Mr. Lessingham stopped. A stream of recollection seemed to come flooding over him. A dreamy look came into his eyes.
The Beetle, chapter 33
‘I remember it all as clearly as if it were yesterday How it all comes back, – the dirty street, the evil smells, the imperfect light, the girl’s voice filling all at once the air. It was a girl’s voice, – full, and round, and sweet; an organ seldom met with, especially in such a place as that. She sang a little chansonnette, which, just then, half Europe was humming, – it occurred in an opera which they were acting at one of the Boulevard theatres, – “La P’tite Voyageuse.”‘
When reading this, it really stood out to me that Lessingham was lost in a memory fondly, though still distinctly remembered how distasteful he found the environment around him. He specifically remembers the “dirty” street, the “evil” smells, and the “imperfect” light, even while remembering the sweet sound of the girl’s voice he was attracted to. Usually when someone recalls something fondly, the rest of the memory gets tinted by that fondness, but it seems like Lessingham remembered the less-than-good things just as well.
I find that a lot of my own memories are tainted by prevalent emotion, especially as time passes. If a positive feeling is associated with it, I tend to not remember the less-pleasing things about it, even if there were many distasteful or unpleasant things aside from the positive thing, and vice versa.
When you re-read or re-watch a show or book or other literary media, how does your perspective of the events change with the emotional connections you’ve made from the previous time(s) watching or reading it? I’ve often heard that people wish they could “reread the book again, for the first time,” do you share this opinion, or do you value the knowledge of what happens as you see it again?
