When you imagine certain places/houses in books....

[Jellybean100]

So I’m asking this as my sister and I have recently found out that we both always do this...

It seems every book I read, no matter how well the author describes a home or location, I can only really imagine it being one of two/three places in my mind. It is always my aunties house (who we went to stay with on holiday throughout my child hood), my mum’s friends house (who we spent a lot of time at during my childhood) or my Nans house. The location is almost always the town my auntie lives in. It’s really quite odd and when discussing it with my sister we found out we both picture the exact same places in our minds.

I just wonder if you do the same? Or is it a bit weird? Do I have crap imagination?

Ermm ... no, sorry

Sorry, but how does that even work? If you're reading a book set in a totally different place, like Japan or Colombia or something, or in the 17th century, it's still your auntie's house?? Were they magical?

What @CaptainNelson said. I mean, how can Moby Dick or Wide Sargasso Sea or Shogun be set in your auntie’s?

I know exactly what you mean - most books where the action takes place in house take place in my childhood next door neighbour's house. No idea why! If it's a historical book or in Japan it's still got the same floor plan. Obvs not for books where there IS a map of the house or something very specifically described. Or at sea...

I don't do this as such but I think I sort of know what you mean because if I ever read a book that mentions a school I automatically visualise it as the school I went to. I just have a mental block on imagining any other school building. I remember as a teenager getting really frustrated watching Grange Hill because the classrooms didn't look like my school

No

But what really annoys me is when the author has described a place or person - however briefly or in detail - and the illustrator shows something different. Even if the text says that the protagonist had red hair, and the cover shows a brunette, or something.

Yes I know exactly what you mean OP, thought I was the only one

There are obviously 2 camps of readers ... though perhaps we all need to link places to something we've seen or known in some way.

I think this is very strange, but am enjoying the idea of the people reading novels set in late 18thc Japan and determinedly revising the interiors into their auntie's house, regardless of paper screens and tatami mats.

Honestly I remember reading a thousand splendid suns and they’re in a house in Afghanistan but in my head it was in my nans house and the garden was just like my nans garden... weird I know

@isabellerossignol

I don't do this as such but I think I sort of know what you mean because if I ever read a book that mentions a school I automatically visualise it as the school I went to. I just have a mental block on imagining any other school building. I remember as a teenager getting really frustrated watching Grange Hill because the classrooms didn't look like my school

This is exactly what I mean. Any school in a book I visualise as the school I went to, too!

Oh my goodness, this is so far from my experience. I can 'see' the houses from different books in my mind so easily.

The thing that throws me is when I watch the film or TV version, I become incapable of remembering 'my' version any more. I can't recall 'my' Brideshead, or 'my' Mansfield Park or Pemberley etc.

Whereas with characters, where there's a big jarring difference, I can still 'see' both my original, and the filmed version - so I have two Sebastian Flytes going on ('my' Sebastian had dark hair and was very slightly built), but I see Charles Ryder as Jeremy Irons, because he's very close to 'my' version, so my version is now lost.

Yes my mind tends to conjure up an image of the houses based on the description.

With the characters, sometimes if I think a specific actor would be right for the part they will look like them and sometimes you watch an adaptation thinking a person looks wrong and not like the character in your head.

I also tend to read a book in an accent . So have just read Wych Elm and read it in the accent from Dublin Murders. Now reading Nora Webster by Colm Toibin and am reading it in a Father Ted accent.

No I don't do this but to be honest the pictures of book locations (and characters for that matter!) are usually fairly vague in my mind.

Im afraid I can’t relate to this. Could it be something to do with the books you read and the locations being poorly described?

It would be interesting to get people to draw the locations they imagine from the same book.