Anecdotes, a second thought

 Yesterday’s note offered a working definition of an anecdote as a little story that limits what it tries to show: it illustrates a quirk of personality, rather than some universal quality of humanity.

The problem with that suggestion is an anecdote like this:

 

The eighty-year-old Cato surprised his friends by setting himself the task of studying Greek. Asked how he could contemplate such a lengthy course of study at his advanced age, he replied it was the youngest age he had left.

 

That trait — that devotion to learning — is a deeply human quality, rather than an individual quirk. Not everyone has that trait or quality, but my friend Melvin, who was teaching medical students at 90 while taking courses in literature at the community college, did.

People tell anecdotes for different reasons, just as they tell anecdotes for different reasons.

Definitions are tricky, as Wittgenstein pointed out in seeking a definition of “games.” You can see the same problem with defining a “story” by looking at The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.

• Sources and notes: The Brown, Little Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman; Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985, p. 108. The anecdote refers to Cato the Censor, 234-149 BCE.