The most shocking reread for me was Jane Eyre. I first read it at 13, and when I reread it in my early 20s it seemed like a completely different book. Somehow on my first reading I had not absorbed how rebellious and passionate Jane is. I think that her attempts to make herself into a good, meek, self-effacing woman must have overshadowed everything else. It's hard for a modern reader, especially a naive reader with very little knowledge of social history, to understand how shocking that book was at the time it was published. I wouldn't exactly say that I wasn't ready for it at 13, but I certainly missed a lot.
I probably didn't get to Jane Austen until I was 15 or 16, which is just as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-16 11:02 pm (UTC)I probably didn't get to Jane Austen until I was 15 or 16, which is just as well.