When the Suck Fairy flits.

[sartorias]

I maintain that there is a perfect time for most books. Then, yeah, the Suck Fairy lands.

But what about the times when the Suck Fairy goes away?

Come talk about when old faves suck and old stinkers unsuck!

Comments

[whswhs]

That actually happened to me as an adult. I picked up Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards, read a few chapters, and totally stalled out. But then when Five Hundred Years after came out, for some reason (maybe just the obvious allusion in the title?) I made the connection to Dumas, and so I found it really funny, and Paarfi's narrative voice became a big part of the pleasure. So I went back to The Phoenix Guards, and enjoyed it just as much, particularly the portrayal of Tazendra. In fact the Paarfi novels are now my favorites of Brust's writing. And it was very much like the "Who rewrote Jane Austen and made her funny?" effect.

[sartorias]

Ah! Those are my favorites of his books as well. I don't know if I enjoyed them from the gitgo because I knew about the Dumas connection, or what, but yes. I enjoy rereading them just as much.

[whswhs]

Years ago, ebenbrooks invited me into a campaign set in Dragaera during the Interregnum (this was when the later volumes had not yet begun to appear). He had rules for sorcery and witchcraft, but they looked technical, and I didn't want to be thinking about them during play-so I decided to play a character who was a straightforward warrior. That pointed at making him a Dzur, partly because of my fondness for Tazendra. And then a bunch of stuff fell into place, in what order I'm no longer sure: He was actually Tazendra's nephew, and he was a little terrified of her and unable to tell her No in the way Bertie Wooster can't tell his aunts No, and he was also a little dim in just the way Bertie is a little dim-in fact I ended up making him about 2/3 Bertie and 1/3 d'Artagnan, and named him "Bertran."

He was tremendous fun to play! It helped that he started trading off dialogue with one of the other player characters, a Dragon, who was a lot smarter than he was. I fell into Paarfispeak for him pretty regularly. It helped crystallinze my sense that

[laetificat]

"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe. When we studied it in school, all I could do was make yam jokes. But then I grew up, and taught it to kids in the tenth grade a few years ago, and I was all, "GUYS THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER, LOOK AT ALL THE THINGS GOING ON, JUST LOOK!"

The kids basically said, "Ha ha ha, yams."

I guess that's just the way it goes!

[sartorias]

Oh, yes, exactly. It's the rare American kid who gets that book, but one hopes the seed of comprehension is planted for later.

[houseboatonstyx]

More likely, I'm afraid, being forced to read a book that's too old for zim, and forced to discuss it in class with dumb questions -- may prejudice a child against that book forever!

[sartorias]

Yeah, it's a problem when a book is badly taught. But I think that is a whole nother discussion.

[kalimac]

The book that made no impression on me at first reading was Huck Finn. I came to it right after Tom Sawyer at ten or so. Then I tried it again at 15, and now I was old enough and have loved it ever since.

[sartorias]

I did the same thing! As a kid, I couldn't make it past the dialect. And so much of what I did parse made no sense. I think I was older than you when I reread it, and discovered a completely different book from what I remembered.

[kalimac]

It wasn't the dialect. (I only hate dialect books when the dialect makes them unreadable. Riddly Walker was unreadable.) It was the slowness and sophistication of the story, at least as it gets going. Not the thing for a kid who liked the constant popping-up adventures of Tom Sawyer, which by later adolescence came to seem a bit trivial.

[houseboatonstyx]

I don't remember ever liking HF till after many decades I happened to re-read it, and having forgotten much, got the full impact of Huck's decision, which I won't spoiler here. Actually istr that as a child I had just thought that tiresome, several dull pages; of course he'd make the right decision, just like of course no one ever really got hurt in Swallows & Amazons.

I always did like some bits of HF, like the bread upon the waters. Having read the book long ago, now I knew which parts to skip (Huck's father, the feud, the Duke of Nonesuch, etc).

[cschells]

This is a timely topic for me since I spent a day recently packing up books my kids are done with to donate to the school's book swap. In went the mostly untouched box set of Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" books which were my absolute favorites growing up and which left both of my kids totally cold. It's funny, because I'm finally able to be zen about it and it's kind of freeing--that was my thing and it doesn't have to be their thing. It actually feels good to make shelf space for the books they love. I think we would all rather look at the shelves and not see books that feel like an obligation. Especially in this age of digital availability--if somebody changes their mind about a book someday, it's only a click away, right? Just writing that makes me want to reevaluate my own shelves, actually. Lots of stuff there that I feel like I ought to read someday and yet never do...

[sartorias]

I still hang onto certain childhood favorites in hopes of grandkids discovering them, I have to admit. (My kids were not readers, in spite of me reading to them from the gitgo, etc.)

[houseboatonstyx]

That's how I discovered George MacDonald and Bernard Shaw, among others! Still, no matter how often I tried The Hairy Ape, it still sucked for lack of apes.

[cschells]

There are definitely a few that I'm hanging onto...! But just for me--I think I'm done hanging onto books for other people. *g* They'll have to make their own readerly book-quests.

[mamculuna]

Happens to me a lot! I tried Catch-22 many times and hated it until finally I read it and loved it. I think it took getting past the first few pages and getting into what he was trying to do.

More recently, tried a reread of Katherine by Anya Seton and was horrified at how little I liked it (last read when I was 14, I think, but always remembered)--I've just read so much better historical fiction since then, and now it's really hokey and boring, although I love the characters.

A book that never fails me, though, is Matthiessen's Far Tortuga. I've reread it several times since it came out (70's?) and it always has the same spell--the great language, the heroic but real characters, the doomed setting.

[sartorias]

I haven't tried Seton again. I suspect I would feel the same.

It's so wonderful when a book one loved reveals new layers that causes one to fall in love all over again. That is my definition of a great book. Forget the lists compiled by the Stern Male Gaze.

[houseboatonstyx]

I came too late for the early layers of Cold Comfort Farm, having already read A.J. Cronin, Hardy, etc.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe did get much better on later reading, knowing its context. On first readings I thought the author was copying a religious story because he'd run out of ideas. That chapter still seems a flaw, a dull cold gray lump in the middle of an otherwise good story. But now I know just to skip it. ;-)

[sartorias]

I've come to appreciate the humor in Lewis that escaped me as a kid.