I thought I was the only one. I rarely remember things I read.
My exact train of thought a minute ago:
Ha ha! My Antonia! I remember that! Sheesh, how could anyone forget that book? I remember it all. Wait. There was a scene with wedding guests and wolves?
There are a few books where I remember the plot in detail. Mostly, I just remember vague things, some characters maybe, some vivid scenes (apparently not all vivid scenes), and a general idea of good feeling or bad feeling toward the book.
I tend to remember books I loathed better than books I loved, which strikes me as extremely sad.
Put a gun to my head and I couldn’t tell you the plot, or even name a character in Neuromancer. And I just read it last year. I think.
I read the whole Lawrence Durrell Alexandria Quartet and I remember not a single, solitary thing about any of the books.
This at least I remember, but that’s because I read it three times. The short answer summary is that
Justine is a bitch viewed from three different dimensions, and Clea is his eventual savior in the fourth dimension.
Hmm…I really did read the OP, but I have already forgotten the question…damn.
If you saw it in the city I live in, that was my dog! But probably not since we live in different countries..
Everything I read in the first six months after the Little One was born. In particular, The Merlin Conspiracy (Diana Wynne Jones) and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, both of which I remember being really, really good, but I don’t actually remember anything about them…
One of my students had Cold Sassy Tree on his desk this week. I picked it up and told him that I’d loved it back in high school. I remember precisely three things about it. And one of them I’m not sure is actually from that book.
It bothers me that I forget so many books and movies. I don’t care about the fluff kind, but when they are good, solid stories, I should recall lots of them. The older I get, the more my mind turns into a sieve. And I’m only 35!
Almost every book I’ve ever read. Movies and plays too. Non-fiction too. Makes me wonder why I bother reading anything.
To have really buff eyeball muscles.
Someone asked me the other day if I’d read Oscar and Lucinda.
I’m a huge Peter Carey fan and have read about ten of his books, so I answered yes.
Then hang on a minute, did I just see the movie.
No I haven’t seen the movie. But I know what happens. So I must have read the book.
But in my head the main character looks like Ralph Fiennes.
So maybe I’ve just seen the movie.
But maybe it’s because I’ve seen stills from the movie.
I vaguely remember lying on my bed in my old house reading about it.
So I’m fairly sure I’ve read it. But not that sure. But I really can’t remember much about it, apart from trying to build a glass church in the outback.
After I read Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited – most of which I do actually remember – I decided to pick up a couple of his other books. I was in college at the time and I carried a notebook with lists of titles and library call numbers so I could pick up books whenever I had spare time without having to look them up again. I crossed the titles off whenever I checked out a book, though I was occasionally a little lax in remembering to do so. A couple months after I decided to go pick up more of Waugh’s books, I noticed that I hadn’t crossed his A Handful of Dust off my list in my notebook yet and I couldn’t remember having checked it out, so I skipped over to the university library to go pick it up.
It wasn’t until after I’d picked it up off the shelf and looked at the cover that I realised I had actually read it. I had to have kept it for a couple weeks, in fact, because the cover was really familiar and not because it was somehow especially iconic.
I still don’t remember a single bit of that book besides the cover. I’ve forgotten the exact details of plenty of other books, but at least I tend to remember something.
I read The Bell Jar** when I was around 13. I know the general plot and that it’s about Plath’s own life, but whenever I mention that I’ve read it people ask me all sorts of detailed questions (usually about the fact that the main character- I don’t even recall her name- has an abortion) and I’m like, “Uhhh…”
I read a lot of other depressing stuff then that I hardly remember like Prozac Nation and The Virgin Suicides** although I don’t think I missed important plot points like I apparently did for The Bell Jar.
I actually liked Jude the Obscure**. I read that my senior year of high school. Heart of Darkness** was the only assigned book in high school that I didn’t read because I thought it was so terrible (however I am familiar with the plot and enjoy saying, “the horror, the horror”).
Oh, well there’s another. I remember “Diggory Venn” and “Eustacia Vye” because they’re such great names, but couldn’t for the life of me tell you who they were or what they did.
I’m counting it as a blessing. All those great books I can reread as though they’re new…although to be fair, when I pick up an old book like that, phrases and events do sometimes seem familiar, like snippets of old songs on my mom’s radio.
I remember tearing through John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy, and thinking it was just fantastic, about ten years ago. But I can’t remember a thing about any of the three books.
East of Eden. I love Steinbeck and can recall details of many of his other books–but I have no clue what this one was about, and I read it in earnest.
Nathaniel West’s Day of the Locust. I think it was set in Hollywood, and there were giant grasshoppers.
I’ve read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn twice. Well, okay, the first time it was read TO me, which isn’t the best indicator of how well I remember a novel (since I tend to zone out if the reading is too long). The second time was in high school and I still remember zoning out, even while I was reading it. So it’s gone.
One that I forgot about while I was reading it: Naked Lunch. I cannot believe they managed to make that one into a movie, because I would turn a page and all memory of the previous one would be gone.
Watership Down and The Hobbit used to be on that list, but I’ve reread them recently, so they’re back in my brain now.