Happy Friday, everyone! This week's prompt is inspired by conversations I've been having with various people in the comments of one of my recent posts, about revisiting personally beloved or critically acclaimed stories years later, and being surprised by past perceptions. The specific story is an epic fantasy doorstopper from the 2000s which I adored when I first read it in my early twenties (I have distinct memories of sharing my copies with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
catpuccino when we were housemates, and spending hours feverishly speculating about potential plot developments; I think I also still have one of the pairings from the series listed as an 'interest' on Dreamwidth, a holdover from importing my profile from Livejournal close to fifteen years ago without much alteration). Rereading the whole thing after my mum shipped my book collection over from Australia, I was horrified by the numerous unfortunate implications in the book.
So my prompt is: tell me about similar experiences, in which you returned to a story after some time (it can be any work of fiction, not just a book), and experienced it very differently to the first time around.
The other big one for me recently (again sparked by rereading my old books) is the numerous 1980s and 1990s collections of eerie short stories for children/teenagers that felt mildly creepy when I read them at the intended age, and I found downright terrifying when rereading them as a thirtysomething adult. Their authors had an absolute gift for evoking an atmosphere that was uncanny and weird and quirky to a child, overlayed across truly unsettling and horrifying implications that are much more visible to an adult. And that particular experience is really making me want to track down a secondhand copy of Victor Kelleher's Del-Del, one of the most terrifying books I have ever read, which frightened me so much when I read it at fifteen or so that I was afraid to be alone in the house or go to sleep at night — and which I haven't read since. I'm curious if I would still find it as scary!
In any case, what about you?
catpuccino when we were housemates, and spending hours feverishly speculating about potential plot developments; I think I also still have one of the pairings from the series listed as an 'interest' on Dreamwidth, a holdover from importing my profile from Livejournal close to fifteen years ago without much alteration). Rereading the whole thing after my mum shipped my book collection over from Australia, I was horrified by the numerous unfortunate implications in the book.So my prompt is: tell me about similar experiences, in which you returned to a story after some time (it can be any work of fiction, not just a book), and experienced it very differently to the first time around.
The other big one for me recently (again sparked by rereading my old books) is the numerous 1980s and 1990s collections of eerie short stories for children/teenagers that felt mildly creepy when I read them at the intended age, and I found downright terrifying when rereading them as a thirtysomething adult. Their authors had an absolute gift for evoking an atmosphere that was uncanny and weird and quirky to a child, overlayed across truly unsettling and horrifying implications that are much more visible to an adult. And that particular experience is really making me want to track down a secondhand copy of Victor Kelleher's Del-Del, one of the most terrifying books I have ever read, which frightened me so much when I read it at fifteen or so that I was afraid to be alone in the house or go to sleep at night — and which I haven't read since. I'm curious if I would still find it as scary!
In any case, what about you?