CarrollBlog

I know many people have favorite books or movies that they revisit again and again over the years, always drawing new pleasures or perspectives from them. Not me. I've now laid down the law with myself that with very few exceptions, I am not allowed to re-read books I once loved or movies that long ago and far away sent me into a swoon. Too often for me, going back to a once loved book (or film) is like looking up an old girlfriend and going out on a date. The experience is almost invariably a disaster. When the first James Bond film DR.NO came out in the early 60's, I thought it was about the coolest film I'd ever seen. I watched it again for the first time in decades the other night and everything about it is either goofy, ridiculous, or dull. But I knew that was going to happen as soon as I put the dvd into the machine. Why couldn't I have just left my boy's memory of James Bond alone?