Sandstone History vs Fahrenheit 451
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - S
There’s an old building on George Street that stands isolated as the metro is built behind it.
How do I know it’s old?
Firstly it’s sandstone and then it’s still standing even though all the other buildings have been knocked down.
It gets me thinking about history, the seen and unseen.
History is often limited to an idea about what can be seen. What if history is a story or an idea or a ritual?
It reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. To protect stories in an age of book burning, a person will memorise a book, thus embodying it. One person may be Wuthering Heights, another War and Peace.
What if a person becomes history?
Isn’t each person an embodiment of humanity’s history?
Each person can become representative of a period and a culture and a language or even a repository of literature and story and poetry.
What if (the favourite question of a writer) history is more than a sandstone building? What then?