When I read a book, I always picture the action, the people, the settings, etc. I usually have a pretty clear picture of what's going on, and it doesn't change if I re-read the books. The abundance of Harry Potter movies has somewhat skewed how I imagine the characters, but I still always picture Hogwarts as a variation of my high school. In The Giver, Jonas' home is the apartment my family lived in from when I was 6-12, as is the house in Memoirs of a Geisha. I've noticed a pattern that the homes my character's live is usually a variation of a place I've lived in, or at least somewhere I've spent a significant amount of time, like my grandparents'. This has recently started changing. Bella's house and Edward's house in the Twilight series look nothing like anywhere I've lived or am familiar with that I can think of yet, nor is the home of Eustace Scrubb in The Chronicles of Narnia or Kaye's in Tithe. It makes me wonder if I'm becoming more creative, have been to more places than I can remember, or if it's the influence of the writer and the descriptions they use.
But, the reason for my post is this, what do you imagine or see when you are reading a book? Familiar settings or people? Or something completely different? Or do you not imagine it at all?
1 comment:
Hey I totally missed this. Yeah, I always imagine the book I'm reading. I remember a friend pointing out that Lord of the Rings has whole swaths of description with hardly any dialogue. As I reflected on this I realised it probably explained why I enjoyed the books so much more as a 12-year-old than as an adult. At that age I had a really powerful imagination and I'm sure I saw it all - everything he described - as if it was a movie in my head. As an adult I became bored with all the description and skipped parts. But I still saw it in my head. I wish I could accurately recall how I saw it as a kid - that would be interesting.
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