Books I've grown up with
For many years I had your classic evil stepmother but she did leave me with two useful insights, amongst all the emotional damage. One of which was saying that over time your favourite Austen will change, and that's okay. I think that's very profound. Also, I still have her copy of Northanger Abbey.
My favourite Austen has changed. At that time, when I was a teenager, it was Sense and Sensibility. Now I'd have to say it's Emma. I'm hoping to mature into Persuasion.
When I was a kid Watership Down was a story about rabbits. And I loved rabbits. I also loved history and mythology so I appreciated those things about the story too. Every time I read it I'm blown away by the density of the world and the phenomenology of the thing.
I've got very distinct memories of reading Vanity Fair. I was fourteen, we were camping in Cornwall. We played Goldeneye tournaments in the rec room, my sister got hayfever for the first time, I picked up a cheap copy from a shop and was so engrossed I sunburnt my legs. Back then I thought it was exciting. Now, of course, it's tragic. I still love that authorial voice.
The first time I properly read Ode on a Grecian Urn I was eighteen, I was in love, the future looked bright and while I loved the poem I thought Keats was being a great big emo, as we said back then. Fast forward five years or so and I was a lot more sympathetic. I'd seen a lot more shit by then. And I get more sympathetic every passing year.
Wicked, my favourite book, came out in 1995. In theory I could have read it then. There's an alternate universe not too far from this one where some relative thought, "Oh, it's about Wizard of Oz," and didn't look too hard and gave it to me. Or I got hold of it. If that had happened it wouldn't be my favourite book, I'm pretty sure. I was too young, I didn't know the things about life I needed to know in order to appreciate it, I hadn't yet read other books that would help me appreciate it and would solidify why I loved it.
The moral of this story for me is that yes obviously it's partly about the thing, it's about us, and it's very much about us when we encounter the thing. There are as many versions of a text as there are readers of it. I can't be mad about what other people like or that they don't like what I do. I only like what I do because of the particular circumstances of the thing.
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