Feature and Follow Friday #15

 

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee’s View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs!

This Week's Question:

If you could read a book for the “first time” again, which book would it be? Why?

That is a very tough question to answer. Generally speaking, there are a ton of books I'd love to go back and read for the first time. And sometimes, I do end up rereading them for the "first time" because it's been so long since I cracked open their covers. Sometimes I start a book and I'll reach a certain point and stop. When I get back to it, it's almost like reading it for the first time because once I get past whatever part stopped me before, it's new territory, new words. 

Still, if I could reread any book for the "first time", I think I'll have to go with:

When I read The Golden Compass for the first time, it was an amazing book. The idea of having my conscious as an animal form was a marvelous idea to me. After all, what child wouldn't like to have a companion animal you could talk to and have it talk back. The fact that the daemons (the little conscious animals of the world) didn't settle into a final form until you were grown as also appealing. While the rest of the books happenings (the children disappearing, the church's involvement, and ultimately the need to travel through the underworld to set free all the souls trapped there) are less than ideal, I can't say I'm not still drawn to the idea of having a daemon. 

Why would I reread this particular book for the first time? I'd like to see it from a more adult viewpoint, one that's less tainted by the idealism of childhood and the need for a daemon (though admittedly, I'm not certain I wouldn't want one even as an adult, I mean a badass wolf or something as a companion? Yes please.) and the consideration of Mr. Pullman's own views of religion in a more mature mind.