To reread or not to reread? That may be the question

I used to reread The Forsyte Saga about every eight or ten years, and enjoyed it as much every time as I had the first, and with greater appreciation. And then, some years ago, I picked it up again and discovered I had actually had enough of it. Something about the reader was changed, for surely nothing about the book had, and that made me think perhaps such an unwitting alteration is an unrecognized evidence of continuing possibilities. That's a comforting thought as the days ahead begin to look so sparse in comparison with the days behind. Maybe we can grow while growing old, after all. Unless, of course, we're simply regressing, like the poor character described in the riddle of the Sphynx, and by Shakespeare's seven ages of man in As You Like It (of course I had to look it up in Bartlett's to be sure I had the right play!).