There's some novels I've reread, and will again and again for the rest of my life, like Woolf (Jacob's Room, The Waves, Mrs Dalloway, and To the Lighthouse), Joyce's Portrait of the Artist, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a few of Dostoyevsky's, and so many more, not to mention short stories, all of which take up some time and focus that might otherwise go towards exploration. I do read new-ish novels sometimes, but not very many, because they're far more likely to disappoint me. A lot of times I'll try them on audiobook while in transit, and save my more focused efforts for the sorts of missing experiences of classics you talk about in this article. For example, I'd like to give Dickins another go because reading David Copperfield as a high schooler gave me a bad impression. Incidentally, as an English major (fortunately, I didn't start college until I was 22), not only do you lose the fun of experiencing them without undo analysis, but you're rushed through these great novels to meet their deadlines. It took all the joy out of the reading for me