Comfort Reading

What makes us want to reread a novel again and again? And what makes that list? I have a very small list of things that I will read again and again and there is no rhyme or reason to why I will pick them up other than I can let the book fall open anywhere and read with no confusion. I have read HUNDREDS of phenomenal books but have no desire to read many of them again unless I would need to for bookclub or something. Some of them are just too brutal or emotionally taxing to be able to read again and again for comfort. Because that is why we reread things right? For comfort, familiarity. It's like visiting old friends who have known you since childhood: there are no pretensions and you can let it all hang out without the threat of consequences because they have probably seen all the nasty stuff and still love you. Most of the books that I will reread happen to be a part of a series like Harry Potter, Twilight, Outlander, Lord of the Rings, Dark Tower, etc., which makes the promise of escaping my life a guarantee once I crack open the first book (or sixth). The best part is that I won't get heartburn from reading a 5,000 page series like I will if I eat a huge and very comforting BLT.

Watchmen

In a wonderful turn of events, I found myself able to go and see a matinee (which is also infinitely cheaper) of Watchmen so that I didn't have to wait forever for my husband to decide he wanted to see it. I was extremely pleased with it and didn't object to the ways that they cut things out because frankly, it would have been about 4 hours long without the necessary trimming. It was creepy because some of the scenes were straight out of the comic, right down to the coloring and expressions. Unreal. The only damper on my outing was the fact that as we were all leaving the theater, all of the people that were college age were complaining because it wasn't a "normal" comic movie. There wasn't enough action or too much of an agenda, blah, blah, blah. I was so embarrassed to be young at that moment because of all of the movies out right now, not many have had as much print as Watchmen has had this past year and for people to come seee the movie and have NO CLUE what it is about is just careless. It's their own damn fault really. It was never marketed as Batman: Dark Knight or Blade; it was marketed as what it was: the anti-hero superhero movie based on one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. The biggest indicator that it isn't for everyone is the fact that it got an "R" rating, thankfully. It was just so disheartening to listen to them complain about how much of a waste it was to sit through this movie and to be preached at. These are apparently the people who are spending big money going to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua or Epic Movie, which we all know to be high quality entertainment. Not that I think that you have to read everything that a movie is based on before going to see it, but something like this might deserve a little preparation. Wake up 20-somethings. You are giving the rest of us a bad rap.