I never could get through any of the Foundation books, either. Too much of a snore-fest. Asimov is not one of my favorite fiction authors, although I do enjoy some of the NON-fiction he's written: it, at least, is generally coherent and thought-provoking.
Some of his short stories are amusing, as well.
When I read Foundation at 14, it was the most thrilling book I had ever read. When I revisited it at 40, I was so bored I could not finish it.
That's happened to me, too, Myrhaf.
It just occurred to me that re-reading a book from your past can be like opening one of those time vaults that people sometimes bury to mark an age.
It makes you wonder what was going through your mind so many years ago.
Anyway, I like having a life that's marked by some of the memorable stories that I read. Maybe I'll blog about this topic soon. It would be fun just to think about some of those stories again.
"It makes you wonder what was going through your mind so many years ago."
All I had to compare it to at 14 was comic books and other science fiction. I had not started reading serious literature yet.
Also, I just read for story with no concept of style. Studying the art of fiction over the years has made me intensely conscious of style, and Asimov is weak there. One big drawback of becoming a writer is that you never read uncritically again. I rarely get swept up in a story the way I used to.
Finally, I didn't think about the ideas or meaning of what I read before I discovered Atlas Shrugged at the age of 20. Now the idea of "psycho-history," a mathematical science that predicts the course of civilization seems silly. I can't help noticng that the liberal Asimov wrote this back when people still admired Stalin's five-year plans. The concept seems totalitarian and collectivist and against free will.
A similar thing happened with King Lear, which was my favorite Shakespeare play as a teenage actor because it is so big and mind-blowing. Now I find it too nihilistic to be my favorite.
RE: "It makes you wonder what was going through your mind so many years ago."
Oh, dear. I used the second-person, non-specific "you" where I shouldn't have. I didn't mean to direct that statement at *you* specifically, Myrhaf, as if to impugn your choice. Considering that my statement is worded so tersely, that would have been a bit rude of me.
I meant to say that re-reading an old book is an interesting way of seeing the changes that happen in ourselves over a long time.
No, I knew you were using "you" as in "one." I thought it would be interesting to explore in some detail how my reading has changed over the years.
Oh, good. Seeing that sentence of mine quoted by itself, I wasn't sure.
Anyway, you bring up an interesting point. Sometimes we do get more from art than just the experience of seeing the theme played out. An actor gets to experience different parts in different plays, for example, and readers get to be exposed to new and different settings or strange and interesting characters.
In that way, reading can seem almost like taking a trip. It's part of the fun.
I wonder if this is even more true for young people who are still very actively exploring their worlds. That might partly explain why some early reading experiences really stand out in our memories.
I can't rouse myself to read Anne McCaffery or Mercedes Lackey any more, and I used to raid bookshelves for their novels all the time. I also have a greater taste for and appreciation of well-written NON-fiction now, something that I could barely tolerate before.
As for reading uncritically: why would you want to? The fact that I'm no longer bowled over by mediocre genre fiction just makes the occasional gems that I encounter (like The Virginian) all that much sweeter.
One reason the (three original) Foundation novels are so poor is because they're not really novels at all; they're a series of loosely connected short stories written between 1942 and 1950 that were collected and published as three novels. In fact, Asimov got increasingly sick of the series as time went on, but continued writing them at John Campbell's insistence. That's not to excuse the tedious style or the unsatisfactory character of psychohistory, of course, but it helps one understand the inadequacies of the novels' structures.
Jennifer: Does that mean I would probably be disappointed if I tried to relive those happy days spent long ago in Pern? *Sigh*
On Myrhaf's comment about uncritical reading, obviously I can't speak for him, but I do agree that it's important to be able to get lost in the experience of a good story. I try to do that still, but it's becoming more and more difficult to do. I'm always thinking about craft.
I. Cannot. Escape. Writing. Am. Always. Writing.
Hello, Adrian. It's nice to have you stop by.
Well, your insights do shine a light on things. I suppose it was unfair of me, then, to imply that Foundation appeared to have been dismembered and then reassembled since it was never actually, er... membered in the first place.
Anyway, Asimov's is not the first novel to be assembled from short stories, nor is he the first novelist to be "encouraged" by his publisher to create more than he really wanted to.
I should like to have that same problem some day.
Incidentally, there's an interesting essay on psychohistory in the first three books here.
To answer Jennifer, whose blog is one of my favorites, it depends on what she means by uncritical. Fiction writers will notice technique more than readers who do not write -- and there is no reason non-writers should worry about such things to enjoy a story.
When I studied screenwriting at UCLA, I had "Conflict, conflict, conflict" pounded into my head. Now I can't watch a movie without noticing if a scene has conflict and how it could have more. I would not wish this state of awareness on the average movie-goer who just wants to be entertained on Friday night. What would be the purpose for them to analyse scenes that deeply?
In Jennifer's case, she has a blog that specializes in criticism, so she has a purpose in analysing fiction. And some people just enjoy figuring out why a story is good or bad. But I don't think it's necessary to analyse fiction to enjoy it, especially if one has a life full of other values and understanding fiction technique is not important to him.
I'm sure that sausage makers notice things that escape me when I eat a sausage McMuffin. I am content to eat in ignorance.
There's critical and there's *critical*, too. I'm a big-picture person: my driving desire in reading a novel the first time is always "what happens?" So, frequently I won't even grasp the details that go into the construction of the big picture until the third or fourth reading.
This is also why I re-read books a lot: I cannot sit and savor a book the first time I read it, I HAVE to know WHAT HAPPENS, even if it means reading until I'm so tired that I can barely focus on the page. The next time I read it, however, it's exciting all over again because I see not only the plot but what the author has done with the book.
Reviewing books for my blog (which I need to get back to right away!) has drawn me to see the bones of the novel as well as the brute "what happens" (if I may mix my metaphors slightly). This is the additional "critical" that I've gained, and I find it nothing but beneficial, if only because it means that I don't have to read the book 3 times to be able to, say, identify a theme.
Great post and an interesting comments thread. I reread the Foundation trilogy recently too, and had a similar experience. (That said, it's still more coherent than the "three Bs" second Foundation trilogy.)
If you'd like to take a chance on another classic that is in a similar mode -- ie., a novel that is really a bunch of short stories -- may I suggest A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
And it is quite funny sometimes how one's reading habits change over time. When I was a kid, I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs books. I read 'em all. And then when I was reading one of his Pellucidar novels (probably the third or fourth) I realized: "Hey wait a minute. This is just the same story, over and over again, but with different names and settings. What a rip!"
Haven't read ERB since.
Hey, Mark.
I've seen "A Canticle for Leibowitz" on the shelf at the bookstore. I'll give it a try.
One of the biggest surprises for me was re-reading Swiss Family Robinson. (Yak!) I must have been very young when I read that the first time. I remember as a kid how it felt like nitrous oxide had been added to my imagination. That was some good stuff.
Mark Raynor writes, "If you'd like to take a chance on another classic that is in a similar mode -- ie., a novel that is really a bunch of short stories -- may I suggest A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr." I'll second that. Two other classic SF books composed of connected short stories that I liked a lot are Cities in Flight by James Blish and City by Clifford Simak. Both are held together more tightly than the Foundation books by at least one recurring character in most of the stories.
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