Tim Ware on AtD

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

All I know for sure is that I've read COL 49 more times that the # in the title. And I'm finding muted posthorns everywhere.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Tore Rye Andersen" <torerye at hotmail.com>
> >What, exactly would motivate an "again and again" reading?
> 
> In a word: pleasure! In Pynchon's case, the sheer pleasure of the prose is 
> enough motivation for me to read and reread his novels ad infinitum. In the 
> case of GR, the urge to reread it once a year or so is almost physical.
> 
> >And how many of us have a list of books that we'd want to read "again
> >and again?"
> 
> Well, as the many answers probably made clear: most of us. My best reads are 
> usually rereads, and after having a daughter a couple of years back, I find 
> that most of my increaingly precious reading time is devoted to rereading 
> novels such as these:
> 
> V. (6 times)
> Lot 49 (9 times)
> GR (9 times)
> Vineland (7 times)
> Mason & Dixon (5 times)
> 
> But also (off the top of my head):
> 
> The Great Gatsby (6 times)
> Lolita (5 times)
> (next to Pynchon's novels my two favourite books)
> 
> Pale Fire (3 times)
> Infinite Jest (3 times)
> Crime and Punishment (4 times)
> The Idiot (3 times)
> The Wind-Up-Bird Chronicle (3 times)
> The Trial (3 times)
> Journey to the End of the Night (3 times)
> Heart of Darkness (5 times)
> Miss Lonelyhearts/The Day of the Locust (3 times)
> The Third Policeman/At Swim-Two-Birds (3 times)
> William Gibson's Sprawl-trilogy (3 times)
> Money/London Fields/The Information (by Martin Amis) (4 times)
> Lempri�re's Dictionary (3 times)
> The Pope's Rhinoceros (4 times)
> 1984 (3 times)
> 
> ....well, you get the idea. And I won't even begin to list the books I've 
> read a couple of times (although that list includes the Harry Potter-novels, 
> which I'll certainly read again, Don Quixote which I will probably read 
> again, and The Recognitions and Ulysses, which I thought would be on my 'to 
> be continually reread-list', but which I upon rereading them decided weren't 
> as enjoyable as I initially thought - if I reread them at some future point, 
> it will be for my general edification, not for pleasure).
> 
> I think it was Nabokov who once said that it was better to know one book 
> intimately than 100 books superficially, and I certainly agree with him. It 
> may sound like a severe case of OCD, but I like to make a little tick in the 
> back of each book after reading and rereading it - not as a way of pissing 
> off territory, but as a little visual reminder of my intimacy with the book 
> in question.
> 
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