Sunday, March 06, 2011

1984 or 1776?

Today, I found myself with a little time to wander in a Borders. Actually, I was very much looking for books to help one learn Italian, in preparation for next year when I'll be living there (and, I promise, promise, promise: blogging more regularly).

As I came upon the section on languages, two young men (14ish) sort of stopped behind me and I overheard one say, "There's totally a book called 1984." The other retorted: "No way. You can't just name a book ... a number." "It's not a number. It's the year. It's a history book, but I sort of think it's a classic." As the other guy refused, yet again, to believe this was possible, I couldn't resist. "There's totally a book called 1984. It's by a guy named George Orwell. It's not exactly a history book, but the rest is right." Oddly, they verified that it was a classic, asked me what section to find it in (if not history) and walked away.

Within a couple minutes, they were back. "Excuse me, but is 1776 a classic?" "The book by David McCullough?" "Uh... I think so." I tried to explain the difference between a piece of literature that speaks to people in a timeless near-universal sort of way and a very high quality, well-written work that reports the history of a particular event. I don't think they got it. I still wonder what kind of an assignment they had. Were they supposed to find a classic? A history book? A classic history book? Or--who knows--a math book? I really hope that they were supposed to read a history book, and I hope that they chose 1984. What would it be like to read that book as history? Would that be possible?

It still cracked me up and made me think that I should blog again. So, here I am!

1 comment:

Molly said...

I'm laughing, but also a little bummed to think they hadn't heard of 1984. That was required reading even in my little country-bumpkin high school. Can't wait to read your Rome-blogging.