Submitted by CreepyTarot t3_11ctw4b in books
Like the intensity of the emotions as they return are overwhelming, and the fact you know the plot makes it so bittersweet.
I am rereading the Kristin Lavransdatter series and no books have ever affected me this deeply except the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's sounds dramatic but it's like my soul cries out when I read these lines.
Do you have a book like this? Good literature makes me feel so lost sometimes.
Yes they absolutely count! I definitely remember that book.
I tried re-reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 after watching the Hulu adaption. King might not be the biggest hitter for emotional reads, but knowing the ending that was approaching just hurt my heart more with each page. I couldn't do it. I tend not to re-read anything in general except LOTR, but that was almost the exception.
Started watching the TV adaptation having read the book a few years back and couldn’t watch beyond the first episode as it was so bad. The book is fantastic though. One of those rare books that really stays with you
"Random acts of senseless violence". I have never re-read it, but that is precisely because it would be too painful for me to follow the protagonist, knowing what happens to (or with) her.
Gunnar's Daughter, another book by Sigrid Undset. It really resonated with me the first time and it still does. I feel the main character's emotions every reread.
I love Kristin Lavransdatter so much.
I just re-read the Unbroken by cl clark and it had me feeling emotions that didn't come up as hard the first time
Isn't it wild how that happens? It's like magic.
Everytime i read Blood Meridian. I am reading How High We Go in the Dark right now and am reading only one chapter at a time to make the emotion last. I did this with Cloud Atlas and others. I know after 2-3 chapters if this will be a thing.
Blood Meridian is really powerful, it is hard for me to reread sometimes with the violence, but line for line I think McCarthy is probably the best American writer for prose.
I have never heard of How High We Go but I am going to reserve it on Libby.
Did you read the Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet? Very similar feeling, I had to read it slow because the feelings it gave me were so enticing and rich.
I will probably go to ebay in 10 seconds and buy it. Haha.
Flowers in the attic. I cannot go on with the series.
A River Runs through It by Norman Maclean was so good, I bawled when I finished it. It's been moved on my shelves, but I have never read it again.
[From Goodreads] "Just as Norman Maclean writes at the end of A River Runs through It that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It & Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx."
"Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps & for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas & short story in this collection are based on his own experiences — the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures & beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, & so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand & foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, & whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams & mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, & being a husband, a son, & a father."
Oh my gosh I LOVE Kristin Lavransdatter! I just reread it last year. To answer your question, no I don't feel the same way when reading books - if I liked it enough to reread, then I really really liked it, but I don't usually have a strong emotional reaction. With KL specifically, I was hugely judgmental of her when I first read it when I was 23 (although I very much enjoyed the book). Now that I have my own marriage and child and life, I still felt that I would have made vastly different decisions (I didn't think Simon Darre was that bad of a catch lol, even at 23), but I came to her story with a very sympathetic heart this time around. If I feel lost, it is after reading, unable to move on to anything else for a few weeks because nothing can measure up.
Yes omg I love your comment!! Same situation, reading it at different ages has made me feel differently and more sympathetic. It's like such a beautiful portrait of human life and all its misgivings.
The Kingkiller series. Before learning more about media theory and all that, I LOVED those books. To the point that I was depressed after finishing A Wise Man's Fear (book #2).
Going back to read them, they feel a bit immature and remind me of an early 20's version of myself and honestly when book three comes out I'll take a pass. I've aged out of the series and tbh the author is a really aggressive jerk and that really ruined my desire to support him in any way.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy will absolutely move you
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is a great book, but I had such a visceral reaction to it while reading it that I don't dare reread it. It somehow hoists the feeling of alienation on to its reader.
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai didn't give me the same visceral reaction, so it must have something to do with Dazai finishing No Longer Human right before he committed suicide. Maybe when you're so close to death you write in a different way.
Yes, i understand this feeling so so much!!!
There are two for me.
The Green Mile by Stephen King.
John Coffey is one of the most moving characters I have read.
An American Ghost by Chester Aaron.
This is a lovely read, I really feel for the main character and often cry when I finish reading it. Time to get it down from the bookshelf again I think.
I've read books that were so emotionally devastating that I refused to ever reread them again.
When I was charitably giving The Great Gatsby another chance I got up from the chair in the middle of one or another conversation in it to go do something more gratifying and when I did my knee hurt a terrific lot. And I began to feel a migraine whilst re-reading Vanity Fair. That's a seriously weird concidence, given that all the characters in the novel have heads.
The Girl in a Swing was like this for me, couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.
I've never reread a book. Am I broken?
This is me with 1984 by George Orwell, like I seriously loved the book (I read it on my own time, not in school) and I just could not read it again, It was way too emotional for me.
King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak - a heartbreaking and beautiful book, I reread it several times when I was a kid, but can't imagine reading it again now
I once dropped war and peace and it landed on my big toe.
Yes! It's so difficult for me to read the third book in that series - I have to psych myself up to do it. (It's one of my favorites even so!)
The “my brilliant friend” saga is a punch in the gut. You live through Lenú admiring Lila and it’s all so painfully beautiful
Master and Margarita, I read it first in high school and have reread it twice, both times made me cry.
A Place of Greater Safety. I think Mantel connected with the history and wanted to write about it in part because of her struggles with her health, and so did I, it's not always easy to pin down but it runs through it. I won't reread it, I have looked through for specific passages, but what I did was learn French. Reading the actual words of the people involved feels, often painful but also a privilege.
I cried along with my soul for a week when I was first reading Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. Just can't bring myself to ever re-read it.
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AmusingMiscreant t1_ja54gxs wrote
Do books read many years ago when I was an angsty teen count? If so then " The Summer of My German Soldier " is right up there for me.