Ever read a book that you could tell was doing something interesting or meaningful, but it just didn’t land because of where you were mentally or emotionally at the time?
I’m not talking about books you outright hated, but ones you suspect might have hit very differently if you’d picked them up a few years earlier,or later. Sometimes the timing is off: you’re too close to the subject matter, too burned out, or just not in the right headspace to be open to what the book is asking of you.
For me, one example is The Remains of the Day. I could see how carefully crafted it was, and I understood why people love it, but when I read it I was craving something more immediate and emotionally direct. I walked away appreciating it intellectually, while feeling pretty disconnected from it on a personal level.
I’m curious what books other people feel this way about.
Are there any you plan to revisit someday, hoping they’ll finally click? Or ones you’ve decided were good books… just not for you?
by Low_Masterpiece_2612
11 Comments
Pride & Prejudice! I tried to read it in high school and it felt insufferable. I had no idea it was satire; I took it all very, very literally.
I read Anna Karenina at the age of 15 and I was clearly too young to appreciate its beautiful ideas and prose … thankfully it put me off reading Warren in peace for quite a few decades by which time I appreciated the story significantly more.
On the other hand I did read clockwork orange as a teenager and it was mind blowing
The first time I read A Clockwork Orange a girl I knew at my highschool got raped.
Flowers for Algernon. It is a great difficult book to go through (emotional wise). I would normally welcome these kind of books, but I was in the bad place plus I just finished When breath before air. Back to back two some what depressing books are a bit too much for me.
Proust.
Early 20’s. I hadn’t lived enough to appreciate him.
A lot of books I read when I was too young to really appreciate the language. Blood Meridian comes to mind. I tried to read it in college and I didnt have the patience nor vocabulary for now it. Now its one of my favorite books.
The opposite is a book I wish I read earlier in my life. The best example i can come up with is The Road. I read it after my child was born and it was way too emotionally bleak for me. I think the constant thought of my own child in such an insane post apocalyptic work really fucked with my mind. I would have had a more detached and enjoyable experience if I read it when i was younger.
House of Leaves. First time I read it, I was not aware of my own mental illness, so it was too close and I couldn’t observe it. Then I read it after I’d made a lot of strides in my therapy, and it totally snapped for me. It truly is one of the best depictions of mental illness in book form.
The Iliad, I read it as a young 20- something and just, couldn’t wrap my head around it. Didn’t appreciate it for what it was, but I was also fighting unmedicated psychosis and scizo effective disorder. Now, not to get personal, I’m taken a deep interest in Hellenismos and classic literature, I plan on picking up the book again and reading it with a whole new perspective on it, myself, and life in general. I plan on picking up both it and The Odyssey- which my freshmen class in highschool read but I did not- the translations by Emily Wilson, who is said to be the best translator. I look forward to them, I think… they’ll be much more illuminating now that I’m in a different head space and point of life and heading towards the big three- oh.
**I was tired, yet i had to do more things in order to finish my project and works. However, i don’t know why but i began to read a book called ‘the storm before the storm’ and i just read it. For a weak, i read it when i got tired of working.**
**I love history, and that book is just fascinating.**
The Road like 2 weeks after my mother passed away at 53. I cried through the entire book. Not sure why I didn’t stop reading it
Steppenwolf by Hesse. I read it in high school and got some of it, but im reading it again now at 31 and the book just hits so different. Im closer in age to when Hesse wrote the book at 50 so I can relate a bit more but I do plan on reading it again in my 40s if im around