Emily, thank you for responding to Cal’s question. I feel exactly the same way as you do. Your second paragraph makes a great point. I often reread my underlinings to revisit a book or as you said, when reminded of them by another book. In fact, sometimes when I’m looking for a passage, I end up rereading all of my underlinings in a book, which is like a short visit, when I would have had no time to reread the book start to finish.

I’m probably the most vociferous underliner around here, and one of the reasons I do it is that it amplifies my pleasure in re-reading as well. Klinkenborg’s points about a piece of literature changing with the changing perspective of the reader is true – but it doesn’t mean that I change so much as to stop enjoying the passages I most loved when I first read the book. Even if I do, I still think it’s interesting to remember what struck me the first time through, and sometimes I’ve even been known to comment on my own comments as I make my way through a second or third time.

There’s also an intermediate stage that Klinkenborg doesn’t mention but which plays a huge part in my life – the referencing of favorite passages, not as part of a full re-read, but a revisiting of favorite (or problematic) passages when reminded of them by another book, or by something that happens in my life. I find underlining extremely useful for locating the passages I’m looking for, since the ones I remember tend to be a subset of the ones I underline.

Sarah, thanks for your comment. I reread Gift from the Sea every year at the beach. It has such a centering effect.

Mireille, thank you for the musical link. I am listening as I type these words to you. I hope Walt, as well as others, will have the chance to listen. Puts me in the mood for Proust. Wonderful!

Jennifer, it’s so true that it doesn’t matter if you know what’s coming in a good book. In fact it’s reassuring that we can count on the words over and over again. No matter what else changes, the words stay the same.

I will throw Cal’s question out there, hoping for some responses from those of you who write in books as to whether past underlinings and comments interfere with your rereading or add to it. I personally am interested in what I thought the first time and in seeing if it’s the same or different. But I’d love to hear from others.

Yes, Re-reading is a part of my life to. Marcel is always near me. Du côté de chez Swan is still my best friend… and the music of hes words full of impression is part of the day.

I think a little sonate will make you smile. It’s a interpretation of la sonate de Vinteuil. La petite musique de Marcel… for mister Pascoe.

César Frank

Thanks for this suggestion.

Verlyn Klinkenborg nailed it so thoroughly that I’m more or less speechless…except to be left recalling yet again that marvelous passage in The Recherche where Proust describes his youthful ecstasies, and the budding writer’s desire to translate them into a more precisely articulated and communicative form:
“…must hear my shouts of happiness, these being no more than expressions of the confused ideas which exhilarated me, and which had not achieved the repose of enlightenment, preferring the pleasures of a lazy drift towards an immediate outlet rather than submit to a slow and difficult course of elucidation.”
and :
“…I cried aloud in my enthusiasm, brandishing my furled umbrella: ‘Gosh,gosh,gosh,gosh!’ But at the same time I felt that I was in duty bound not to content myself with these unilluminating words, but to endeavor to see more clearly into the sources of my rapture.”
(Swann’s Way p.169-170)

Barb, it is fun to connect with someone over a book, especially kind of out of the blue like this. The Music Room is good, isn’t it? Have you read any of his other books?

Yes, Linda, I loved the visual at the end of the article, but no, oddly enough, I don’t often think about what happens after the last page. Interesting.

I guess it was a weird WP blip. Glad it’s not something else I have to figure out how to fix.