I just finished an audiobook by Vince Flynn. I just finished the book, but cannot remember the title, even though I just read it. The title is unimportant, just as with any Vince Flynn book. Or Tom Clancy, or Brad Thor. There seems to me that there must be some master database out there of government and military terms that they choose from at random. This one is no different.
As it happened, I had actually listened to this audiobook before. I was pretty sure that it was the case when I was about an hour in. The weird thing, though, is that I could remember nothing about it. A couple of the characters were familiar. I assumed that Mitch Rapp won in the end and order was restored, but that was about all I could remember from the plot other than one thing: Character A is going to kill Character B, even though they were working together. Apart from the plot, I could remember only one other thing: I liked the book.
How I can remember so little about a book, but that I like it, is kind of bizarre when you think about it. And yet there I was, listening again for the first time waiting for Character A to kill Character B.
It gets even worse, though: The one thing I concretely remembered… I remembered wrong. It was Character B that killed Character A.
I wonder if I’ve heard the next book of his in my queue. And if it matters if I have.
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7 Responses to Vince Flynmesia
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It’s disconcerting how little I sometimes turn out to actually remember of fiction I thought I paid fairly close attention to and enjoyed when I read it the first time, when I go back and look it over again later.
I’m sometimes left thinking, what was even the point of spending that time in the first place?
I ask myself the same question. But for the audiobooks, anyway, it’s easier: It makes the time spent doing chores go by faster.
Even so, I’ve been trying to insert more edifying material in there like presidential biographies and such.
I had a philosophy prof who said we shouldn’t read books in-depth, we should read them more quickly and re-read and re-read.
I’ve found that works, at least for me. Of course I don’t always have time to re-read..
Yep. That totally me on nonfiction. Haven’t gotten there on fiction yet – I pretty much need to be engrossed to stay with a book. So it’s not really a decision about how to read fiction (I suppose it is, really, but if I’m into a novel, I’m going to be reading about as pretty closely).
…But then, I don’t remember a lot a few months later. But really, that’s okay, because when I do put the time into fiction it’s usually a positive experience in the moment, so it’s not really wasted time. It’s just (unfortunately) closer to TV than I feel like reading novels should be.
…about as closely as I ever do, I meant.
I did the same thing with a movie once. Saw it a few years before and then when it was on Netflix started watching it. It wasn’t until I was 1/2 through I wondered if I had seen it before.
I think it has something to do with how emotionally we’re involved in the story. If we don’t care that much, we’re bound to forget it.
Law & Order episodes are always a gamble. Especially when they introduce the person who did it about 20 minutes in. That’s when you remember the whole rest of the episode (because with the Who comes the Why).