Book Meme - Day 8

If you re-read books, what is one book you've re-read and how did your perception of it change with each reading? If you don't re-read books, talk about why not.

I love to re-read books. Choosing between a new book and a beloved old book is a constant struggle for me, and I'm actually surprised by how often re-reading wins out (roughly 15% of the time according to the spreadsheet I've started maintaining this year). When I go back to re-read a book, it's often because I loved it the first time around and I want to revisit that feeling. Or because I finish a book knowing that there are more layers to it. My favorite books are the ones I can return to again and again. They're cozy and welcoming, and I can get enough of them.

The Name of the Wind is possibly the pinnacle of this. I first discovered it about six years, and I immediately fell head over heels in love with it. Rothfuss is a master of the English language, wringing every possible meaning out of a turn of phrase. Double entendres are too pedestrian for him; he prefers things that can be interpreted four or five different ways, with each of those ways being correct.

With each re-read, I pick up on more clues. I'm more tuned in to the rhythms and rhymes and near-rhymes in the dialogue. I get a little bit more out of this book, and I have a little bit more to wonder about. On my current read through, I've got the tenth anniversary edition, which has several pencil illustrations that add so much to the story. Seriously, some of them have just stopped me in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes. Which is a tribute to both the author and the illustrator.

I have to say, though, that a part of my deep love for this story is because it's unfinished. There's so much to speculate about, along with a growing certainty that I already have everything I need to figure out what happened. I'm eagerly awaiting the third and final installment, but part of me also hopes it never comes. There's a joy in the anticipation that the book can never possibly live up to.

Then again, Rothfuss is a perfectionist. He won't release the third book until it's perfect, if it takes him another thirty years. And maybe that's the other reason I don't mind waiting.

In the meantime, I have a nearly perfect beginning and middle that give me something more each time I revisit. I can happily re-read these for the rest of my life while I wait for an ending that will be perfect, whether it arrives or not.