What a difference a day (or 14,600 days) makes...

That's happened with many authors. Rereading a book brings out things the second time around not understood in its first reading. That's because what's in the entire book explains much of what's in the first few chapters. Also, a much later reading can be interpreted differently, because of life experiences that changes our perceptions.

boomer, I read Kafka's Metamorphosis when I was in college (I was a teenager). I thought it was good but strange. I read it again about ten years later. I thought it was still strange--and sad. I read it again about fifteen years later. I thought it was heart-wrenching.

The book stayed the same, but I changed.

I wonder if I spent my youth reading things that were best saved for later...

Maybe I need to add that to my rereading list. Maybe I need to add everything to my rereading list.

What accounts for this heartbreak? Is it just empathy? Does empathy ripen that slowly?

I doubt it. I believe reading different authors and subjects is the best way to entertain and educate oneself.

boomer, I think empathy may grow with age and life experience. But I think the change was in my greater understanding of human nature and emotional pain.

Every time I've reread something good, I gained something different from it. How much rereading can a person do? Depends, I guess.

ci: I'm confused. When I read your post here, I thought of another post you made not too long ago.

"I estimate my book reading to about 50 that includes the reading required to earn a bachelors degree in Business. "

Are you suggesting that you think reading can entertain and educate people, but you choose not to do it?

I's say your understanding changes. I became disenchanted with Vonnegut by the time i was 30--i wouldn't read anything of his now. I read some Heinlein when i was a kid and thought it was cool. I read some of those novels again when i was past 30, and found him creepy.

I recently re-read Vanity Fair, and, as Roberta suggests, found much to value in the novel that i didn't understand when i was younger. I generally don't do "favorite novel," or "best novel" questions. When someone comes here to ask for a good novel to read, though, i always recommend Thackerary, because it is so high quality, and it is a wonderful satire on manners and the English culture of his day. At the same time, it deals with "eternal truths" of human nature and the human spirit.

So i find the really worthwhile books to be well worth re-reading, and i find that those which don't stand the test of time were not so special as i thought when i was a young and callow fellow.

Came to post exactly this... On re-reading as an adult, his stuff is misogynistic and predictable.

Heinlein I found entertaining, until I started Stranger in a Strange Land. I was so disappointed, I quit reading him after that. Never read Vonnegut.