Place Settings

Whenever I read a book I automatically assign the setting (at least the primary one) to one I already know; for some reason it’s almost always from my childhood. I have no idea why, or if this is how everybody does it. If I read the same book 20 years later, I immediately recapture that scenic setting, no matter what. I may forget the characters, I may have no memory of what the fuck happened; I may swear it was originally in Chinese - but I always have the exact setting in my head.

But apparently I’ve officially run out of places from my youth and am now using the same scenic backgrounds for different books, like theaters do for plays; or cartoons used to for background cells. Cause I read The Metamorphisis a few weeks ago, and now for “The Mark Halling Loves Soft Rock Music Reading Club” I’m reading Crime and Punishment and they both take place in the same room - my childhood neighbor Shelly’s bedroom. Wtf?

I'd add the boarding house near the beginning of An American Tragedy to this setting as well - the one where Clyde sets up his foot locker, and then the street lights under which he walks to meet his lady friend for a late night rendezvous always play out in my head at the same house as above. Whack.