Larkin once wrote a poem called The Importance of Elsewhere. I think i only really understood that today; the great thing about places we know well is the books we read when we are not there. In fact, that is the good thing about reading any book anywhere other than where you are. I return home and i realise what my brain was showing me when i read this book or that book; i found the churchyard and marshes from Great Expectations and the eponymous Judge's House from Bram Stoker's short story linked by Union Street from Persuasion.
This is why i don't like front covers to books, they give you a little detail and form where this or that place might look like according to someone else, but you haven't been there, you don't know any more so either you have to create a place from other images in your head or your ideas fight with theirs.
There is one house which i have not been in for seven or eight years but it has been the setting of so many books in my head, i like that, if i went back there now i would see so many events from different books. This is a strange way in which i find books enrich my life.
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