It is also in that rare category of books which I give away (sometimes even the copy in my hand). John Crowley’s Little, Big is a book which I have read more times than I can count. On Reading Old Books, from the Selected Essays of William Hazlitt 1778 : 1830. They are land-marks and guides in our journey through life. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity. Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. It recalls the same feelings and associations which I had in first reading it, and which I can never have again in any other way. In reading a book which is an old favourite with me (say the first novel I ever read) I not only have the pleasure of imagination and of a critical relish of the work, but the pleasures of memory added to it. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |