I think this manages to say a lot about me, actually

[starlady]

To say nothing of my chosen career path, and avocations.

One might mock—one does mock—the mastery of what is, after all, mere mock history. But the fantasy readers’ learned habit of thinking historically is an acquisition as profound in its way as the old novelistic training in thinking about life as a series of moral lessons. Becoming an adult means learning a huge body of lore as much as it means learning to know right from wrong. We mostly learn that lore in the form of conventions: how you hold the knife, where you put it, that John was the witty Beatle, Paul the winning one, that the North once fought the South. Learning in symbolic form that the past can be mastered is as important as learning in dramatic form that your choices resonate; being brought up to speed is as important as being brought up to grade. Fantasy fiction tells you that history is available, that the past counts. As the boring old professor [Tolkien] knew, the backstory is the biggest one of all. That’s why he was scribbling old words on the blackboard, if only for his eyes alone.

--Adam Gopnik, "The Dragon's Egg"

I--yeah. It's no accident that I consider my interest in history to be strongly motivated by an interest in narrative.

Comments

[juniperphoenix]

I really enjoyed Adam Gopnik's book Paris to the Moon (a memoir of five years spent living in Paris with his wife and toddler).

[starlady]

I haven't read that one, but I really liked The King in the Window (middle grade/YA fantasy about Paris) and Angels and Ages (about Lincoln and Darwin).

[raanve]

This is a really wonderful quote.

I'm not a professional historian by any stretch, but I do love history. My spouse will occasionally opine that most history is boring. He's a reader, and he likes stories, but somehow he can't quite see it as a narrative. (I guess not everyone views the universe in terms of narrative.) I love that there are just piles of narratives of all sizes lying around, waiting to be discovered. Stories! Everywhere!

[starlady]

I think the way most history is taught in the States takes out the things that makes the narratives interesting, i.e. contested. I used to believe passionately that U.S. history was boring, until I realized that it was being taught completely wrong.

But yes! Stories everywhere!