MIL just now, fresh from book club, carrying that satisfied glow that suggests something important has just happened.
“I read a book about two months ago, and it deeply affected me.”
This is how myths begin.
“Awesome,” I say. “What was it called?”
“I don’t remember.”
Naturally.
So I adjust course.
“What was it about?”
“I forget.”
Okay, fair enough. Books are slippery creatures. I try again.
“What about it affected you most? A character, a plot point?”
“I’m not sure,” she says, serenely. “But it was excellent.”
At this point the book has achieved a kind of Platonic perfection. It exists only as Impact.
“How did it affect you?” I ask, carefully.
“I don’t know,” she says, without irony. “But it was really life and outlook changing.”
I nod, because this is clearly not a problem that can be solved with follow up questions.
“I’m glad you got something out of it,” I say, and I mean it.
“I’d like to read it again,” she continues. “Can you help me find it?”
“Sure,” I say. “What criteria should I use to search for it?”
She looks at me kindly, the way one looks at a child asking about taxes.
“I don’t know. You’re the tech guy.”
So I do what tech guys do. I pull up her tablet and present evidence.
“Here are all the books you’ve read in the last three months. Do any of these ring a bell?”
She reads about four books a week, give or take. There are roughly thirty of them staring back at her.
She scans the list.
“No,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
“Well,” I say, doing some quick math in my head, “now you have thirty books to reread and find out.”
Here is the thing. Her memory outside of books is a steel trap. Names, dates, conversations from decades ago, all locked in and retrievable on demand. But the moment she finishes a book, its contents are immediately flushed like a temporary file. Characters vanish. Plots dissolve. Titles evaporate.
All that remains is the emotional aftertaste and the firm conviction that it was excellent.
Some people collect books. Some people collect knowledge. She collects the feeling of having been changed, again and again, by stories she can no longer name.
Honestly, that might be the most literary approach of all.
