On memory and blogging

I’m on a bit of a re-reading kick at the moment. I’m reading new books but we’ve recently acquired a couple of new bookcases and the resultant sort-out unearthed some books I was excited about revisiting. But it got me thinking about unconscious re-reading and some of the reasons I got into blogging.

Have you ever read a book for the second time thinking that it was the first?

Because I have.

As shocking as I found it, I’ve managed to get through at least two books while remaining completely unaware that I’d read them before. On one occasion – accidentally re-reading Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture – I got a creeping sense of familiarity but not enough to remember anything that was actually going to happen. I just assumed I’d read something similar.

My (nerdy but oh so satisfying) excel spreadsheet was the only thing that revealed my blunder; as you type in the title it autofills if the same text has been used above. Cue palm slapping on forehead.

I don’t mind conscious rereading of a favourite book but I’m genuinely chilled when it’s accidental.

When I started noting down the books I read – back in July 2002 – I didn’t intend it to be an aide memoire; it was really just a way of keeping track, of appreciating progress and revealing trends. What happened over time was surprising and quite rewarding. First it became a kind of literary diary – I find I can look back at titles and remember snippets of where I was while reading and the things that were going on in my life at the time. On the other hand, it started to reveal some less pleasant things – namely, that I really don’t remember much of what I read. There are books on there that I cannot recall a single thing about; there are also books that I notice are duplicated on my ‘to be read’ list (like The God of Small Things, which it turns out I read in June 2012, oh the shame).

One could argue that it doesn’t matter too much, that it’s about enjoyment in the moment. That we can’t possibly remember everything we’ve ever read or we’d start losing important thoughts like our address or how to make toast. But it turns out it matters terribly to me. I just can’t stand that the hours (sometimes even days, or weeks) that I spent reading a particular book are effectively lost to me, irreparably.

I started making the odd note next to each title that I entered in the log, with snippets of plot, theme and my reactions. Eventually, as with so many other readers I’d imagine, I found my way to blogging. I wanted to create a more tangible representation of my reading life than a list; a critique perhaps, a dialogue, an analysis. I’m hoping this means that there’ll be no more books slipping through the cracks.

Have you ever accidentally re-read something?