Through a book the middle-aged may plunge more deeply into themselves but aren't likely to be changed in any fundamental way. We have, for good or ill, become who we are, and nothing we read is going to modify that sometimes unhappy condition. I turned the pages of War and Peace in part because I hoped it might show me how to write large-scale fiction. But now I know that I won't become Walter Benjamin by studying The Arcades Project and that analyzing Tolstoy won't transform me into a great novelist. Too late now.
Pleasure remains, especially in the return to old favorites.
Recently, I had occasion to pick up Walden and enjoyed all over again the blunt charm of its aphoristic prose. Certain books too, like Pascal's Pensees or Cioran's essays or Walden , can provide consolatory uplift, a massaging of an aching spirit. In truth, though, past 40 or 50 one reads largely out of habit. Just as we brush our teeth, we pick up our book at the end of the day. Our eyes sweep across the page.