, so it would be interesting for me to see what would be my take on this book now. Will it take three attempts again or will it be all in one go?

Join the discussion

Login Register