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Books which you couldn't understand when you were younger but now 'get' totally

40 replies

Pruners · 24/03/2009 23:11

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minesacheeseandpicklesandwich · 06/04/2009 18:18

Sorry, I just wanted to slap him. Doesn't bode well for when my DD-to-be becomes a teenager...

MissM · 06/04/2009 18:06

Oh dear. Perhaps we should start a book club-style thread to discuss it?

minesacheeseandpicklesandwich · 06/04/2009 10:39

To all you Catcher fans - I've just finished it (finally), with a great effort at the last, prompted by all those who said how wonderful, etc., especially on the adult re-read, and I still want to say

uh?

Gentle · 03/04/2009 12:48

Anna Karenina

As I teenager I thought she was a hideous character but I've got more sympathy for her situation now.

minesacheeseandpicklesandwich · 03/04/2009 12:37

This Dickens thing is weird, isn't it. It's only when I saw the Ioan Gruffudd version of Great Expectations in the late 90s that I realised the ending doesn't have to be seen as miserable. And I'd been brought up on things like Tale of Two Cities (so wanted to write Tities there...) so all I knew of Dickens was 'woe is me, isn't life sad'.

Babbity · 03/04/2009 12:29

I reread Great Expectations recently and thought it was wonderful. Yes, pap, but good, well written pap, if that's not a contradiction in terms. Fanatastic plot and characters.

yappybluedog · 03/04/2009 11:57

anything by George Orwell

BlueBumedFly · 02/04/2009 21:52

Wuthering heights

MissM · 02/04/2009 21:42

Thomas Hardy. But I feel guilty saying it as my grandad used to think he was the most wondrous writer ever and I felt bad when he gave me 'Tess' and I hated it. I had to lie cos I didn't want to upset him.

ohmeohmy · 02/04/2009 17:58

Haven't read whole thread so may have been said but Nabokov's Pale Fire (which to me age 18 just seemed impenetrable and crap) and to a lesser extent Lolita (all that boring road travel stuff) Now would reread either over many in recent prize lists

minesacheeseandpicklesandwich · 02/04/2009 17:50

Still can't do the miserable Dickens, mind you, but then I can't do anything with a miserable ending - RL's usually too bleak as it is!!

procrastinatingparent · 02/04/2009 13:38

Totally agree about Dickens, Snorbs. I've never got him. I have always put it down to having an aversion to the Victorian mind-set as a whole, though.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 02/04/2009 13:37

Catcher in the Rye, like everyone else.

I couldn't stand D.H. Lawrence at school, still can't but get why it was important now.

Snorbs · 02/04/2009 13:33

"The Crucible" - we did that at school and I thought it was an interesting book, but I certainly didn't get why it was so powerful. And I only really appreciated Shakespeare when I've seen it acted out as it does nothing for me on the page.

That being said, we also did "Oliver Twist" and "Great Expectations" at school and I still don't get what's so great about Dickens. Is it just me, or did he really just write over-sentimentalised pap?

MissM · 02/04/2009 13:18

Isn't it strange. It's touted as some kind of seminal teenage novel, and yet none of us seemed to get it as teenagers. Maybe that was Salinger's aim - that the book would be as misunderstood as its (anti)hero.

Babbity · 01/04/2009 19:24

Thank you so much MN booklovers - for the nudge to reread Catcher in the Rye. I finished it today and I quite agree. It was like reading a completely different book - I just didn't have the maturity to "get it" when I read it at school (I was maybe 16 or so). This time I loved it; wonderful, touching, sad. Just wanted to give HC a big hug (but he'd have called me a phoney).

BonsoirAnna · 31/03/2009 10:15

Babar

MissM · 31/03/2009 10:13

Yes, I'd put it in my top 5 now too. Totally got it, and found echoes of it in loads of books I read afterwards. Kept coming back to it - it really played on in my mind. Weird, as at 15 I went 'Huh?' and buried it at the back of my bookshelf (along with Tess of the D'Urbervilles which I must also re-read).

MinnieMummy · 31/03/2009 09:20

Oooh, hope you Catcher in the Rye re-readers do like it second time around - keep us posted! FWIW I would put it in my top 5 now. No pressure...!

LauriefairycakeeatsCupid · 30/03/2009 23:47

I Capture the Castle - got it a little when young, now love it.

Babbity · 30/03/2009 23:45

.. yet another MNer dusting off The Catcher in the Rye... thanks for that.

g4grapes · 30/03/2009 23:43

Try re reading the "childrens" books you read when you were younger. Most work on several different levels.

g4grapes · 30/03/2009 23:42

Still don't really appreciate Lord of the Rings, sorry!

Once you have some life experience behind you, you relate to different characters, and react to situations differently.

I didn't like Goodnight Mr Tom, and re read it just before I had DD1, and wept buckets. That might have been the hormones though......

Jux · 30/03/2009 16:56

The Owl Service - first read it when I was 8ish, had no idea what was going on! Scared me silly anyway.

PheasantPlucker · 30/03/2009 16:26

Evelyn Waugh's Scoop