Readers are among the most nostalgic people in the world. And re-readers are even more nostalgic: they seek to capture the meaning and mood of the first reading.
Nostalgia often doubles as a word for sentimentality. But that is not quite its meaning. It comes from the Greek word nostos, which means “homecoming” or “return,” and from the word nostew, “to go home” or “return home.“ The English definition, too, centers on home: “a wishful desire to return in thought or in fact to one’s home, homeland, or family friends.” Another common meaning: “a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.”
Nostalgic readers stand out at bookstores. They not only wish to return to and reread their favorite books, but they seek multiple editions, or the original edition in which they read it. In 2011 HarperCollins reissued four paperback omnibus editions of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series, with forewords by Judy Blume, Anna Quindlen, Meg Cabot, and Laura Lippman. I swooped upon them, not because I intended to read them, but out of nostalgia. My best friend and I loved this series about best friends Betsy and Tacy, who live in Deep Valley, Minnesota (actually Mankato, MN), in the early 20th century. (We had Betsy-Tacy revivals.) And when I mentioned these books to a student, he dashed out to the bookstore to buy them for his wife, because she, too, is a fan. Nostalgia and word-of-mouth are great sellers of Betsy-Tacy.
And then there is Zola’s Germinal, one of my favorite novels. Can you have too many copies? Well, you probably can, because it is a very dark book. I briefly had three editions: a Penguin translation by Roger Pearson, an Oxford by Peter Collier, and an old illustrated Heritage Press copy translated by Havelock Ellis. Of the three, Roger Pearson’s translation for Penguin was my favorite and the most readable, though all are good in different ways. Oxford has reissued new translations of Zola over the last 20 years, many of which had not been in print in English for a long, long time.
Many readers are nostalgic for Angela Thirkell’s distinctive 1930s and ‘40s humor. There is an Angela Thirkell Society and an Angela Thirkell listserv group. But much as I enjoy Angela Thirkell’s nonsensical Barsetshire series, I have not been impressed by the covers of the newish Virago editions. Why? The cover of The Headmistress looks more Jane Eyre-ish than Pomfret Towers-ish. Cover art isn’t everything, but I am satisfied with 1990s used copies of Carroll & Graf paperbacks, which are sturdy, have bigger print, and pretty good cover art. Still, kudos to Virago, because a friend looked for Thirkell’s Pomfret Towers in vain for years! And now there’s a Virago.
Did you struggle over the Doctor Zhivago question? It is one of my favorite novels, but in a way it is two books: the two English translations of Pasternak’s masterpiece are so different. I prefer Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky‘s lyrical translation (2010) to the spare first translation by Max Hayward and Manya Harari (1958). But there was quite an uproar over the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation by those who preferred the Haywar-Harari. Out of nostalgia, I hang on to both, and also because who knows? Maybe I’ll want to return to them, out of nostalgia.
When the public library weeded Gladys Taber’s hilarious novel, Mrs. Daffodil, I was likely to have a conniption fit. It is funny and endearing, and the writer heroine raises recalcitrant chickens. But the cheapest edition I can find online is $100. I would have happily donated that to the library for a copy, but it seems a rip-off online.
The heroine, Mrs. Daffodil, lives in the country and writes for a living, just like Gladys Taber. In addition to her syndicated column, “Butternut Wisdom,” she writes short stories about young love: readers are not interested in stories about older people like herself, she has learned. As a prolific writer, she supports herself, her married daughter and graduate student husband, and presumably her housemate, Kay, a widowed college friend who agreed to share Mrs. Daffodil’s country house after her husband died. When, when will I be able to read this book again? Maybe Persephone could publish it…
Who isn’t nostalgic about books? My rediscovery of James Wilcox’s Tula Springs series has recaptured one of the happiest times of my life. Books bring out the nostalgia in all of us! So rock on!
I retire early to bed with books these days. What do I recommend? Zola’s Germinal and Stanley Middleton’s Valley of Decision.
What do I think many, many years later? Well, it is gloomy. Set in a coal-mining town in France, it details the harshness of the work and everyday life. People live like animals, they sleep in shifts in crowded houses, they beg, they starve, they fornicate practically in public. The main character is Etienne, the son of the alcoholics in Zola’s L’Assommoir (The Drinking Den). He arrives at loose ends and takes a job in the mines. The focus is largely on Etienne and the Maheu family. All of the Maheus, except the wife and youngest children, work in the mine, and the conditions are horrendous. Etienne preaches radical ideas and organizes a strike. And the strike is a disaster, because the miners have no power.
Stanley Middleton’s Valley of Decision is melancholy but upbeat after Germinal. Middleton won the Booker Prize in 1974 for Holiday. Set in the Midlands, Valley of Decision is a beautifully-written novel about musical careers and a marriage on the rocks. David and his wife Mary are happy. They have a lot in common: David teaches music and is an amateur cellist; Mary is a former opera singer. When she is offered a gig in the U.S. singing opera on a two-months’ university tour, David and Mary agree she should do it. It is an opportunity for Mary, though she doesn’t want a professional career.