I was talking to a friend about comedic / farcical literature the other day, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller came up. That made me remember - I first read this book when I was about 15 years old. Or rather I read about 80% of it, didn’t quite finish it that time. I forced myself through it because I had heard it was subversive and intelligent and challenging, and I got nothing out of it. I didn’t see the humor, I didn’t get any political commentary, it was just a series of absurd things happening to absurd characters with no rhyme or reason.
I reread that book two years ago and damn near pissed myself laughing on every other page, but then the ending rolled around and it hit so hard. That sudden switch from absurdist comedy to heavy, bleak, depressing, and then he gives you just this glimmer of hope at the end anyway. I found it absolutely brilliant, and yet I kept thinking back to how none of this connected with me when I first read it.
Do you have books like that? Books that just plain went over your head, that you didn’t have the maturity to appreciate, that were too difficult in style or subject matter, and that you’ve come to appreciate years later?
The Grapes of Wrath. I read it in an American Lit class at 19. Of course, I thought it was incredible, but I just finished it this week, now a father of 2, and it hit me so much harder.
A Brief History of Seven Killings. It spans several decades telling the story of the rise of organized crime in Jamaica and the USes envolvement. Also probably the hardest book I’ve read or will read
It was neither brief (about 600 pages) nor had just 7 killings (I counted 10 in the first 50 pages). I was twelve
When I was 15 I got Phillip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint from the library. I’m now 70 and still not old enough to read that! WTH
I read Watchmen when I was 12. Too early
Is 8 years old too young to read Salem’s Lot? 10 when I read The Shining. And 12 when I read Christine and another book called Joyride by Stephen Crye. But don’t worry about me. I grew up juuuuust fine :)
Read Hamlet once when I was 12 and again when I was 35 - two completly different experiences. Same applies to some philosophical books I attempted to read when I was teenager, like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Symposium by Plato, even now I don’t get 100% the content of the books, imagine how much I did when I was a 15 year old twat.
I think every book I’ve ever read reads differently the more I learn.
But probably the ones that meet your description most clearly would be Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies and Flowers for Algernon. Required reading in grammar school, and I dimly grasped what they were supposed to be about, but I hadn’t a clue what they were really trying to say.