On summarizing

Everyone remembers a book differently. We filter the book through our own experiences, highlighting and understanding themes, character motivations, and plot elements in a way that makes sense to us. Summarizing these books has made me realize how much I draw on my own ideas of life when I read. The act of summarizing is half science, half art. It's not possible to include everything that happens in the book (for that is the book itself), so I have to ask which plot points are important enough to make it into the summary.

For example, I'm reading this Vonnegut book right now. (His writing style is hard enough to summarize, because it's so unique). There's a few pages that discuss the National Archives. Being an archivist, that part grabbed my attention, even though it's not integral to the plot. I'll probably put that bit in my summary, since it impacted me, but someone else would choose another bit to pull out.

And what about the stuff I leave out? In my summaries, I've left out important parts that I was just too lazy to put in, or that I felt wasn't needed for me to remember the book. Sometimes I leave out bits I didn't like. Sometimes I leave out boring bits. Sometimes, like with The Peril at End House, I just don't feel like putting in all of the clues, so that the experience of reading the summary is a completely different one from the experience of reading the book.

Character description is another element that doesn't come across well in summaries, since my idea of a character is built up over dialogue and even the smallest action. I can use any adjective to describe a character (funny, intelligent, etc.) but it's hard to explain why I perceive a character to be that way without specific examples. I'm not looking to do a close reading or an English essay.

Doing these summarizes has also let me understand why I forget books so easily soon after I've read them. Simply, there is a lot to remember.