Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader

I love Vivian Gornick.

These are short pieces about revisiting specific works of literature at different times in your life and how views often change. The experience is always a unique interaction between the reader and the writer.

I found the last section very charming.

Also, this from the intro. "The companionateness of books...nothing can match it. It's that longing for coherence that is inscribed in the work, that extraordinary attempt at shaping the inchoate through words. It brings peace and excitement, comfort and consolation, but above all, it's the sheer relief from the chaos in the head that reading delivers."

There was no way I was not going to press Click on a book with that title. I have never heard of Vivian Gornick before reading the review for this volume of essays, but I will certainly be reading more of her work, and already have a memoir in the pile, ordered with the same Click.

In this volume Gornick explores her relationship to writers and or specific novels. Works by Colette, Elizabeth Bowen, Lawrence's [Sons and Lovers], Hardy's [Jude the Obscure], J L Carr's [A Month in the Country] and Pat Barker's [Regeneration], to name but some of her subjects.

Generally she follows how her responses evolve over repeated readings (usually every decade, more or less), and how these evolutions embed her understanding of the text, or of things show more the text has shown her about herself.

All this, as a fellow chronic re-reader, I can relate to. I have about fifty books, mostly but not exclusively, novels, that I have read three or more times, on average 5, in the extreme, 35 (soon 36) times.

There are some feelings about rereading that Gornick doesn't speak about. She doesn't talk about the sinking into some books, as if into a warm bath. She doesn't mention the need sometimes to read a book that one trusts won't disappoint, and sometimes might or will not surprise. Books that are an escape or a return, a comfort or to goad. Or the sheer joy in the quality of the writing.

Some of my 50: [A Month in the Country], [The Native's Return], [Out of Africa], [84 Charing Cross Road], [Beloved], [On The Black Hill], [The Great Gatsby], [Tender is the Night], [Giliad], [The Railway Children], [Death in Venice], [Go Tell it on the Mountain], [Giovanni's Room]. show less

Vivian Gornick is one of my favorite writers. And in spirit I completely appreciate what she is doing here, telling the story of her life through books she has reread throughout it. And yet, its a little hard to embrace this book with a full heart if you aren't familiar with the authors or novels she's talking about. If you're new to Gornick, start with Fierce Attachments or Odd Woman in the City instead.

A lovely read for those of us who reread books with a passion. I have books that I have read and reread for my whole reading life - one that spans more than six decades. Then there are other books that I have encountered in the early years of this century and I have already reread them; for example Call Me By Your Name is one of those. Others from the whole span of my life from the pen of authors like Lewis Carroll, Somerset Maugham, Willa Cather, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Gide, Mann, Proust, and more are among those whose books I have reread.

The author shares her personal experiences with books, but even though they may be personal I believe most readers will find a universality in them as well. The title of her short book belies show more the joy that I believe all re-readers gain from their literary habit. It may be a "chronic" passion, but is one worth pursuing and, I believe, it does not deter the continued exploration of new reading, but rather spurs you onward to more reading in a search for your next favorite great read; one that you can add to your rereading list. show less

Gornick reminds me of all the books I don't remember, and all those that surprise me when I reread them and realize what I either have forgotten or didn't really understand in the first place.
It is good to know that I'm not the only one who rereads to find new perspectives.

purchased at Powell's Thanksgiving visit w Dan 2020
Nb: found receipt in old folder 22 April 2026

Cuenta Vivian Gornick que un día comenzó a releer Howards End y con gran asombro descubrió que su interpretación de la novela, años después de su primera lectura, era ahora radicalmente distinta. Consciente de que no hay nada como regresar a un lugar que no ha cambiado para descubrir en qué ha cambiado uno mismo, decidió retomar aquellos libros cruciales que la convirtieron en la mujer que es, y releerlos, con el propósito de redescubrirse a sí misma. El resultado es Cuentas pendientes, en el que Vivian Gornick combina sus dos géneros literarios favoritos, la crítica literaria y las memorias, entrelazando las enseñanzas de las lecturas que marcaron su vida con el relato de sus propias experiencias vitales.

En nueve paradas, show more la autora de Apegos feroces relata cómo a lo largo del tiempo fue identificándose con distintos personajes de la novela Hijos y amantes de D. H. Lawrence, analiza el concepto de feminidad en las novelas de Colette, se cuestiona la veracidad de la memoria en El amante de Marguerite Duras, y explica por qué siempre que lee a Natalia Ginzburg ama un poco más la vida.

Cuentas pendientes es la celebración de la pasión de Vivian Gornick por la literatura, un homenaje a la lectura como forma de conocerse a uno mismo, una y otra vez, y sentir «el poder de la Vida con mayúsculas». Pero, ante todo, es la oportunidad de reencontrarnos con la Gornick de siempre, con esa voz que tanto amamos y admiramos: perspicaz, sabia y valiente, que sabe mirarse a sí misma sin artificios. show less