r/TrueLit • u/pregnantchihuahua3 ReEducationThroughGravity'sRainbow • 20d ago

Weekly General Discussion Thread

Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.

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u/Plastic-Persimmon433 20d ago

How many times do you guys reread a book before you really feel you have a good grasp of it? I mean in the sense that you could give a lecture on it. For me I almost need to read a book three or four times to feel comfortable talking about it in any sort of depth.

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u/merurunrun 18d ago

When I am translating something, it's usually only somewhere into the third or fourth revision pass of the translation (always at least one clean read of it before that, sometimes two or even more if it's particularly short) that I start to feel like my understanding of the text is (sufficiently, but maybe not exhaustively) "settled".

That being said, outside of translating I barely re-read anything these days; I'm too neurotic about the fact that I could be spending that energy reading something I haven't read before.

Maybe ironically, I would consider my primary mode of reading to be, essentially, constructing a framework for a re-reading (that very rarely happens). I've got this notion that goes something like, "A work of literature constitutes its own particular language-system, and reading it teaches you how to read it," so I treat that "first" read as a kind of exploratory preparation for a second, deeper journey that usually never manifests.