the philosophy of reading. or something.

I've been reading Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore. And I really like it. And I really don't like it, because it's making me remember things that I think I forgot for a specific reason. Maybe not a reason I ever accepted formally, but something my subconscious came up with, like self-preservation. I keep remembering people and places and smells, things that were once incredibly important to me...but are now just memories being shuffled around beside phone numbers and birthdays inside my rolodex of thought. Sils, the main character's best friend, has long dark hair to my mind's eye...and looks just like Chris, the main character's best friend in The Ghost in the Third Row (which I read when I was, like, 10, I guess) did when I pictured her. Do I only have so many stock faces in my head to fill the parts of all the books I'm reading? Like actors and actresses who'll show up again later, when I read books that haven't yet been written?