Understanding books

[kasie]

At what point in your reading life did you come to understand that some books have a deeper meaning than the surface meaning of their words?

You may not have grasped the meaning completely but when did you start to think that there may be something more to this tale than meets the eye. I think I was about seven when I first read Alice in Wonderland and, though I could not have begun to articulate it, I suspected there was more to the story than just bizarre events. It did not bother me unduly - the world was full of things I could not comprehend, most adults for a start - but it set something going in my mind that books might be a lot more than they seemed. I had already learned to identify stories that were not really stories but Sunday School lessons in disguise, a deceit I found unforgivable.

Once you realise some books have greater depth than others, can you continue to enjoy simple, less sophisticated tales again?

[cafolini]

Every child aims at understanding. Thus his/her suspicion arises that there is more than he/she can fathom. But from that to thinking that something is less this way or the other is a long ways from what actually happens. Of course there is more and more understanding with repetitive readings of the same work, which has little to do with lesser or greater trivial suppositions. Sunday school lessons are not different than any other lesson in that respect.

[Seasider]

The first author I read whose work demanded more than sheer enjoyment at a good tale with a satisfying ending was Hans Anderson. His stories stayed with me,made me think and often cry.The Little Match Girl still makes cry as does The Snow Queen And The Little Mermaid. Anderson made me aware of loneliness and suffering in ways which nothing else had done. And yet I read them again and again. They developed feelings of compassion,though like the op I could not express them in words. Only tears. I can laugh now as well as cry,thank goodness. But I still remember that sadness.

[kev67]

I can understand the OP's experience of Alice in Wonderland. A child growing up might start to catch on that the grown-ups were getting something else from all the silly verse than they were. I suppose it's a bit like The Simpsons or Futurama or the Toy Story[/] series or even some of the old Walt Disney films. I often wondered whether there was more to [I]The WInd and the Willows than it appeared to me. I could not understand why my father and other adults seemed to like it so much (still don't I'm afraid). I have heard that Jane Austen left so many meaningful details sprinkled about in her books that you can discover something new with each reading. If a book has a deeper meaning that it appears to have, then quite often it has some subplot that is not explicitly stated, or it has an unreliable narrator. It bothers me sometimes when having read a famous book that I think I must have missed something. I am not bothered about the cobblers someone like Umberto Eco writes, or some murder mystery. But for example, I get the feeling I missed a lot of the subtext in The Great Gatsby. I feel I missed some of the hints in The Heart of Darkness. I sometimes feel I pick up on a subtext in a film better. For example, that the scam in Jackie Brown was a McGuffin and that it was the subplot that mattered. I did not like The Searchers particularly, but there are one or two alternative reasons why the character played by John Wayne and his partner should spend so long looking for their niece and sister. The clues in Bladerunner, The Director's Cut add a new level of meaning to the film.

[mona amon]

Well, I knew I didn't understand some stories as a kid. For instance The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson puzzled me no end, but I must have understood it subliminally since it totally creeped me out. However, it never occurred to me that grown ups might understand it better than me, LOL.

[hannah_arendt]

I remember receiving as a child, about 5-6 years old, book with fairytales of 'nations of Soviet Union'. I got it at kindergarted so it wasn`t a choice of my family. The stories seemed to me first of all very funny.

[cacian]

At what point in your reading life did you come to understand that some books have a deeper meaning than the surface meaning of their words?

You may not have grasped the meaning completely but when did you start to think that there may be something more to this tale than meets the eye. I think I was about seven when I first read Alice in Wonderland and, though I could not have begun to articulate it, I suspected there was more to the story than just bizarre events. It did not bother me unduly - the world was full of things I could not comprehend, most adults for a start - but it set something going in my mind that books might be a lot more than they seemed. I had already learned to identify stories that were not really stories but Sunday School lessons in disguise, a deceit I found unforgivable.

Once you realise some books have greater depth than others, can you continue to enjoy simple, less sophisticated tales again?

And why did you make of Alice in Wonderland after you have realised there was more to it then meet the eye? what is this something you came to realise or are you not sure yet?:)

[cacian]

there is definitely more then meet the eye when it comes to reading a book. One book in particular stood out for me was ''The Lord of the Flies''.
After going through it years later I discovered more layers to it then I first thought. The other thing I have always wanted to know was what the did the author mean by 'Flies'.

[mande2013]

I'm new to the forum, and I wasn't sure where to ask this, as I didn't want to start a new thread just to pose this question even if it may not directly relate to the topic of this thread, but here it goes: when people on here read, do you focus on making it through one writer's body of work before moving onto another one or do you just jump from one writer to the next, reading a Dostoevsky then a Faulkner than a Flaubert then a Pynchon then a Delillo and so on?

[kasie]

Every child aims at understanding. Thus his/her suspicion arises that there is more than he/she can fathom. But from that to thinking that something is less this way or the other is a long ways from what actually happens. Of course there is more and more understanding with repetitive readings of the same work, which has little to do with lesser or greater trivial suppositions. Sunday school lessons are not different than any other lesson in that respect.

I'm sorry, cafolini, perhaps I didn't make myself clear - I meant specifically reading fiction. When did you realise when reading a story that there might be more to it than the surface narration? Of course, studying a non-fiction test for schoolwork requires more than one reading to grasp a meaning. As for Sunday School stories, perhaps you did not have the experience of being told stories that were moral lessons in disguise, sugar to sweeten the pill. (There was of course a very good precedent for doing that!)

Perhaps I should explain that the reason I asked is that I belong to a couple of reading groups and I was surprised that some of the members of one group in particular seem quite unaware that some stories have a subtext and seemed astonished to learn that there was more to the story than met the eye. I have been 'reading between the lines' for so long that it had not occurred to me that people who were prepared to get together to discuss a book did not also automatically do the same.

[kasie]

Cacian: re: Alice:There are so many cross-references in Alice that I am sure I have not yet understood all of them! I was not at all surprised to learn that Charles Dodgson was a professor of mathematics specialising in a branch of Logic. Like Alice I was very suspicious of the 'chopped logic' in her conversations with some of the characters. There is a thread on the subject somewhere in the Forum if you are interested n following it up.

re: Lord of the Flies: 'Lord of the Flies' is one of the titles given to Beelzebub. As second only to Lucifer in the ranking of the devils, he was supposed to be in charge of False Gods. His origin is thought to be in the god Baal, one of whose attributes was to have the power to drive away flies that were seen as the cause of illness and so be a curer of disease. When the Israelites turned him from a god to the opposite, his power over flies was seen as a negative rather than a positive attribute. So the 'flies' are just that, flies.

mande2013: re: reading tactics - as a new thread, this might have drawn more replies but briefly - it depends why you are reading. If you are following a course of study, you may well have to read several titles by the same author in succession, though I can't say I have come across a course that required the student to read all the works of an author, unless it be an advanced, post grad course of specialised study. For a personal study course, it could become tedious and exclude reading any titles by other authors. Reading works by contemporary authors could throw light on the author of your particular interest. If you are reading for your own interest, you may want to read one or two titles then move on to something different or parallel for contrast or comparison.

[kiki1982]

Hmm, I must a latecomer, then. I never realised there was anything to read in terms of subtext until I was sixteen, when it suddenly hit me that Harry Mulisch wanted to say something with his Assault. Before that I found reading boring. And of course, fairytales are morals in a sweet jacket. I don't think many people understand this when they read them to their children, but that said, researchers are still not totally sure what some actually mean as they seem to crop up in very similar formats across the world (Cinderella, for example is one, and Sleeping Beauty), but slightly different. Or they have similar characters (the witch or the hag). So their origins must go as far back as our languages. Indeed, telling stories is as old as humankind (or at least since that species got the ability to talk and do something else but hunting anyway).

But you are right, most people do not really read to know the subtext. There are also several levels of such subtexts and you can easily spend years and years researching one single book. You can also just read it and pick up the first level of why and what hints does the author give to me about the why or foreshadowing?

The problem with reading like that, for me, is the fact that I feel I haven't read a novel properly if I haven't thought about it or at least dug out some of it.

@mande2013: I dont concentrate on one author, no. I don't think many do, because it becomes boring after a while, or depressing or whatever. I mean, even someone less heavy like Trollope or Austen or Wodehouse must become boring after a while. Dumas too intricate, Hardy depressing, the Brontës too dark and weird. I usually alternate between fun and not fun, heavy and light. There is very good prose that's also light, it doesn't have to be Mills and Boon, Fifty Shades of Grey or whatever.

[Pen Name]

Not until my late teens, I read Watership Down, and someone suggested that the different Rabbit Warrens represented different Poltical regimes, at which point I went back to the start and have never read a book the same way again.

That said, I have no idea what the deeper underlying story or theme is in Gatsby, that people can be more boring and self obssesed than the book makes them out?

Heart of Darkness has lots of depth, mainly to do with control and Totalitarian states and Dictators, as well as survival under extreme circumstances, and how some people thrive in places others wither and die.

But the grandfather of them all is Homer, which is why the Odyssey is so good to read, and Shakespeare just goes on for ever.

[Eiseabhal]

I was disappointed that Watership Down had no proper curried rabbit recipe. Heart of Darkness does operate on several levels but has become entangled in recent years by silly controversy over Conrad (all bollocks) so it is sneered at by a few illiterates.

[PeterL]

At what point in your reading life did you come to understand that some books have a deeper meaning than the surface meaning of their words?

You may not have grasped the meaning completely but when did you start to think that there may be something more to this tale than meets the eye. I think I was about seven when I first read Alice in Wonderland and, though I could not have begun to articulate it, I suspected there was more to the story than just bizarre events. It did not bother me unduly - the world was full of things I could not comprehend, most adults for a start - but it set something going in my mind that books might be a lot more than they seemed. I had already learned to identify stories that were not really stories but Sunday School lessons in disguise, a deceit I found unforgivable.

Once you realise some books have greater depth than others, can you continue to enjoy simple, less sophisticated tales again?


That's continuous. SOme deeper meanings only become apparent after rereading, and most people don't even bother looking deeply, which is why some of the best boooks are largely ignored.