Re-Reading Books

A few months ago, I re-read Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly.  I enjoyed it and recalled some of it, but also had some new perspectives.  I recently finished My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.  I was surprised that, even though I read it 40+ years ago, I remember very, very little, if any of it.  Wow!  But it was well worth reading--again, almost like for the first time.

Re-reading books, as a classmate of mine wrote, some years later is "a good thing."  It does allow one's life experiences to give new perspectives.  I read Asher Lev again because I came across its title and remembered it being a very thought-provoking and enlightening book.  Although it's been decades, I'm pretty sure that I didn't have the same reactions to Asher Lev that I had last week.  And I wasn't disappointed, not at all.

Potok's novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, is the story of an Orthodox Jewish boy, who practices Hasidic Judaism faithfully, in Brooklyn.  Asher becomes an artist, a world-renown artist who is frequently conflicted between his art and what drives him to create and his religion and even loved ones, his family and community.  The conflicts, at least to me, are also ones I experienced.  How do I take this artist Asher Lev?  Caught between the inner monster of creativity and the love he has for his mother and father, Asher often catches me the same ways--cheering for him and, often soon after, giving him the raspberries.  Yes, Asher, live your dreams, follow the inner voices!  No, Asher, how can you do this to those you love?

The novel is very well written as are all of Potok's books (I've just started to re-read The Chosen, which I remember better than Asher Lev), passionately written about passions.  To me it was a page-tuner and each time there was an introduction of sorts and the words "My name is Asher Lev" appeared I was excited!  There's a sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev, which I have read and plan to put on my summer reading list.

I am considering other "re-reads," too.  I have wondered what Catcher in the Rye will now read like. I might, too, re-read all of Joe Ellis' bios of the Founding Fathers, esp Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, but esp Washington.  I did try Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) which I remember as an all-time favorite.  I barely reached 50 pages and had to put it down.  Maybe that needs to be tried again, maybe.  I wonder, too, how Kurt Vonnegut's novels would read to someone other than a starry-eyed man in his early 20s.

I also read my dissertation.  It was not a re-read, since I don't think I ever really read it except to proof it.  I'd give it a passing mark, but not what my professors/committee gave me/it.  To them, it led to my induction to the graduate Phi Beta Kappa, whatever the Greek letters for it were.  I'm not sure I'd elevate it to that status.  It was lengthy (268 pp.) and heavily researched and documented, which surprised me. I remember doing a great deal of work on it, spending more time than I needed.  (My adviser told me the typical thesis length was 75 to 100 pages.  Hmmm......)  Again, I don't remember the specifics other than my "defense" of it.  The committee sat there waiting and my lead adviser merely said, "You obviously know more about this than we do.  What do you want to talk about?"  Nope, there was no "defense."  After my grueling (and that's not at all indicative of what they were) oral comprehensives at Amherst, I was expecting an academic Siberia of sorts.  Nope.  Whew!

I did get a kick out of hearing one of the members of the House of Representatives urging the chairman of the House Intelligence (?) Committee to step down because he "has lost integrity."  Wait a minute!  What member of the US Congress has the nerve to accuse another member of the US Congress of a loss of integrity??????  Comedy......

And the headline the other day read, "Russian protesters take to the streets in show of defiance."  Further reading led to the reason for the protests, that Russian government leaders had profited, quite handsomely indeed, from their political offices.  I laughed again.  Where have these Russians been hiding all these years?  After leaving your job, could you afford a $5.3 million home?  Heck, the guy who cries the loudest about "the greedy rich" has three houses, all of which are worth more than my single home and, yet, his tax bracket is half of mine, despite making about three or four times more.

Oh for good measure......  I had a student this week question me about the pages of reading not matching up with our topics in class.  Hmmm......  I had him explain or at least try to explain.  I asked to see his book to show him how the reading list/syllabus works.  I noticed, he had the wrong book!  Yes, the wrong book.  It was the text for the later half of US History, not the early half--Vol. 2, not Vol 1.  I told him that, meeting with a blank look.  Then I had a question.  "What took you nine weeks to figure all that out?"  Again, blank look......

Sometimes we just have to laugh.