imaginarycircus

So many books don't hold up on second readings. Its rare that I don't reread a book even if I hated it. I want to know why I hated it, especially a popular book like Twilight. I want to know why other people loved it. I like to decipher how I could have done it better. I'm arrogant that way.

But books that stand up over years and over multiple readings? Books that delight me now as much as they did the first time I read them 20 years ago?

This is one:

"To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.

I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed. They said I was a boy named Rudolf Waltz, and that was that. They said the year was 1932, and that was that. They said I was in Midland City, Ohio, and that was that.

They never shut up. Year after year they piled detail upon detail. They do it still. You know what they say now? They say the year is 1982 and that I am fifty years old.

Blah blah blah."

Deadeye Dick, Kurt Vonnegut

I needed a reminder. Also this is my character's favorite book because its about an asexual murderer.