Déjà Lu. How Do We Remember What We Read?

This article examines the specifics of how the reader’s memory functions. To analyze this phenomenon, the author introduces a term – déjà lu (“what has been read”), by analogy with the more familiar déjà vu. The author analyses Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Adolescent and concludes that there are many parallels between the memory of visual impressions and the impressions of what has been read. The characters engage in active visual exchanges, through which concealed — and often predatory — intentions are revealed. Ekphrastic elements are invested with a different role, when an ideological hero (Versilov, Makar Ivanovich) recalls a visual impression that is of much importance to them. These recollections expose the central idea of these characters, the core of each of the contemplating characters. Notably, their memories of visual experiences are selective. Versilov, when describing a Claude Lorrain landscape, omits the characters represented in it: the natural and ethical dimensions of the scene are more important to him. He keenly dissects and reshapes what he saw. Similarly selective is the way the characters in The Adolescent remember what they have read. Among them, Trishatov stands out for his recollection of reading The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens as a child. The picture he holds in his memory differs drastically from what is described by the author. Here, we observe a more active and radical interference of memory than in the previous example. Trishatov’s memory “edits” what he read once, making it almost unrecognizable. Instead of the naïve and detailed account of the countryside where Little Nell from the novel found peace, he creates a large-scale mystical picture of old Europe going through its decline.