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Jan. 11th, 2014 08:55 pmAfter being completely unable to find a book I wanted to reread that I know I own earlier this week, I completely reorganized my bookshelves. The books were completely haphazardly arrayed after the last move, so this took a couple of hours. First sorting into piles of those I'd read and those I hadn't, then into broad genre categories, and then alphabetically. I feel immensely better having done this. And I found the books I was looking for! (No Exit and Nausea by Sartre.)
These books are the ones I've had since I was a kid, so my immense collection of YA. sorting through them again reminded me of the immense pleasure I had reading many of them. I kind of want to embark on a great reread, but I'm afraid of them not holding up. I adored Jackaroo and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. I kind of don't want to look at them with my trained editor's eye.
In particular, I was going through my Star Wars books. I read every Star Wars book that was published before Phantom Menace came out, including the Galaxy of Fear series (which were surprisingly entertaining) and the Junior Jedi Knights (which were not). Star Wars books were about 40% of what I read in high school. There are the bad ones, but I loved the universe so much. I had a completely different relationship to fictional universes at the time. I tended to view the Star Wars universe as preexisting--like George Lucas had created it in entirety, and these books were just shining a light on previously unseen corners. I didn't really think of it as individual authors with individual acts of creation. Which means I don't think I'd find these books very good now, because I would be more aware of individual failings and less forgiving. It used to be enough that the characters I liked were in it. It's not anymore. Because I have discovered fanfic and know I don't have to survive on the authorized versions. If I read a story I don't like in a universe I love, I can just go find another, instead of putting up with it cause there wouldn't be another one for a few months. This kind of encapsulates my relationship to media tie-in books overall. I used to read a ton of them--I don't think I've read one now in, oh, six, seven years.
These books are the ones I've had since I was a kid, so my immense collection of YA. sorting through them again reminded me of the immense pleasure I had reading many of them. I kind of want to embark on a great reread, but I'm afraid of them not holding up. I adored Jackaroo and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. I kind of don't want to look at them with my trained editor's eye.
In particular, I was going through my Star Wars books. I read every Star Wars book that was published before Phantom Menace came out, including the Galaxy of Fear series (which were surprisingly entertaining) and the Junior Jedi Knights (which were not). Star Wars books were about 40% of what I read in high school. There are the bad ones, but I loved the universe so much. I had a completely different relationship to fictional universes at the time. I tended to view the Star Wars universe as preexisting--like George Lucas had created it in entirety, and these books were just shining a light on previously unseen corners. I didn't really think of it as individual authors with individual acts of creation. Which means I don't think I'd find these books very good now, because I would be more aware of individual failings and less forgiving. It used to be enough that the characters I liked were in it. It's not anymore. Because I have discovered fanfic and know I don't have to survive on the authorized versions. If I read a story I don't like in a universe I love, I can just go find another, instead of putting up with it cause there wouldn't be another one for a few months. This kind of encapsulates my relationship to media tie-in books overall. I used to read a ton of them--I don't think I've read one now in, oh, six, seven years.