As I am about a quarter of the way through the third book I've read in less than a week, I've come to a strange realization. If the author is a good one, he or she will create a new world in which these characters live and breathe and go about their lives, and we, the readers, are able to see this place in our mind's eye. We journey along with each character as they experience loss, love, family troubles, and whatever else befalls them. Now think about the last book you read, or maybe one you are reading right now. Do you ever find yourself connecting bits of the story with your own life? Do you ever imagine that the mother in the story is walking her dog around your neighborhood? Or that the scene of the pool party is happening in your backyard?
Maybe it's just me, but when I read books, I do this. It doesn't matter how good the author is at creating a new setting that I have never experienced. I always find a way to connect it to something I have. And what I find interesting, is that most of the time, I do not imagine things from places I am experiencing in the present. Most often, I imagine the old houses we used to live in. Or a friend's house. Or someplace I visited once. Or neighborhoods that I do not live in. I'm not even sure if this makes any sense, but it's just funny. By the end of the book, these made up characters have moved from my cousin's house in the suburbs to the house I used to live in in a quiet neighborhood, and go on vacation to a place I once visited. How weird. Does anyone else do this? Am I crazy? Either way, I think I like it. It makes me wonder about the brain and why and how it does the things it does. How it connects certain words or phrases to places we have been. Maybe it's a subconscious way that we are looking to connect with the story. If we can just bring it into our own world, our own homes, our own families, then we can more easily connect, understand, and perhaps empathize with what is going on.
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