... I read a lot of books when I was younger...
So M2 is preparing for a Socratic seminar in her English class. They're reading Fahrenheit 451. She came out and needed to talk through the book with someone and wanted to know if I'd ever read it. Which yes, I have, but it was a long time ago.
We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. -- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
When I was in 7th & 8th grade I read one to two books a day. Sometimes I'd pick out a book, have it read by lunch time, pick up a second book & bring it back in the morning. Sometimes it was just picking up a book in the morning and then reading it all overnight. So easily between 150 & 300 books in a year. Fiction. Non-fiction. It didn't really matter. Weirdly, now that I think of it, I think my middle school library had Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory classified as non-fiction early British history. That was definitely the history section - lol!
Anyway. One of the results of reading so voraciously is that sometimes I conflate one title with another (can you tell where I'm going with this now?). In the process of refreshing my memory about Fahrenheit 451, I had the rather sudden realization that for years I've been conflating the storyline not only with 1984, but also A Brave New World. These three stories flow so well into each other that in retrospect, it sort of makes sense. Though by that standard it seems weird that I didn't at all mix up Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, or Jules Verne & H.G. Wells... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most of the time my retention was actually pretty good. Which was nice later in school when the class was discussing MacBeth in 10th grade and I was busy reading King Lear or The Brothers Karamozov or something & my teacher trying to catch me not paying attention to the matter at hand asked me a question which I answered correctly to his rather evident surprise. So then he felt obligated to say, 'ok, so you got that right, but please pay attention now.' Which I may or may not have actually done. I seem to recall successfully answering at least one other 'gotcha,' that period.
Which of course has nothing to do with conflated dystopic political science fictions. Kiddo needed to prepare three questions about what was applicable from this book that was going on presently. She didn't want to bring politics into it. She said it was too upsetting. So sweetie, about that... she came up with some good questions though. And periodically she'd ask a question and I'd just say, "about that" and she'd groan and keep going.
It's been one of those weeks for her. Earlier this week she had to write an argumentative essay on gun control and she spent a fair amount of time spluttering about that as she found other countries' statistics.
I didn't have a point in mind when I started out with this, this evening. It was just such a surprising realization to find that I'd conflated these three titles that I thought I'd share with people who might, possibly, have also done something similar in the past.
WIth love & curiosity,
--Susan