Oh, what joy, to reread a favorite book for the third time and discover it’s as good as I remembered.

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies, was published in the 1970s, the first in a trilogy.  It follows a teacher, a sociopath and a magician, from their childhoods in a small Canadian village to their middle ages in Toronto and around the world. That does not begin to describe the richness, humor, and caring of Davies’s prose.  I read it last week and was sad to have it end.  I plan to pick up books two and three next week at the library.

I read John Steinbeck in the late 1950s, along with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. In the early 2000s I reread Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and it was so good the second time around.  I tried Hemingway shortly after but he didn’t hold up for me although I loved his books back in the 1960s.  I haven’t reread any Fitzgerald yet but a good friend tells me I should and that I will be rewarded.

Steinbeck was a brilliant story teller whose prose lit up the lives of his characters and their environment.  Hemingway, for me, has a particular style that dominates the story, although I didn’t notice that 60 years ago.  I don’t detect a style in Steinbeck’s books, only locales and characters and flow.

I used to have a friend who had majored in American literature in the early 1960s and she considered Hemingway a standout, finding Steinbeck’s books uninteresting, not worth a reread.  And isn’t it a treat that there are many, many excellent writers providing us with an enormous selection to suit our varied tastes.  

And lest anyone think I’m a snob, I read mostly murder mysteries with the occasional Regency or romance thrown in when I have to have a happy-ever-after ending.  Thank goddess for my more well-read friends who suggest novels I might otherwise miss.