On changing tastes and re-reading

Earlier in the week I mentioned my admiration for the novels of Howard Spring, an enthusiasm shared by fellow Macmillan New Writer Frances Garrood. I wondered whether I would still enjoy his novels as much today, not having read them for 15 or 20 years. Frances mused:

Years ago, I read the whole of The Forsyte Saga, and couldn't put it down. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever read. Recently, I tried it again, and couldn't get through two chapters. It happens with old films, too. Does this mean that we have changed, or that the book/film isn't really as good as we first thought it was?

I'm sure we've all had similar experiences. We grow as readers, which means our tastes change; but also our critical faculties develop. Returning to an old favourite, then, is risky. I am not the same person who discovered The Lord of the Rings nearly 30 years ago, and that's reflected in my response to the book now--a rather less adulatory one.

The experience of reading a book is the filtering of a fixed quantity (the text) and our own emotional engagement with that text, which is variable. The Catcher in the Rye will act differently on a 15-year old reader to a 45-year old. If there is such a thing as intrinsic literary value (and we won't even attempt to debate that here...), that value won't change What has changed, then, is our own emotional or critical response.

As a youth, I read a formidable quantity of science-fiction and, simply through the law of averages, some of this was very bad and some was very good. In the intervening years I've re-read some of both: Jack Vance, of course, remains my touchstone of literary excellence, while E.E. "Doc" Smith is revealed as tosh, however amiable and energetic it may be. In this case, clearly, my critical powers have developed beyond those of my 12-year old self (it would be somewhat alarming if the converse were true).

The Lord of the Rings is a more complex case. For at least ten years this was my favourite book; coming to it again five or so years ago, it was a struggle to finish. I don't think The Lord of the Rings is a bad book; what's changed here is my literary taste. I can admire Tolkien while at the same time wanting to see the lightness of touch I find in Vance; and also I now view it through the deconstructive lens of revisionist fantastists like GRR Martin and Joe Abercrombie.

This latter point is significant too. Part of the reason our tastes change is that other writers are reinventing their genres, in a way that will sometimes date earlier work. While there could be no Abercrombie without Tolkien, the way we read Tolkien today owes something as well to Abercrombie. By a curious trick of perception, chronology becomes a two-way street.

By a circuitous route this brings us back to Howard Spring and AS Byatt. Half a century separates These Lovers Fled Away from The Children's Book, but thematically and structurally they are remarkably similar. If I now read These Lovers Fled Away, it's with the experience, the extra filter, of The Children's Book. That has the potential to reinterpret the first book, to redefine my experience. That, for me, is why we should be wary of re-reading old favourites.

Originality

There comes a time when you've read so much fiction that every new book you pick up reminds you of something else. (If it's a Patricia Cornwell book, that "something" is usually her previous book). It's not necessarily a bad thing: there are only so many things to write about, and only so many ways of telling the story. Attempts to disguise this with innovative narrative stances often end badly. ("Hey, let's tell the story in second person plural!"*).

A couple of weeks ago I noted the similarities between Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Barbara Vine's Asta's Book. I had a similar experience reading AS Byatt's The Children's Book, a thoroughly researched, beautifully written study of middle-class family life in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It reminded me of Howard Spring, a writer who is all but forgotten today, although a best-seller in his time (the 1930s through to the mid-60s). In terms of period, evocative setting, ensemble cast, the melancholy unfolding of the generations and the exploration of the damage artists can inflict on their families, a synopsis of The Children's Book would be all but indistinguishable from There Is No Armour or These Lovers Fled Away. Byatt is more detached in her voice, where Spring has more narrative drive. As a story-teller, I prefer Spring; Byatt I find easier to admire than love. Spring was born in 1885, and so writes of a period he remembers, while Byatt comes from a later generation. With sometimes lengthy , if usually absorbing, disgressions on women's suffrage, public museums and anarchy, The Children's Book sometimes has something of the lamp, but Byatt rises to the arbitrary horror of the First World War.

A quick trawl around Amazon suggests that all Spring's work is out of print now, but if you haven't read him I'd recommend picking up a second-hand edition of just about any of his books: These Lovers Fled Away, Fame is the Spur and My Son, My Son! are all good places to start. Spring writes old-fashioned stories, unobtrusively plotted with vivid characterisation.

Sometimes it's good to be reminded of things you haven't read for years.

*I know Jeffrey Eugenides pulled this off in The Virgin Suicides, but even here I'm not sure it's because of or in spite of the narrative choice).