How about concentration? I can play music in the background while dancing, driving, walking, swimming, cleaning the house, working on the computer, dozing off - any number of things. Can’t exactly do that with a book or movie, can you?
If you don’t eat, bad things happen to the body. For instance, you die.
And yes, there are quite a few things I can say, “I have tried that, but never need to eat it again!”…liver and onions would rank high on that list.
For me, reading a book or seeing a movie multiple times is like hearing Uncle Fred tell his war stories for the umpteenth time, or Aunt Mary telling about her back surgery - interesting the first time, but dude - get a life. Heard it and don’t need to hear it again and again. I’m not stupid - I know how that story starts and I know how it ends.
While I don’t doubt that there are classic books and movies that might even get better upon multiple viewings and readings from a scholarly aspect, for the most part - once I know the story, I am sort of done with it. I really have a pretty good memory and it kind of wastes my time to try to be surprised or entertained upon hearing, reading, watching it again.
Gee - I hope Bambi and his mother find each other soon!
I half expected someone to mention a porn flick that they had watched in excess of 100 times. That would make some kind of sense. I can’t imagine watching or reading anything that many times.
I’m reluctant to ask this because I don’t want you to think I’m poking fun, but I’m genuinely curious because I’ve seen you post about this before . . . do you have OCD or Asperger’s, or have you suffered any kind of trauma that might cause you to seek excessive escape, or solace in repetition?
I’ve watched some movies probably approaching 50 times. That’d be averaging about twice a year, for my whole life, so that sounds like a decent upper bound.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book more than twice.
Wow. I have to say I’m shocked that here on the SDMB there are so few people who have read books obsessively. Considering how people can quote and remember both books and films, I would have thought that there would be many instances of having read books (particularly sci-fi and fantasy) more than 100 times.
Although I don’t keep count, I have easily read my favorite book, Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon more than 100 times. I think in a past thread I estimated it at more like 250.
I am also sure that I have read Roger Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed more than 100 times.
There are plenty of other books that are in the 25-50 range, in fact, I have a little corner of one bookshelf devoted to books that are good to read over and over and over again.
One special case is Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. The first time I read that book, as soon as I finished it, I turned back to the first page and started it over again. Over the course of maybe three days, I read it six times in a row. I have read it (and Into the Wild) many, many times since.
I’m not as likely to watch movies over and over, although there are a few I’ve seen over 10 times. T.V. show episodes are another story – there are definitely some of those I’ve seen more than 100 times.
I think the music analogy is excellent, and I’ve been using it for years to explain my infinite capacity for Law & Order episodes. If you wouldn’t listen to a song only once and be done with it, why would you stop after one reading of a book, or one viewing of a film or T.V. show?
Really? Really? That’s 249 other books I could’ve read. And even at a conservative 10 hours per read, that’s 2,490 hours (over 100 entire days) of your life spent doing something you’ve already done. There’s too much I want to do in life to waste it doing that. If I lived to be 300 I couldn’t visit every country I wanted to visit, read every book, watch every movie, hear every album, hike every trail, climb every mountain, swim in every lake, run every race . . . and I only have < 100 years. I can’t spend too much of it going over the same ground again and again and again and again and again (do I need to type this 245 more times to drive my point home?)
You can listen to most songs in under 5 minutes, and do other things while you’re doing it (mainly drive, workout, clean house.) A movie is 1.5 to 2 hours and takes up most of your attention. A book is 10 to 30 hours and takes all of your attention.
There’s a lot of music I listen to that demands/rewards total concentration, and music that I know so well I can listen to it as background music. I often listen to music while I read, it’s like a soundtrack. With movies, unless it is something I’ve seen multiple times and know well, I prefer total concentration, which is one of the reasons I love seeing movies in the theater. I’m not tempted to put it on pause and I don’t have distractions.
I know it’s not literally true, but if I couldn’t read and watch movies, I’d die. Inside.
Ugh, me too, but we’re talking about movies and books that we enjoy enough to experience over and over again, not ones we don’t.
As far as doing something for pleasure, how about sex? Would you say, 'I had sex once, really liked it! But I know what it’s like so I don’t need to experience it again"? You don’t need sex to live since plenty of other people will be procreating in your place.
But again, in this thread we’re talking about things we really, REALLY enjoy and WANT to experience multiple times, by choice. Boring stories (and movies and books), even if they may be somewhat interesting the first time, don’t qualify.
We’re not stupid either, we just like to re-experience pleasurable things. Sometimes it’s for fun, such as in the case of comedies that always make you laugh and even get funnier with each viewing (ask fans of The Big Lebowski), sometimes it’s because you notice new things if the work is layered and detailed (I’d put Citizen Kane or The Godfather or my favorite film Brazil, or even The Matrix into that category), sometimes it means something different every time you experience it (Catcher In The Rye or To Kill A Mockingbird readers would probably agree).
I think most of us are that way too with most things.
If I ever get to where I think it wastes my time to be entertained with something I love, that would be the day I die.
Having never seen Bambi, that means nothing to me. But, you don’t have kids, do you? Do you? If so, do you only ever let them watch a favorite movie once? If not, are you only ever going to let them watch a favorite movie once?
Nope. Regarding my Star Wars obsession, there was not much going on in my life at the time and it came along at the right time to where I could spend time and money on it. It was pure escapism but not for any particular reason. It was just the most fun I’d had at the movies in forever and I couldn’t get enough. I dragged everyone I knew to it and then they loved it and wanted to see it multiple times so I went back with them. My young son became as obsessed as me and we went to see it over and over again, it was a great bonding tool. Many many of the viewings happened at the Drive-In, where they’d show Star Wars, then something else, then Star Wars again. All those viewings happened in the first year + of release, back when a movie could hang around in the theaters for months and months and months. Besides being massively entertaining to me, the Star Wars thing happened long before VCRs (at least, long before VCRs were part of my life) and in the last part of the showing I kept thinking I’d never get to see it again so I kept going back thinking it would go away. Then it didn’t, but I thought it might, so we kept going back. And again and again and again, until it finally did go away. That was an unusual case. Star Wars isn’t even my favorite film, it’s just that the timing was right in every way, the tickets were cheap and it all worked out. I never planned on seeing it 100+ times.
With all the others you bolded, it’s a matter of loving them and wanting to see them multiple times before they left the theater.
I can’t see myself seeing something over 100 times nowadays, though there are some that I would if I could. I could see Fellowship of the Ring or Moulin Rouge! or The Fall over 100 times, but I don’t have time because I see too many other movies now. My count, which I’ve been obnoxiously throwing out in various threads, is 106 in the theater so far this year, 26 in June alone, so I do see a lot of movies, even if every now and then I see some multiple times.
Obviously I don’t consider the time I spend rereading books to be a waste. Look at it this way: I read for my own personal enjoyment. If I’ve read a book before, I know exactly the amount and type of enjoyment I will get from it. A new book is an unknown; I might like it or I might hate it. Sometimes I’d rather stick with the book I know.
I’d also estimate my bookreading time to be more like 2 hours to 10 hours. I certainly have enough time to read dozens of new books every year, in addition to rereading my favorites. Sadly, I realized a long time ago that I would never, ever be able to read every book in the library, or the bookstore, and now that there’s Amazon, well, you couldn’t do it in a thousand lifetimes. So I read a lot of new, but I also go back to the favorites that I know and love. I consider it one of the great comforting pleasures of my life to be able to reread a really good book.
Rocky Horror maybe 50 times, back in the day. That was really just because it was trendy to know it for when we went to the movies.
Withnail & I, probably getting close to 100. I know pretty much the entire movie, word-for-word. This is something I find genuinely rewarding. The script is so dense with nuance and humour, and the actors’ interpretation thereof (well, Richard E. Grant and notably Richard Griffiths - less so Paul McGann) is superlative. Every time I see it I notice something new. That said, I haven’t watched it for a couple of years at this point.
I wouldn’t call the first reading of almost any book a waste. Most books worth half a damn could probably benefit from 2 or 3 readings. That’s the lower extreme. I think the 250th read is way, way beyond the upper extreme. I think I would literally have a book memorized, word-for-word, long before the 250th reading, and could just close my eyes and “read” it.
Time yourself sometime. If you’re actually reading actual adult books for comprehension, it takes a lot longer than you think. Ten hours is short for an audiobook, and they don’t stop to reflect on passages, re-read sentences, etc. Since you mention Krakauer, I happen to know almost exactly how long it took me to read his latest book-- because I happened to have a rare day to myself last year when it came out, and I read it all in one day: about 13 hours. And I consider it to have been a very light/fast read, and not particularly long. I’m sure I’ve spent 30 to 40 hours reading stuff like The Satanic Verses. And most of my friends and family consider me to be an extremely fast reader, though I think within the context of people who read a lot, I’m pretty average.
re: the value of re-reading: imho, reading is like auto-focus on a camera. When you have multiple subjects in view at different depths, you can’t really see what’s in front or in back of whatever is in center. But, as you keep reading, your mind starts to focus on other things that were in the background before, and your memory allows you to remember what you focused on before, so you notice details and deeper meanings that you couldn’t notice the first time.
re: memory: I think it has to do with the depth of what you are reading/watching. I have that effect when I’m watching tv shows or listening to music. There’s really nothing else to see or hear after the first time. The memory of it is just as good as watching/listening to it again. Therefore, if somebody has a book or movie they watched/read 100+ times, it’s a book or movie WORTH watching 100+ times.
I don’t think there’s any book or film I’ve read or watched 100 times. Mary Poppins would come closest - that was my favourite film as a kid. I doubt the grown-up films I’ve seen would get much into the double figures, even the Terminator, which is one of my ‘comfort’ movies too.
Often I’ll re-read a book simply because I’ve run out of other books, and sometimes I just need to read, even if it’s a story I know well.
I don’t time myself, exactly, but I quite often start reading a book at about midnight, when my GF goes to bed, and have long finished it by 3am, when I go to bed. The Satanic Verses took somewhat longer than average, partly because it is longer than average - IIRC correctly, it was a full day while travelling.
Having completed postgraduate courses in literature, I feel safe in saying that I was reading those stories in depth. I mean, I was able to write essays about them which got good marks - I wasn’t skim-reading.
Reading aloud at a speed that other people can enjoy takes way, way longer than reading to yourself.
A book takes most of my attention, yes, but a novel written for adults will take me between an hour and ten hours to read. Most books take me 3-4 hours to read. I have medical problems, and there are some days when I need to be on bed rest, and so I know about how long it takes me to read a book. If something takes me as long as 10 hours, it’s probably very long, very deep, or I’m not really interested in it, or a combination of those factors.
I can’t stand to have something read to me. It takes way too long.
But audiobook readers don’t stop to take a whiz, cook food, take a shower, yawn, stretch, interact with others, contemplate unrecognized words, re-read passages for comprehension, flip back and re-read parts for continuity, etc. I think they balance out to roughly the same.
I would think, being a postgraduate, you’d be self-aware enough to know that you are not reading in depth at that speed. Especially not stuff as bizarre and dense and sprawling as The Satanic Verses. Every educated literature enthusiast I know would readily and happily admit that, even the ones with PhDs. Actually, especially the ones with PhDs. I can almost buy reading a John Grisham book in 3 hours (just barely; I can’t buy reading it in 1*), but you’re not going to “get” anything in depth at the speeds you’re talking about, thinking you do is probably the best evidence that you don’t. Rushdie at a page is minute is basically just watching words fly by-- I don’t care who you are or how fast you read USA Today.
And being able to write a competent essay about a book means very little. I’ve written many A papers at the university level about books I didn’t even read, just by reading summaries and quote-mining.
*That’s about a page every 10 seconds, without taking anything resembling a break, which is just absurd.
I always have a book somewhere that I am reading - currently The Poet by Michael Connelly…a book my brother left after his recent visit. I like to read mysteries, action novels or Gay themed books - popular titles found in major bookstores - preferably in the bargain bin - I’m cheap.
But I suppose if you are talking about Dickens, or Poe or any of the classics, sure - you can easily read those many times; in those cases, the story is good, but the style of writing is perhaps equally, if not more, important. If you want to study a book - and study the writing style, use of language, use of visual imagery, then by all means re-read over and over again.
I just feel that with the billions of books out there, it is more interesting for me to read NEW things than re-read things I have read before (as mentioned, with exceptions like LOTR or Catcher In The Rye or other books that strike my fancy at a certain age).
I wish I lead the life of leisure and could sit in my study and read all day - with my butler James bringing me a glass of sherry before my evening constitutional - but that is not the case.
Thus, for me, it is far better to say this year I read 100 books, saw 100 movies than say I read the same book or saw the same movie 100 times.
Well, you can doubt me all you like, but I know what I’ve read and I know how in-depth I’ve read it.
FTR, almost a full day is more like 2 minutes per page for the Satanic Verses. And yes, that is more than enough time. It seems that you read a lot, so you must know that you get used to seeing patterns, tropes, archetypes and so on. I haven’t had to contemplate an unrecognised word for many years, and then only when reading something in a foreign language or something by Joyce.
Haven’t you ever read a story out loud to someone? (Not counting reading books to tiny children). Everyone does this at some point in their schooldays, surely? If I read this paragraph out loud now, to my GF, at a speed she could comprehend (and she’s smart), it would take at least times as long as reading it in my head.
Reading a page of John Grisham every ten seconds doesn’t sound unlikely at all, to me. I’m sure I’m not that unusual in this, either.
Mind you, if you’re including taking a shower, cooking and socialising in to reading times then it’s not so surprising you think it takes a really long time.
Well, thanks for the permission to doubt you all I like, and since you grant it, I doubt you an awful lot. You’re just far more brash and confident than any of the educated literature enthusiasts I’ve ever known (and I’ve known many.) Thinking 2 minutes per page is “more than enough time” for a post-colonial, postmodern labyrinth like The Satanic Verses really drives this home.
You and I have very different ideas of reading for comprehension. You’re skimming. And even if you are the human embodiment of Merriam-Webster that you seem to be claiming to be when it comes to stopping to contemplate an unrecognized word (which, with your permission, I doubt), Rushdie (to beat that examplehorse far beyond death) makes up words, so if you’re not stopping to contemplate those, you’re not reading for comprehension or completeness.
If I knew you in real life I’d ask you to read a page of a dense literary novel on a 2-minute timer, and then ask you to explain it thoroughly. I’d videotape it, upload it to youtube under the title “Man stumbles through explanation of book HILARIOUS”, and get 10 million views.
I’ve read Gone With The Wind well over a hundred times since getting it for Christmas in 1980 at age ten. It took me three days to read the first time, and as soon as I finished I turned back to the beginning and started again. Through the years, the book stayed the same but I changed a lot, and as I went over and over it, different parts stood out to me.
I’ve seen Grease, The Wizard of Oz, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall about a hundred times also.