It is not true that, as with our first love, our first novel will be our most memorable, written or read; in fact, it isn’t even true for our first loves, and novels deal with fiction. Nevertheless, James Reith at The Guardian has shared several books we should keep in mind next time we’re about to think the first time is always the best time. Judiciously written second-timers often come in first place:
Second take Anne Hathaway in the film Becoming Jane (2007). Photograph: Buena Vista/Allstar
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The source of everyones favourite costume drama (and some of the finest prose in the English tongue) was Austens second outing. It is also the Nations Favourite Second Novel, according to the Royal Society of Literature. But the Austen example raises a question: is the second novel the second to be published, or do we include unpublished attempts, too? Her gothic satire Northanger Abbey was written long before Sense and Sensibility.
Every writer must learn in some form or another that the craft asks that sheput business before pleasure: one should never keep a lousy muse. Of the two-timers who learned this lesson quickly, perhaps the greatest–no, the greatest–is James Joyce forUlysses, ingeniouslylapsing Homer’s Odyssey into a single day.
Read his full post at The Guardian
