I have been considering returning to several books I enjoyed when I was very young. Not a child but not even a teenager. I am almost embarrassed as an adult to admit to the books themselves when we hold them in comparison to literature, though that is silly. They sold millions and millions of copies by some of the most famous fantasy authors of the era.
Dragonlance, Legends trilogy.
There are others a little more recent, like Winds of the Forelands.
Why would I be even a little reluctant to revisit these books?
Because I am not just revisiting the books, I am revisiting myself. A younger version of me, and what made me happy. I am walking through my own past and asking myself even if indirectly, do these hold up. I am challenging my own nostalgia.
There were times when I would have counted Drizzt and Caramon Majere, his brother Raistlin, and Tavis as influential to my way of thinking and being in my youth as any real person. What will it tell me about who I was? Who I became? Will I see notes echoing even into my forties from who I read about in my teens? Will I be ok with it if I do?
I don’t know. Maybe I am just afraid to destroy a memory.
Sometimes it is better to leave the past where it is. Nostalgia is rose-colored goggles on a life we once lived. It rarely represents the truth. But what if? What if old books are every bit as good as we remember, or the adult in us can find something new and take it forward or even correct something our younger self thought? I have so many books to read already, is the trip down my own memory lane worth the effort?
I’ll probably find out. How about you? Do you have any books you are embarrassed you still love?
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