Even Better the Second (or Third, or Fourth…) Time: In Praise of Re-Reading

I used to think everyone who read books also re-read them. I was surprised, once I was an author, to discover that there are plenty of book lovers who once they’ve read a book never pick it up again, no matter how much they love it. I don’t think such people are wrong—we have limited time, and there are always new books beckoning—and yet I can’t help but feel that such people are missing out on one of life’s great pleasures, of picking up a book which you already know from both personal and previous experience that you are going to love. 

My habit of re-reading began in childhood. I didn’t grow up in a home with many books—during the day my parents were working, and at night they watched TV. A few times a year my father would get it into his head that he should practice his English, and bring back a novel from Price Club or Books Inc. I got into the habit of reading these books, and then, because we didn’t have many selections in the house, I would pick my favorites to re-read.

I decided to try and create a book which was, at its heart, a book I myself might want to read and re-read.

These favorites were often from contemporary authors of the time, John Updike and Tom Wolfe and Ann Tyler and John Irving. They were set in the recent era and had quick moving plots and though each of them was relatively serious, there were also moments that made me laugh. Most importantly, what the novels shared were vivid characters—Macon Leary, Rabbit Angstrom—and in reading them over and over again, they entered into my head no less fully formed than people in my actual life. 

A book that can be re-read is a special kind of book. As an author you learn certain tools which can keep readers turning pages—little cliffhangers and mysteries to be solved. You can put a murder on the front page and then tell the reader they’ve got to keep reading if they want to find out who did it and why. But there are certain books where even if you’ve already solved the murder, even if you already know how it’s all going to turn out, you still don’t mind reading it again because the pleasure there isn’t really the ending but rather the journey (though the ending has to be great, too—that’s another lesson I’ve learned as a novelist—if you don’t stick the ending, the rest of it unfortunately usually doesn’t matter).

John Irving’s The Cider House Rules holds one of my personal favorite scenes to re-read: Melony melting the toothbrush and sticking in the razor blade. This scene does so much—the action is exciting and vivid: you follow Melony as she ejects razor blades from a dispenser, sits, cries, and then uses a lighter to melt the handle of Homer’s toothbrush and sink the blade in. You don’t realize what it was all for, until Homer picks up the toothbrush and cuts himself—and it is then Homer who interprets for the audience what Melony has done, which is smack him in the face with the truth and hypocrisy of his life. And you wonder at the violence of it all, its smallness, its specificity, and each time I read it I come away in awe again of Melony as a character and in Irving for having created her. 

A few other favorites include:

Francie Nolan visiting the nickel store in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith;

Bridget Jones interviewing Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding;

Charlie Croker enduring the “workout session” at PlannersBanc in A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe

I could read each of these scenes over and over; I look forward to them in the same way that I might the bridge of a favorite song.

When it came time for me to try and write my third novel, which would eventually become The Satisfaction Café, I was stuck for a long time. In retrospect, some of what made it difficult was that for a period I was fixated on trying to write a successful novel, or to be more specific, a novel that would be purchased by a publisher. What would be an exciting plot? What might be a great “hook”? What did “high concept” mean, anyway?

What could be a better goal than trying to create an experience—at least for some readers—of guaranteed pleasure?

It wasn’t until I looked at the own stack of books by my bed—which did include several re-reads—that I thought to examine my own reading habits, and consider what I loved about those books. None had terribly high stakes conflicts, at least by Hollywood action standards; there weren’t nuclear emergencies or car chases or creative dystopias. What they did have however, were compelling main characters, distinct plots, some humor. With this in mind, I decided to try and create a book which was, at its heart, a book I myself might want to read and re-read. 

I once heard a piece of advice once which was to write some adjectives of what you’d like your work to be, and have them visible. I thought about what would describe my favorite re-reads and wrote four words on an index card: vivid, comic, moving, and unexpected. I had that card in front of me the entire time while writing The Satisfaction Café. I tried to make sure every scene incorporated at least a few of these adjectives, but better yet—all of them. 

Now that The Satisfaction Café is out in the world, it seems awfully presumptuous for me to claim that in the end I did manage to write a book that is re-readable. To put it plainly: tastes may differ. But it was at least my objective the entire way through. After all, the world seems to grow more chaotic, and unpredictable, each day. It seems so often now we are disappointed by matters in the universe. So what could be a better goal than trying to create an experience—at least for some readers—of guaranteed pleasure? 

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The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang is available from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.