In the 1970s there were American press reports of an Iowa man who was tormented by his yearning for the 16-year stretch of time that ran from 1752 to 1768. His misery was the result of not being able to find anyone who shared this deep nostalgia for a period when electricity was still a rumour and America was proud to think of itself as British.
But does this really count as nostalgia? Is it not, actually, a bid for attention, a way for the man from Iowa to signal that, while his body might be tethered to the cornfields, his mind is free to roam in exquisite pastures where gentlemen routinely wear wigs and night-time travel is best reserved for a full moon? Agnes Arnold-Forster doesn’t say, but deploying the anecdote allows her to draw attention to the slipperiness of the very concept of nostalgia. Is it a legitimate and trans-historical emotion, like sadness or rage? Or could it be rather a cultural confection, a passing fancy expressive of a particular time and place (in the case of the man from Iowa, this would be Gerald Ford’s post-Vietnam America)? Most fundamentally of all, can you feel nostalgic for a time or a place that you never actually experienced yourself?
