The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread which will discuss historical fiction and what makes it good or bad.

Apart from general qualities of good fiction (interesting characters, good plot, well written, etc) I think good historical fiction doesn't get any history wrong and it gets the voices right.

Suppose it's about, say Elizabeth I. After all these years, we know very little about a) A lot of incidents in her life and b) what was actually said by her and her companions.

Good historical fiction could give details about aspects of her life that aren't known, but those details would have to fit (and not be contrary to evidence).

Similarly, it could invent dialogue, but the voices would have to fit the people.

Great synopsis Peter.

Hm, good answer.

Why the difference though? How is it that movies and other artistic avenues can produce alternate, fictional histories and yet the same isn't tolerated in books?

Oh, alternate histories are OK by me, but I wouldn't call them historical fiction.

Different genre, different rules.

Well, I'm referring mostly to altering certain parts of a story. Not necessarily the whole story or something like an alternate ending.

Shakespeare used to do such things like in Julius Caesar or even Hamlet. However I doubt he took such license with any of his royal histories.

There is a lesser degree of tolerance though in fiction, even when it comes to changing small facts. I'm just wondering what the motivation is.

Some thoughts in reaction to Bentley's post:

History is a slippery thing. It would seem to lie in the past, except as Billy Faulkner observed, it's not passed at all, which raises the question of whether history is history? Then fold in the fictional element and I think you end up with something that's impossible to get a handle on.

Take Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha musings. It's a thinly veiled history of characters in an imaginative county where the characters bear a strong resemblance to those Billy knew, or who shared the Faulkner gene pool.

But these people lacked stature, more often than not a requisite to be historical. And besides, everything in Faulkner's works is such a mashup, it really is impossible to establish reliable lineages between the real life characters and the fictional, which in turn blurs the line between the history of something and its fictionalization. Which is more real, the exercise of marshaling facts into a meaningful understanding of events, or the exercise of selecting elements from the world and arranging them into an artistic expression that increases our understanding of the world as spelled out by Aristotle in his The Poetics?

The historian works in a tighter discipline, but it may be the author of historical fictions who creates the greater understanding of the past that is not passed.

Some of Yoknapatawpha residents are mythical, such as Thomas Sutpen in Absalom! Absalom!, the self-made man who imposed his will on the community as he defined himself, which happens to be both the characteristic that distinguishes the American experience and the energy that gets us into messes such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

I suppose the bottom line on good historical fiction is that like history it should be relevant to the present, or the cusp of history as it unfolds.

by William Faulkner

by Aristotle(no photo, imagine)

Thanks, Martin. Don't forget to add the citation, so people can click and look at the author you are talking about :-)

William Faulkner

Ooops. Second demerit this week.

Just to further confuse the issue, our perspective on history changes as time goes by for a variety of reasons. Our attitudes change with age, groups of people sharing common interests change their perspectives, the values through which we judge events changes.

And with a little license afforded by the label fiction, an adept writer can yield far more power than the historian.

Take Huey Long. T Harry Williams wrote a magnificent biography on the guy. I have vague recollections about The Kingfish.

But through the character of Jack Burden, who assumed no burden until his epiphany in a California motel when he discovered The Kingfish had stepped in and consumated the love affair he never did, and other "fictional" characters, I remember more details, but also more meaningful general truths, and come away with a stronger message that the biography left me.

Jack Burden's going out into the throes of history, into the hurly burly of Time is a reminder to me and should be to all who've read it of their own burdens.

by T. Harry Williams(no photo)

by Robert Penn Warren

Hey Martin - we are not about demerits but we do have standards to make it easier for everybody. You did a great job with message 9 - thank you so much for your cooperation - if you could go back and edit message 7 then you would be pitch perfect.

Regarding your posts. Perspectives in history do change - and our perceptions of folks change too - but we have to reflect upon the attitudes of that period to really understand the cultural and social history of any period and any individual who lived during that time period. You cannot judge them by current standards, mores, or attitudes.

I am not so sure about the fictional writer yielding more power than a skilled historian but it is an interesting perspective.

I can see that you lean towards good fiction with a cultural anchor.

Hey Bentley - I was taking a stab at being humorous. Edits made.

Regarding perspective, how can we do anything but view historical events through the lens of our own time?

It's true as you say that we have to "reflect upon the attitudes of that period" to gain an understanding of the period.

But, in my estimation, for historical fiction to be top drawer, it has to bridge the historical time and make it relevant to the current. Otherwise the reader is left largely with a pretty story in an historical setting.

That can be very entertaining, but it's not what this one-eyed reader would consider top drawer.

I think what I lean toward is spatial time, which is what Faulkner was getting at with both his comment on history not even being passed, but also especially in his exploration of time in Absalom! Absalom!

But an even better understanding is how time is re-cognized in Buddhism. The thangka is a good graphic representation of spacial time.

by William Faulkner

No worries. (smile) - just did not want folks to misinterpret you.

I think sometimes we have to step back and understand how folks spoke, acted, respected each other, the slang and the idioms used then which we may find offensive or racist today - we have to walk in their shoes and experience their present - our past as if they were living today. I do not think we can overlay our values and how far we have come on decades or folks from the past.

I think I like non fiction because I am not expecting a pretty story.

But I do like good researched historical fiction as well.

I like Cormac McCarthy myself - he talks about the future and you believe it could be your present and you are horrified. His visceral themes and characters make your skin crawl yet he was able to do that with a very simple succinct and bullet proof style. Like Faulkner in many ways.

Interesting analogy to Buddhism.

Cormac McCarthy

William Faulkner

McCarthy is an interesting selection. Only Blood Meridian strikes me as being historical. For those interested in Blood, an appreciation of how closely it follows historical events can be gained by reading My Confessions by Samuel Chamberlain.

by Cormac McCarthy

by Samuel E Chamberlain (no photo)

Well yes - that is true but I was commenting on writing style.

Oh I agree. McCarthy's prose evokes the world of his subjects, or at least the world as a number of readers accept it. And, I don't mean to diminish that in any way.

Cormac McCarthy

No of course, Don't forget to cite the wonder:

Cormac McCarthy

I would go out on a limb and call him the most talented and best living American writer.

No argument from me on that. But I also think we've seen the last book from him, while he's living. There's some speculation that any further manuscripts will be published posthumously with proceeds going to support his second son.

Maybe - he has a very young child. Not sure what his age is now.

Don't forget to add the citation in message 15.

He had done and I think is still involved with the Coen Brothers. He is 80 although he does not look it but I think he is out there and has had his issues (very strange).

He is supposed to be working on another novel but who knows.

I believe his son is in his late teens, 17 or so.

Those who dig into these kind of things over at the McCarthy Society say that when he's working on novels he tends to work on several at a time.

Some other historical novels that have stuck with me because they blur the distinction between past, present, and future.

A personal favorite is Dream of Scipio, Ian Pears, is a wunnerful feat. The paths of three pairs, each male and female, of reincarnated characters are traced through the era of the decline of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, and WW II simultaneously.

Not only does the reader see across the three eras, but also sees how the paired individuals react to the larger historical events of their eras.

If there is a movement, it is toward the union of male and female, starting with the almost comical affection Manlius, the Roman officer, has for his teacher Sophia (if you see a rollup of the historical philosopher, the Gnostic supreme being, and a literary figure of wisdom, you'd be right). When he screws up his courage to profess his romantic love, she takes him out back and asks him to gaze into her midden and asks him does he love that as well since it is a part of her.

The title refers to a track that is readily available on line and I highly advise reading it first. It does help describe the Neoplatonic thinking that undergirds Pears' Dream.

by Iain Pears

Richard Hooker's translation of Ciscero's Dream of Scipio.

Thank you Martin for message 15 edit.

Goodness time flies - cannot believe his young son is not that young anymore.

There have been quite a few historical fiction novels that I have really enjoyed. We have actually discussed some of them here at the history book club.

by Michael Shaara (no photo)

Thank you for message 20. The one you mentioned seems to be up Vicki's alley. How historically accurate did you find the work?

Martin, interesting post about Dream of Scipio. I really liked that book, but it never occurred to me that the series of characters were reincarnated. I'll have to read it again with that in mind.

by Iain Pears

Thank you Vicki for popping in to the conversation. How historically accurate was this novel from your perspective?

I'm afraid my historical knowledge isn't adequate to judge. Even the Roman part was later than my main area of interest. But it was a great story.

Good to know.

Bentley, so happy to see your mention of Shaara's book! It remains my favorite historical novel, partly because of its considerable virtues and partly, I think, as a kind of "first love" - it was the first work of historical fiction that really absorbed me. A beautiful book.

by Michael Shaara

Has anyone read any of his son's books? How do they hold up to TKA?
Jeff Shaara

Mary Ellen - I just loved that book - it made the Civil War more tangible to me.

Good try on the citation - remember book cover, author's photo and author's link. If there is no book cover - you add the words (no image) right up front then the photo and then the link. No author's photo then at the end just add (no photo)

Here is the one for The Killer Angels

by Michael Shaara (no photo)

Great job on the son's citation.

I am trying to remember if I have read anything by the son.

Bentley - The history in Scipio's Dream is accurate, but it's not evocative of what it was like to live in the three eras. It's broad brush strokes. The primary historical action is of social orders that are declining.

Vicki - the book is salted with references to reincarnation of the three couples, although from my experience in discussing it with other readers, Pears doesn't hit the reader over the head with it. I think it's also true that it's difficult for us in the west to re-cognize rebirth and reincarnation. I know from my personal experience it was the hardest thing for me to recognize in Buddhist philosophy.

Anyway, some sign posts you might find helpful:

p.284 "But [Oliver] knew at that moment that all the poems he had written had been for this woman, not for some ideal, and that he had loved her since before he was born and would love her long after he died."

What Oliver is recognizing here - a love that is timeless in that it has no beginning and no end - can only happen in the birth and death cycle of reincarnation.

p.287 In describing the Gnostic path to the devine sea, Oliver realizes "we are reborn and must live again."

p.382 Julien sees in Julia's series of portraits the lineage of the three couples through time.

There also are references during the sections in the Sophia temple where Julia is exploring the linkage between the couples.

Hope that helps.

by Iain Pears

Thank you Martin - I was wondering if any aspect of the novel was actually grounded in history.

I will let Vicki respond to the rest. She seemed to have really liked the book.

Martin, thanks for the excerpts - I'm sure I'll get it next time through. The hints are certainly there. Makes it more interesting, I think.

Mary Ellen-I like Jeff's books, as well. He seems to take research pretty seriously in getting it right, like his father.

Jeff Shaara

Sorry I have taken a while to get back here! Thanks for the thoughts, Bryan. I will have to try one of Shaara fils's books!

My silly use of faux French is no doubt prompted by my current read, another work of historical fiction: by Hilary Mantel. Its subject is three key figures in the French Revolution (Robespierre, Danton and Desmoulins) from childhood till...well, you all probably know the ending already! It was slow starting for me, but grew more engaging as it went along.

I took it up with a bit of trepidation, because in her much-vaunted Hilary Mantel, she totally (and unjustifiably, IMHO) trashed a hero of mine, Thomas More. So I am not sure whether her take on these three revolutionaries holds water historically. But it is an absorbing book about a period of which I am fairly ignorant.

Mary Ellen wrote: "Sorry I have taken a while to get back here! Thanks for the thoughts, Bryan. I will have to try one of Shaara fils's books!

My silly use of faux French is no doubt prompted by my current read, a..."

I thought the trashing of Thomas More was pretty interesting and rather justified, myself. At least, a good counter to the hagiography of *A Man for All Seasons*.

Peter, are you referring to the play?

by Robert Bolt

It is important to cite the book to help us out.

Peter, you have a point about by Robert Bolt. It focused on the most heroic moments of More's life and didn't deal with the inconvenient truths of his pursuit of "heretics" earlier in his career. Also, making More a hero of individualism ("not because I believe it, but because I believe it...") would, I think, horrify More himself.

But I've read a few books about More and none of them paint him as black as Mantel did. I think she was using the Cromwell/More story to make points of her own. Fair enough, since it's not history.

One of the biographies I remember is by Peter Ackroyd.

Good job with the citations, Mary Ellen. But please put them at the end of the post for easier reference. Thanks so much.

Peter wrote: "Oh, alternate histories are OK by me, but I wouldn't call them historical fiction.

Different genre, different rules."

Agreed

The treatment of two historical figures in historical flicks now on the big screen illustrate, I think, important boundaries that apply to historical art.

The movie Selma distorts LBJ's role in advancing Civil Rights (his legislative portfolio needs no defense here), apparently because the director thought it would take away from Martin Luther King's role. This type of dissonance distorts any reasonable interpretation of the historical events covered and I think has no place in historical art.

The movie Mr. Turner, assuming I am remembering correctly, introduces a fictional young John Ruskin. John Ruskin in real life was never known to engage in sexual relations with woman, man, or beast. His first marriage was annulled after six years on the grounds it was never consummated. It seems the real Ruskin was shocked into impotence on his wedding night when he discovered his blushing wife had hair there. There is another school of thought that he didn't find menstruation very sexy either. His second marriage also was asexual. So, I'm not sure how a young John Ruskin could have been on the scene at the end of Turner's life.

But this seems a good and productive distortion. It allows the movie to bring into Turner's time some of the thinking that Ruskin offered as the foremost critic of art and architecture in the Victorian age, which was being pushed aside by the likes of moderns including Turner.

In effect, inserting a fictional young Ruskin allows the movie to contrast Ruskin's pronouncements on the modern as manifested by Turner's works with the actual emergence of Turner's more abstract period later in his life.

The invention doesn't distort the history, it allows the medium to compare and contrast, and in a most humorous way, by the bye.

The scene of artist expounding on the gooseberry in the Ruskins' parlor is to die for.

For me a good historical fiction work is going to introduce me to some aspect of history but weaves an interesting tale around it. It will often send me on an obsessive hunt for non-fiction books on the subject. For instance many years ago I read Jackdaws and became utterly fascinated by women in SOE. I can't tell you how much non-fiction I've read on it so far. To the point where when I visited Dachau and we got to the place where the plaque honors the four women believed to be executed in the crematorium the guide asked me to talk on the subject and asked for my book recommendations on the subject.

I also don't mind an author taking artistic license as long as he/she makes it clear in an author's note.

I like historical fiction, but I don't read that much of it anymore because so many authors are really just writing romantic fiction with some kind of 'historical' background.

Betsy wrote: "I like historical fiction, but I don't read that much of it anymore because so many authors are really just writing romantic fiction with some kind of 'historical' background."

There's a big difference in historical fiction and fiction set in an historical setting.

That may be true, but it's difficult to know which you're getting sometimes. What would you say are some outstanding historical novels then?

Great conversation. I think there is often a fine line between historical fiction and historical romance and a lot of historical romance (i.e. romance in a historical setting) is mislabeled.

BTW - Regina, make sure you properly cite books you mention. Thank you! ;-)

by Ken Follett