Oldfags of /lit/ (40 years old and up), what book did you love as a younger man that felt like an entirely different story when you picked it back up years later?
>>25164479I dunno. I turn 44 in June and my tastes changed from fiction to nonfiction
>>25164479Lots. I don’t revisit certain books or movies because I know it will lose the magic. I think it’s more fruitful to talk about what held up. LOTR did. (Hobbit did not.)Youthful anger books go bad and start to sound like a whiny kid. Old man yells at cloud books you didn’t like start to sound more reasonable. I read a lot of King when I was a teen and liked it. It’s mostly trash on revisiting with some exceptions. Misery (that I thought dull back then) is a pretty mature book for being grounded and channels his own fears and annoyances about fandom. Gets more relevant with age not less. Some short works are also actually good. The Body, etc. I read a lot of fantasy and it’s really terrible to revisit. I loved that they had huge expansive worlds now I just feel the author having no fucking clue where they’re going and dragging shit out to sell another book. Seems like a more common experience too, see the ASOIAF threads, Wheel of Time ones. I’d rather eat a bullet than reread that shit. Sometimes the book is such a product of its era, like Illuminatus! is still fun for me but I don’t think I can recommend it to younger people? You needed to be there I guess. Maybe older people felt that about the beatnik stuff and the hippie east stuff when those eras sank into the long past. Most of what we experience from other eras are a handful of survivors. Read a random book from the early 1900s and it’s near unreadable crap. But we still talk about the few that made it. Three Men and a Boat stands out because it sounds weirdly modern. It must have been bizarre in its own era. Same thing with something like Hunger. Consider how Corncob’s book sound like little else to us, yet 50-100 years on they might be some of the survivors of our era. Are they “representative” in any way? Or is it because he’s an anomaly in his own time?I guess overall endless series I used to feel I had time for, Sharpe, Aubrey-Maturin, it’s still fun to dip into but I can’t help looking at my watch so to speak. I much prefer solid shorter books in any genre. The Postman Always Rings Twice. Hemingway and Steinbeck. Being able to have something so specific to say you don’t need the filler.
>>25164532>be old>talk
>>25164698>be young>be snide instead of purposeful in speechmany such cases
>>25164483why'd they change?
>>25164479I think the only ones which did not change drastically were the scifi I was into when I was in jr high, mostly PKD. They were pretty much the same but failed to engage me as they did when I was 13.
>>25164532>Read a random book from the early 1900s and it’s near unreadable crap. But we still talk about the few that made it. Three Men and a Boat stands out because it sounds weirdly modern. It must have been bizarre in its own era. Same thing with something like Hunger. Consider how Corncob’s book sound like little else to us, yet 50-100 years on they might be some of the survivors of our era. Are they “representative” in any way? Or is it because he’s an anomaly in his own time?wise oldfag anon
>>25165100>be old>misinterpret intention>denying a persons right to their snide feelings>brainwashing the youth
ANYTHING BY RAY BRADBURY.
I AM NOT FORTY YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER, THOUGH.
>>25164532The Hobbit is pure kino. You have no soul
>>25164532Sheeeeit unc, I know what you mean and shit. I ain't got TIME for no books when I gots to be on 4chan and shit.
The timing makes a bit difference. I read Tropic of Cancer in my early twenties and it was very inspiring. He makes the life of a flaneur seem heroic. I still dip into his stuff, but his drunk-on-the-possibilities hits when the world is wide open for you.
>>25165215Becoming more obsessed with theorizing than stories
>>25164532>Youthful anger books go bad and start to sound like a whiny kid.Anything about rebellion just lost the edge to me, including (or rather especially) romantics. >I loved that they had huge expansive worlds My interest in "worldbuilding" crashed to near zero. It's actually done better in video games anyway. Old fairy tales that just introduced extravagant creatures and lands as they went along were correct.
