My Cheesy Readers may remember my post a few months ago titled Comfort Reads in which I debated which genre book qualified as My Comfort Read --- that one book or series that I've read many times, where I turn to time and time again, where I can jump in the book anywhere and find myself caught up in its story again like returning to an old friend.
I mentioned that I had thought it was The Lord of The Rings series because I reread at least one book a year, but if I thought about random reading, I always turned to Dune. So I handed the honor to Frank Herbert's classic.
Remember that conversation? Of course you do.
Well, I was watching a documentary on the making of the sets of the LOTR movies and for the segment concerning Minas Morgul, they quoted text from the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol." Later I picked up The Two Towers and started reading the chapter they referenced. Next thing I realized, I was deep into the story of the climb with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and had read way past the part they described in the documentary. Quite an unexpected turn of events. I had just done what I said I had only previously done with Herbert's Dune. And then instances of other times this had happened came back to my memory, like the time I picked it up and relieved the death of Boromir and the splitting of the Fellowship, or the time I found myself randomly reading the confrontation at the Black Gate at Mordor. Hmmm... Maybe my previous decision was a bit hasty.
So with that in mind, I felt compelled to log back on here and modify my previous statement. I had awarded the honor to Dune, but now I have to rescind that again --- the score is still tied, which is really the way it should be. If I'm in the mood for the fantasy genre, it's LOTR, and if I'm in the mood for science fiction, then it's Dune.
Simple enough. Now if I recall, the last I left our hapless heroes, Sam has just realized that spider venom doesn't immediately kill its victims....
Until next time...
Tie-ingly Yours,
Michael
We all have our comfort foods; those foods we turn to when we need and seek comfort; those that make us feel warm inside and forget all the external crap making our lives hell.
Well, I recently saw an article about how people unwind after a stressful day at work, and one woman says she comes home, picks up her much-loved and much-worn copy of Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and randomly begins reading until she is fully relaxed and ready to take on home life with a stress-free mind.
"Whether I begin reading about an epic battle or the mechanics of whaling ships, I am transported elsewhere."
I like that. I want that. I even like that it's Moby Dick that this woman turns to for comfort - the same novel that many high school and college students tried to avoid reading. It has become a litmus test among readers, broken into two camps: Those Who Love It and Those Who Don't.
I have that Comfort Read to a certain degree. Reading in general does that for me, but I'm always reading new books, trying-to-catch-up books that require my attentiveness as a new story is revealed to me. Or else I'll read poetry. Sometimes new, sometimes familiar, always light-hearted.
But I got to thinking about it some. I've reread a lot of books, many times. The four primary books of the Lord of the Rings immediately comes to mind. Each year I reread one, creating a cycle whereby every four years I've gone through another round. But I don't just randomly pick it up and start reading, I have a strict schedule. I then I wondered, "Maybe I should just start randomly reading them." But then, knowing me, I'd sit around for fifteen minutes and internally debate which one to pick up. So it's probably best I just keep doing what I'm doing with that set of books (NOTE: for the curious, this year is a reread of Fellowship, which is probably my favorite of the four for simply nostalgic reasons. But then again, that's not accurate either. I have some sort of unique nostalgic attachment to each one of them for different reasons. Maybe that's why I enjoy reading them over and over - each one fulfills some unnamed emotional joy).
Then I realized, once again, The Surprise in my reading stack. Dune. Yep, the same book I've blogged about before. The same book I own four copies of. The same one that I still have the very first copy I bought and reread so many times that a rubberband holds its pages together. I haven't even made it completely through the whole series (especially and including the ones written after Frank Herbert's death), because I always return to that original and reread it instead of moving off to the post-Frank era.
So if I had pick that one comfort book, from the evidence of my past reading habit, I'd have to say Dune is the one.
(Note: and of course now, I suddenly want to reread it again, despite the two-foot high stack I swore I'd read before rereading or starting another series of books).
(Another damn Note: I also now have that compulsion to start in on Fellowship. After all, like Dune, I own multiple copies of that series as well - at least three that I can see from this chair.)
(Geez, yet another damn Note: Guess what other American classic book I'd love to find the time to reread? OH! The Lament of the Voracious Reader!)
Until Next Time...
Mobyly Yours,
Michael
