The Persistence of Memory
May. 23rd, 2010 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe first book I remember reading – not the content of what I read, but the experience of reading it – is The Berenstein Bears Count Their Blessings. It was Christmas break, first grade, (I learned to read fairly slowly), vacation at my grandmother’s house; I curled over the book in an armchair in the lanai, the room softly lit, the night black out of the cozy white window frames – the lulling sound of rain, and rumbling thunder…
But – here’s the thing – thunder terrified me; I wouldn’t have sat peacefully and read through a Florida thunderstorm. I think the thunderstorm was only in the book, and I was so absorbed that in my memory it’s grown out of the pages.
Memory plays tricks. And yet, I have such strong memories of the when and where of certain books. I remember, a little older, reading Megan Whelan Turner’s The Queen of Attolia, sitting outside a building daubed with a copy of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon. Kneeling by the shelves in a bookstore, since closed, mainlining the first few pages of The Outsiders before I bought it. Riding a train across the Rockies, torn between the mountains and Crown Duel.
Sometimes I’ve even transported books somewhere memorable to read them, because I know I’m going to love the book and want to be able to remember that first experience. I took Anne Fadiman’s marvelous Ex Libris to the local park to read; I remember the sun on the long grass, the fountain, and Fadiman’s rich, beautifully balanced prose melding into a beautiful May afternoon.
Except it may have been Fadiman’s other essay book, At Large and At Small, that I read that afternoon. It’s the same size – has the same sweet, seamless prose… and memory plays tricks.
But – here’s the thing – thunder terrified me; I wouldn’t have sat peacefully and read through a Florida thunderstorm. I think the thunderstorm was only in the book, and I was so absorbed that in my memory it’s grown out of the pages.
Memory plays tricks. And yet, I have such strong memories of the when and where of certain books. I remember, a little older, reading Megan Whelan Turner’s The Queen of Attolia, sitting outside a building daubed with a copy of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon. Kneeling by the shelves in a bookstore, since closed, mainlining the first few pages of The Outsiders before I bought it. Riding a train across the Rockies, torn between the mountains and Crown Duel.
Sometimes I’ve even transported books somewhere memorable to read them, because I know I’m going to love the book and want to be able to remember that first experience. I took Anne Fadiman’s marvelous Ex Libris to the local park to read; I remember the sun on the long grass, the fountain, and Fadiman’s rich, beautifully balanced prose melding into a beautiful May afternoon.
Except it may have been Fadiman’s other essay book, At Large and At Small, that I read that afternoon. It’s the same size – has the same sweet, seamless prose… and memory plays tricks.
