Has anyone’s view of a favourite book changed on rereading? Just reread Wuthering Heights

[Duchessofmuchness]

I’ve just finished re reading Wuthering Heights. When I read it at 20 i remember I couldn’t put it down. Read long into the night and cried. (proper uncontrollable sobbing) reading the ending. I would always say was one of books had loved reading most.

This time around (reading 40 years later) I dragged myself through it I couldn’t bring myself to like any of the characters- except the loyal Ellen and Hareton. I felt empathy for Catherine and Cathy - young and impulsive.

I suppose I must have been crying because Heathcliff is determined and happy that he will be reunited with Catherine but I didn’t feel it way I felt at 20. This time I felt such strong dislike for Heathcliff and his anger and control and sorry for the lack of agency Catherine and Cathy have.

I’m actually amazed how differently it hit me this time. Be so interested in whether anyone else has experienced this. Was it just age or also that times have changed?

There are writers that get better with age and authors that get worse. WH is definitely on that gets worse. Great Expectations, on the other hand, was boring at A-level and very funny 30 years later.

I recently read The Bell Jar. If I'd read it at 20 I would have loved it. In my mid fifties, not so much. I've lived through too many mental health crises (some mine, some of close family) to want to put myself through that for a novel.

Oh, Heidi is one for me. Loved it as a child, found it unbearably priggish when reading to my own children.

I never liked WH and nothing has changed. I loved Pride and Prejudice as a teenager and really dislike it now. I know the clue is in the title but I don't like any of them.

I loved GH books in my teens and twenties but some are more problematic as a more mature reader but the one I really liked was An Infamous Army. I think I learned more about Waterloo from it than I ever did in a history lesson. I think I might have to read it again to see how it seems now.

Was the book you read Friday's Child? Sounds like something that might happen to Hero, she seemed a sweet heroine to me 50 years ago but thinking about her now she seems a bit annoying.

Brilliant thread!
I adore Thomas Hardy, but I must admit that my recent rereading of Jude the Obscure felt like a different novel to the one I read in my teens. It is so, so unrelentingly sad.

I adore Wuthering Heights and always have, since I first read it at 13. My view of the novel as a whole hasn't really changed. The characters are so well drawn, their emotions and psychology strike me as fully convincing. As an aside, I've always thought WH should translate well to the screen, but every adaptation has been horrendous IMO. I haven't watched the most recent version, but from the few excerpts I've seen it looks like yet another monstrosity.

As for books I read differently now, I find some of Virginia Woolf's novels virtually unreadable these days. I will always love To the Lighthouse, but some of her other novels such as The Waves leave me absolutely cold now.

I love GH too, but there are some pretty 'off' scenes in some of them. I love The Grand Sophy but the antisemitic scene is unpleasant. Pretty much all of Cousin Kate is a nightmare, and the casual murders in The Tollgate.

I re read Mansfield Park the other day after like 35 years. I now think Fanny Price was autistic.

I did WH for A level and I absolutely hated it. Melodramatic wank and I hated all of them. Lots of my pals loved it. I tried to reread it about 5 years ago and still hated it. Madame Bovary is one of my favourite classics and I reread it every few years. Every time I read it my opinion of Emma Bovary changes depending on what stage of life I am at. First time at 20 I thought she was a spoilt twat but over the years I have had more and more sympathy for her.
I loved the Go Between at 20 I reread it recently and hated it. Wish I hadn't.

@TheignTyes I think it was Friday’s Child - but however annoying and young she is she doesnt deserve a clip round the ear - it’s so casually mentioned jut shows an attitude towards women that is thankfully no longer acceptable

Not so much seeing a plot in a different light but just re-reading an old favourite and realising the writing is pretty crap: The Three Musketeers. I read it aged about 17 and couldn't put it down, was reading under the covers well into the night with school the next day. Re-read it again a few years ago, approximately 40 years later, and thought a child could write better than this.

I'm not sure any book that was a firm favourite the first time around bears a re-reading actually. I'm sure there are some books that can be read multiple times, but I also have a feeling we build favourite books up so much in our heads that they are bound to disappoint the second time around.

I'm so glad you posted this thread Op because I have this experience all the time.

Especially with books, but with lots of things - revisiting places of beauty etc - and it kind of horrifies me that my own impressions can vary so wildly.

I suppose some of it is experience and wisdom but there must be an element of being unwittingly shaped by general attitudes, by hormonal changes and - worst of all - just getting it wrong sometimes. 😬

Interestingly there is a school of thought that a lot of Jane Austen's characters - and indeed Jane herself - were autistic.

Need I suggest Darcy ...

I'm afraid he left me cold even as a teen.

I read middlemarch in my late teens/early twenties. Enjoyed but didn’t love it. Thought Dorothea was hopeless naive. Read it in my latest twenties and had much more empathy for Dorothea’s naivety and enjoyed it much more.

loved what katy did as a child and tried to reread but it was awful.

what katy did

Yes @Hedgehog23 !

I tried reading this to my dc and felt embarrassed I had bigged it up so much!

I see where you are coming from, but I do have a handful that I luxuriate in every time. Maybe more passages than the whole novel, but still ... some things are made to be treasured.

I read Jane Eyre first when I was 5 (I know, fast learner) and couldn’t see what the Rochester fuss was all about.

I was stout in my refusal to be impressed.

He was not worth the effort and the Rivers were appalling prigs.

Years later I still reckon I was right. I’m only glad I got the book under the belt before the mooning and longing teen hormones kicked in.

My big love affair was with the landscape of Wuthering Heights; magical, unlike the characters. It is today.

Yes me too. Although I read it through at about 20 I think, and absolutely hated it, although its so beautifully written technically it really stuck in my brain. I couldn't bring myself to read it again but I kept thinking about it and how awful it was. I watched the film ( which I know was only the first half of the book) and thought maybe I was overreacting. I got halfway through and realised no, its not for me. Horrible.

I read Little Women over and over again from when I was about 10ish, read all the sequels, it was my favourite book. I tried to read it again as an adult and found it so twee.

Oh God I hate Catcher in the Rye. No wonder so many serial killers love it!

I have recently reread the Little Women series. As a middle-aged mother, rather than teen, my perspective has altered entirely. Before I knew the girls were poor, but didn’t appreciate what that would mean for girls growing up at that time, how limited their prospects were.

The colour of its time, such as Meg and John setting up house, and having to practise strictest economy, and how they have to work on good communication in their relationship, resonates much more now that it ever did. And Marmee’s endless wisdom
and patience also

Having read this thread, I’m now minded to re-read The L-shaped room by Lynne Reid Banks. It had a profound effect on me as a teenager and changed my view of the world. I’d like to see if it still has its power through my 55 year old eyes. I suspect it might

I enjoyed it as a teen as I knew my parents and teachers knew it was badly written and tacky!

Yes! This time round I'm having quite a lot of sympathy for poor Mrs Bennet. Five daughters, no home security and not much money. And, unlike my younger self, I'm getting irritated by Mr Bennet.