Forwards or backwards?

 

    I'm reading Francesca Segal's The Innocents - and enjoying this modern day version of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, set in North London's close Jewish community, very much indeed - and I've just come upon the following passage:

    " 'So what do you mean you're "up to" 1899 and The Kreutzer Sonata? Do you always read chronologically?'

    She nodded. '1889. Always. I've always done it. I like to evolve with the author, I don't want to know their future before they do and if I'm really reading a writer, like, committed to reading their whole oeuvre, then I want to move through their life with them and their work. If I love someone I want to walk beside them from the first to the last.' "

    That's Ellie, a famous model and aspiring writer, talking about the reading she does while hanging around on photo-shoots, and it brought to mind this post on Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit in which as you'll see she talks about reading 'archaeologically' as opposed to chronologically, beginning with a writer's final or most recent work and reading back to their beginning.

    Have you ever done either (I have not, I think) and if so, what did you discover from the experience? Do you feel inclined to embark on a writer whose work is new to you by one of those methods or the other, or would you rather just dip in with their best or most famous book to start with and see where you go next? Do you feel that 'order read' matters little (except where books in a series are concerned, or where a central character such as a detective features again and again and of necessity develops - at least in terms of plot - with succeeding books)?

Comments

[sakura]

I think I tend to read chronologically; a must if it's a series and preferable if not. However, if I don't know much about the author, anything goes!

[Ruth M.]

I've done it with poets, Seamus Heaney comes specifically to mind. The early poems were easier to understand, as you might expect, and I grew with them into his more mature work. It made for a fascinating journey.

[Dark Puss]

Archaologically if it is work related otherwise I don't care (except for series). To amplify that even for books in which a character "develops" I don't really mind the order, except that I might read the first one first (if that's easy to get) and it might be strange (though in practice I probably don't care) to read the final work second.

[Sandy]

When I act on a recommendation (on this site for example), I just read the book itself and dont give a thought to its place in the writer's oeuvre. If I enjoy it, I will usually look up the author on the net and decide how to proceed depending on the info there.

[Audrey]

I liked that passage, too -- and this book, very much.

[Cornflower]

Me too (I finished it last night).

[LizF]

If it is part of a series then I definitely try to start with the first book especially if it is a crime novel (although with some translated crime fiction that isn't so easy as some of them appear here out of sequence)but otherwise I will probably do the same as Sandy.

[Karen]

That's an interesting question. If it's a series I start with the first, but generally speaking I take books as I find them.

With the exception of Jane Austen and Ian McEwan, I don't think I've ever set out to read my way through an author's works, backwards of forwards.

I would imagine that if I were organised enough I'd read chronologically as it would be interesting to see how a writer develops. In practice, I prefer the butterfly approach.

[catharina]

Like Ruth I have done so with poets: Jane Kenyon, Sylvia Plath and several Dutch poets. This year is devoted to Donald Hall. If available I read a biography or memoir along (Unpacking the Boxes, A Memoir of a Life in Poetry). I do read prose chronologically too yet less frequent, having started with her very first diaries (A Passionate Apprentice) Virginia Woolf is a good example. I mostly do so when I want to learn more about the development of the author as a poet, diarist, essayist.Sue Gee is an author I would also like to read chronologically some day.

[Dark Puss]

Just for my own interest is the book referring to "my" close knit mainly Liberal (and locally South African) Jewish community or the Ashkenazi Orthodox (Hasidic) one in Stamford Hill?

[Cornflower]

Hampstead is the 'centre' of the novel, and the characters are mainly Liberal.