I picked up a book the other day, by an author I enjoy, and as I cosied down with it last night in bed I realized I'd already read it. The really frightening thing is I had to read the entire first chapter before it occurred to me. I had read this book not long ago, maybe a year or two. Practically no titles of books stick in my head anymore. Next thing you know I'll be saying - "A book about four daughters during the Civil War, who worry about money and one wants to write, sounds good". I only read Little Women dozens of times and we used to act out the parts after school. Everyone wanted to be Jo, so we had to scrupulously take turns or violence would have erupted. I remember tearing off my friend's mother's hydrangea bush blossoms to make bouquets. For the weddings of course. It's interesting how nobody wanted to be Amy, even though she ends up with the rich guy. Perhaps we were more noble than not. None of us did end up with a rich husband, so maybe we were just psychic.
I now have all these little notebooks: one for films, one for books, one for ideas (that book is very blank) and one for art exhibits. Unfortunately, I forget to take them with me or fill them in except every six months or so, and then I can no longer remember what I've read or seen. In the film book you have to write in the date you saw it, but I am lucky if I can guess which year. Anything more specific is beyond me. You can find me some nights with the art book trying to think when I've last been to an art show, and when and did I like it or hate it? It's as torturous as those dream journals everyone kept in the seventies - I'd be racking my brain for details, but all I could remember was a bed with my whole family on their knees beside it. Tantalizing, but without further plot, impossible to describe. I was considered an extremely boring person due to this unvivid, unscandalous dream life. I gave up those groups and now allow myself to forget what I dreamt instantly and for eternity. My theory is the dream has done it's work in the unconscious, and it's like analyzing an accident after the event. It ain't gonna change nothin. I know, extremely convenient.
Now it's fine to reread Dickens or Dostoevsky, but it should be deliberate, not accidental. Some times I just read the darn book anyway. After all, I can't remember who did what, and the end is still a surprise. Waste not, want not. Or: remember not, waste not. I wish I could say I save on books this way, but I believe I keep rebuying the same four books, so it's not really efficient. It's especially tricky when I've read the hardback, and recognize the cover, but then it comes out in paperback, and looks entirely different, and the author photo is new (she usually looks younger with time not older, which is amazing) and they just switch the details enough to fool me and my aged ilk. I hope Obama extends consumer rights to eliminate these underhanded practices. If he were only a little older, he'd understand how important it is.
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