Creative works you found at the perfect age

Cafe Society
1

Inspired by the thread on when to read LOTR. While I wouldn’t go back and change it, I probably read it a little too early for optimum effect – if I’d been in high school or college I imagine it would have knocked me over the first time around, whereas at the time I was more like, “okay, that was nice,” and only on reread did I, I think, really appreciate it.

Creative works I did find at exactly the right age:

-Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising books, which I read at age 9 or so. I ate these up. I have no idea what I would’ve thought had I read them older – I think the essential weirdness of the books might have become more clear to me, as well as the “plot coupon” structure, probably to its detriment but maybe to its enhancement a little as well.

-Les Mis, age 12. I’d read an abridged version of Les Miserables, so I was captivated by the fact that someone had written songs for it – this was my first Broadway experience. And much older and the super-simple songs and the blatant emotional manipulation would probably have turned me off.

-Ender’s Game, age 13. I was just the right age to strongly identify with Ender’s early-adolescent no-one-understands-me angst. My friends who read it in college thought Ender was whiny, which I guess he is, but I was down with whiny at age 13!

-The Divine Comedy, age 22. Here age was less of a factor than the fact that this was my year abroad where, in contrast to my mostly-science academic route, I mostly read a lot of poetry and medieval writing and theology. Anytime before or after that year, and having the particular mindset I did at the time, I don’t think I would have appreciated it nearly as much, or fallen quite so in love with it.

-Bach’s Mass in B Minor, age 24. I disliked Bach until college, when I took a music theory course that changed my opinion of him. That course stayed in the back of my head and over the next five years or so my experience and love of Bach grew. By the time I heard this Mass, I was a true Bach convert and so it was able to knock me head over heels. I don’t think that would have happened had I heard the Mass as a kid or even in college. These days, I don’t listen to music as much, so I’m not sure it would have had the effect had I heard it for the first time now, either.

2
  • **Dune **at age 13/14
  • **Catcher in the Rye **at 15
  • **The Fountainhead **at age 17 - only age I could’ve actually made it through
  • **John Fowles’ The Magus **in early 20’s

But for me, the most important is probably the album Truth, by the Jeff Beck Group. I was in a Ted Nugent, Aerosmith kinda phase and just picking up guitar - a substitute teacher turned me on to Truth and it opened up a whole new world of guitar listening to me.

3

Not that I was suicidal or anything, but Tori Amos really hit her stride at just the right time for me. She released Little Earthquakes when I was 12, Under The Pink when I was 14, Boys For Pele when I was 16 and From the Choirgirl Hotel when I was 18. For a kid that got picked on a lot, didn’t make a lot of friends at his HS (had friends outside of school though) and generally liked to just get out of school and get home, she got me through my teen years. Couldn’t have had better timing.
Considering the timing for those 4 albums, I’m going to guess a lot of people about my age (or maybe +/- 2 or 3 years) could say the same thing.

4

I stumbled upon Anne Rice at 13-ish. I enjoyed them at the time but as I read more later in high school I realized how bad the books were and didn’t turn into, like, a 21 year old Twilight fan or anything.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out when I was 12. It was an amazing experience at that age and one of those childhood moments you treasure forever. Learning how to solve the puzzles and seeing an immersive 3D world for the first time was great for me. And the game withstands the test of time.

5
  • Star Wars at 7
  • Narnia series at 8
  • Catcher in the Rye at 14

Probably dozens more books, but those two are the ones that spring to mind. And Star Wars was a revelation; I had no clue what it was, my parents made me go. I wanted to see the new Benji movie, not some dumb war movie. Boy, was I wrong. I pretty much spent the next 6 or 7 years of my life trying to figure out how to be Princess Leia when I grew up.

Heck, I’m *still *trying to figure out how…

6

Atlas Shrugged at 13 (my English teacher was very surprised when I plopped that down on my desk during Friday afternoon reading hour!)

Star Trek at 11 - this probably started my lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy, and also kick-started my love for writing fiction.

Lord of the Rings at 11 - Got it out of the junior high library and loved it at first read. I had tried to read The Hobbit a couple years earlier but didn’t like it very much; LotR was much better.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at 6 - Mom took me and a 4 year old friend to see it at the theatre. Friend freaked out and we had to leave like 10 minutes before the movie was over. I never forgave him for that, since it took me years before I got to see it (and the end is one of my favorite parts). I firmly believe that this movie cemented my attraction to smart, sarcastic, offbeat guys (both as characters and in real life). Gene Wilder as Wonka was my first crush.

7

This is a rather interesting question.

–I read most of Ayn Rand in my mid-teens, the perfect time for her. I’ve never reacted as strongly to any book on a personal level as I did to “Anthem,” which is hardly literature. Something in the psychology and insights of Ayn Rand are perfect for teens. I don’t think they do any harm and may do some good at that time of life.

–When I was in high school and college, late 60’s to mid 70’s, Tolkien was a fad and the kind of people who were reading him seemed an odd, avant-guard subculture. They would sit around in small groups discussing fine points of hidden meaning for hours in dark coffee-house discourses. I read one of Tolien’s works, don’t even remember which, “didn’t understand it” (in the words of Sean Connery explaining why he turned down the role of Gandalf in the movies), and moved on.

After the movies came out, when I was in middle age (I’ll take the pun, though I didn’t intend it), I reread the books to clarify movie issues. At that point I saw Tolkien in a whole new light as literature and have been interested ever since.

–I discovered Cormac McCarthy late in life, and “The Road” is a good retrospective on the nature of life. I read it in two sittings. Younger readers will see a different story in it, I think.

–Controversial note: I’ve never been able to read the Bible. I’ve tried at many different ages: It makes no sense whatsoever to me, even in a “modern English” version. I just don’t get it, either as moral instruction, history, or literature.

8

I was living in England in the summer of 1999, at the age of 11. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban came out midsummer, and my dad picked up the first three books at a bookstore because of the major hype, and we read them aloud as a family in the evenings all summer (and I got in trouble for reading ahead).

I was the perfect age for the books then, though it might have been better to be a year or so younger so that I’d be closer in age to him as the series finished. We got into them before the craze hit the US, and it was a lot of fun to read them in the evenings as a family throughout the whole series.

I’ll happily read them to my kids, but I think they’ll miss out on some of the anticipation that made it so fun for kids my age.

9

I was 23 when ***This Is Spinal Tap ***came out, which meant I was the perfect age to appreciate it. That is, I was just old enough to realize how STUPID many of my favorite heavy metal and prog-rock idols were, but still young enough to remember how utterly cool they’d all seemed just a few years earlier.

I was just the right age to laugh at AND sympathize with Nigel, David, Derek, Mick and Viv.

10

Well, **The Catcher in the Rye **has been mentioned a few times already, but it’s what I wanted to say, too. I read it for the first time when I was 13 and found it thoroughly entertaining. I have re-read it three times since, most recently last year, and I still love it.

Picking up **A Game of Thrones **at age 30 was pretty convenient, too. I would not have had the patience for it as a younger lad.

11

This might seem weird, but I think it was perfect that I first started reading the Harry Potter series right after my first year of college. I didn’t have much of a life in high school, but had such an amazing time up in college. Then afterward I was stuck back in my hometown during the summer. I identified with Harry’s loneliness and despair of having to wait out the summer to go back to the first place he felt he truly belonged.

12

Good one. I was about the same age and grew up listening to a lot of prog-rock and 70’s heavy metal. “Spinal Tap” really touched a nerve in both good and bad ways.

It was also about the same time that a college roommate turned me on to Tom Robbins books, especially Still Life With Woodpecker. His early books seemed a little dated at the time but were still enjoyable, and I thought SLWW was the best damned thing I had ever read. I have such fond memories of reading that book 30 years ago that I’d be afraid now to go back and read it again for fear of being disappointed. And I haven’t touched a Tom Robbins book since Skinny Legs and All - I guess his style just stopped being entertaining for me later on, but it was perfect for that particular time in my life.

13

I first read Harry Potter at 11. I don’t think I would like it as much if I first read it now.

14

Tom Sawyer was very good in 4th grade.

When I was in 7th grade, my father was invited to sort through the library of a dead colleague, I tagged along and picked up a book called *The Warlord of Mars. *Starting Burroughs much later than age 13 would probably be a bad idea.

15

Thanks to Elendil’s Heir for leading me to that quote.

16

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves hobbits and orcs.”

                                                                      --Quadop, via Elendil's heir

I value both Ayn Rand and Tolkien, each in his proper perspective and context.

17

RAH’s Friday … probably 15. I know its one of his most hated books, but for me It the book that spoke to my situation the most.

Meflin

18

E.T. came out when I was 10, right about the same age as Elliot.

Star Wars OT from ages 6 to 12 when they were first released.

Jimmy Buffet when I was in college. Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw summed up the scene pretty well

19

The Great Brain at age 11.

20

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about age twelve or thirteen. Perfect.