It's always interesting for me to look at my shelf of books and pick out one to think of where I was when I was reading it. Every book that I own tells a different story of my life from just its spine. It's fun to think that everyone has this the same, and you can ask them and often get a good story. There's more to these but figured I'd type out a few real quick:
"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?" - Alice in Wonderland
North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It's mid April and the trees are evergreen against the cliffs appearing grey in the early morning. Clouds are in the sky and I'm sitting on a cliff overlooking all of the canyon, reading a dang good book with only the birds around.
"If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it." - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Patio of an apartment in Venice. My family is sleeping and I am outside at a small wooden table with a coffee, reading before starting a good day in the city. A woman is leaning outside her window with her forearms crossed and a cigarette still between her fingers. Classical music is playing from an old stereo inside her apartment.
"Sensations are the great things, after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations; they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet." The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Standing on the Geary bus in San Francisco. Just moved to the city, on my way to a new job, and have no idea what I'm doing there but feeling good. A depressing book on a depressing bus on the way to a depressing job in a good city during a good year.
"It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to." - Catcher in the Rye
Cafe in Tennessee, hours before a first date with a girl I'd wanted to take out for a long time. Figured out that if you read a dang good book before a date, you'll be in such a good mindset that the nerves won't come.
I definitely agree that there is a time and place we put ourselves in when we read books, as if we can recall our surroundings from the imaginary ones we create in the printed paper worlds. One possibility I can think of is that the emotional tugs the stories put on us cause the locations at which we read the novels to be imprinted in our memory with the emotion attached. This is true with other emotional events throughout life that don't pertain to novel reading.
ReplyDelete