From “The Secret History of Moscow” by Ekaterina Sedia:
“It felt like a school trip, and Galina had to restrain herself from trying to hold hands with Timur-Bey; despite his diminutive stature, he appeared quite formidable. Besides, Galina thought, he had never been herded with a group of other children to a museum or an exhibition of the country’s agricultural prowess. It was frustrating, thinking of that man and realizing that they had never shared an experience; was it possible to be so remote in time and circumstance that there was simply no overlap?”
Galina was a modern woman who fell into an underground world (somewhere below Moscow) where people had fallen out of history and continued to live in this sub-world. I enjoyed the book and the look at another culture.
What about the idea of two people who share no common past? Is it possible for people to be so far apart in time that they have nothing in common? Sure there would be simple things like fire, ice, winter… basics that have been around for every generation and before. But, in the timeline of people, you don’t have to go too far back to find people who would not understand the current culture and traditions of people now.
Think of some things we take for granted in our modern culture that would seem bizarre to someone a hundred (or hundreds) of years ago.