fiction files redux discussion

As some of you may know I have a terrible memory when it comes to recalling the plots of the books I have read.

Seeing this article in the NYT gives me a little hope and shows I am not alone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/boo...

DO others here suffer from the same poor recall? If so how do you battle it? Do you even try to?

I find that I have a failing memory not only for the plots of books but also for the plots of movies I watch, but it's only something I've noticed as I've gotten older. I think it's just age Dan! We're getting OLD!

I don't even try to battle it, but I agree with the writer of this article that one way to help would be to actively take notes as you read. Kind of like you did when reading for school - you could remember much more about a book when you had to report on it or take a test. But taking notes while reading a book seems counter productive to reading for enjoyment.

If I were you (and in this forgetful way I am similar to you) I wouldn't worry about it. Enjoy reading for reading.

I have a terrible time with names, both in life and in reading. This caused me no end of trouble in college when I had to talk about a character in class or in a paper.

I have trouble with details, too, always have, and maybe it's getting worse as I get older.

But what I DO remember about books is what I learned from them -- what the overall meaning was to me. So even if I can't say "I love how in Chapter 2 this happens" as some people I know can -- regardless of age -- I still feel like I'm taking the books into myself in the way that makes sense to me.

And I agree with Kerry. Let's not be hard on ourselves. :)

I think this might tie in nicely to the conversation that's trying to get off the ground in the Elegance of the Hedgehog thread about the function of art.

Personally, my memory is terrible. It's been terrible for a while. Long-term, short-term, names, faces. Sometimes I think there just isn't enough storage space in my brain. But I've spent a bit of time thinking about what we do and don't remember. We tend, or at least I think most people do, to have almost total recall of unpleasant experiences. It makes sense, in the context of survival instinct. For me this applies to unpleasant reading experiences as well. I can almost always remember the things that pissed me off or upset me about a book.

It bothers us that we can't remember the details of books that we enjoy because we'd like to be able to talk with each other about them. Take Elegance of the Hedgehog, for example. I really enjoyed that book, and I'd love to jump into the conversation about it, but I don't have my copy handy and there is no way that I'm going to be able to talk about details from memory. But I remember how upset I was about the ending, that part of the story is pretty crystal clear in my mind.

On the other hand, we can talk about general feelings and impressions, but it makes for quick and not very rewarding discussion. "I really liked it" isn't much to go on. So back to the tie in with the question of the function of art. How is it that we love a novel that we barely remember? I think it has something to do with the function of art. Why we read a novel in the first place, how we interact with it, what purpose it serves in our lives. It's not just about the pleasure of reading, I don't think reading is a purely hedonistic pursuit.

I guess that's what I mean by taking the books into myself the way that makes sense to me. That I can't remember details I'm mostly ok with until I meet someone who does remember them all, and then I feel like maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. But I *was* at the time I was reading it. And, if I know I'm going to be having a discussion say, here, later on -- I pay really, really close attention and take a bunch of notes as I read. That seems to help.

As I've aged and my perspective has changed I take in different pieces of what I read, too. I also read different books -- give my attention to different things in them. Catcher in the Rye and Franny & Zooey being perfect examples of two books, written by the same guy, that have had radically different effects on me depending on the age I am when I read them.

Or like Brothers K, for example. Brian wrote about reading it on Facebook and I was all excited about what he thought of the chapter on active love, and on the dialogue with Satan. I don't even remember what chapters those were in and the names of the characters? Pfft, yeah right. But they are two of my favorite chapters I've ever read because of the thoughts Fyodor puts out there.

Not because they are lyrical or poetic, which 20 years ago, I would have looked for and focused on. I probably wouldn't have even picked up Brothers K, much less finished it, and definitely not loved it, because I had not yet learned to embrace the notion that life is messy. And if you don't get that one, Fyodor isn't a writer you will like, love or remember.

I'm sure there is some kind of deconstructionist way of looking at this too, but I prefer to believe that I really do make the books part of who I am, part of me.

:end ramble:

(no more to add at the moment from me, but nice post shel!)

I think I read and remember a lot like Shel. I'm great at remembering what was important to me in a book, for good or ill, but the details often remain fuzzy. There are books that I've enjoyed reading, but remember nothing at all. On the occasions where I've returned to such a book, I find that the enjoyment of it was the only thing of importance in it.

There are also a handful of books that really strike a chord with me, and trigger my inner academic. I immediately begin taking notes, writing in margins, and planning supplementary readings. These books I often remember in great detail.

Jodi wrote: "I have a very strange problem of late. Homonyms. I am constantly making errors with these suckers. Today I wrote "seen" for "scene." That's pretty bad. Though I do have general word-finding problems as well, I think it's very strange to have problems specific to homonyms. Being an editor and writer, this does not bode well for me.

Am I completely weird or has anyone ever heard of this?
..."

I've noticed this many times in blogs & online writing.

I've seen it in academic blogs and among journalists. I'm wondering if it's a problem arising from using the Internet.

One of the oddest homonym blunders I've ever seen occurred in a volume of Henry James's stories printed by the Library of America several years ago. I didn't make a note of it, but it might have been in the first edition that includes the novella "In the Cage." At some point in the narrative, the typesetter inserted a few homonyms for what James had written, making the story shift into a weird version of Joel Chandler Harris. It was very odd to think of Henry James writing a Br'er Rabbit story.