My reprint of my article "Word Rivets" inspired a little discussion of how petty people can be about the authenticity of historical fiction. My particular point was that insisting on the use of one modern English word ober another in "translating" words someone in Anglo Saxon England said was to get into some absurd nuances.
There is a limit to how accurate an author can be and still communicate to modern readers. I ultimately prefer to err on the side of good storytelling. As I think about this topic, however, I realize there is a line I draw, but have not yet articulated where that line is and how it comes to be there.
I would like your opinion in the Comments section of this post.
I will offer a few examples of books that I just couldn't read because they were so over the line.
Sea of Trolls lost me in the first few pages when the eighth century Anglo Saxon children included a girl named Lucy who wanted a knight in armor to come and take her away to his castle. Why does that bug me? This one I might be able to answer. I like Anglo Saxon England the way it was. Sans knights, sans castles. I stopped reading if only because I could not trust the book to follow Anglo Saxon history and culture. I can't remember anything about another book I started to read and hit the stop button after the two 12th century knights started picking up steins and talking about chastity belts. I guess I just don't care for that image of the middle ages, the chastity belt business -- though I know a great joke about one.
Of course the Great Bugaboo of medieval historical fiction is the book and movie Braveheart. I think there are many things historical fiction devotees can point to about this movie, but the two that get me personally are related to Edward II and his wife Isabella. It was bad enough that they had Daddy Longshanks throwing Edward's boyfriend, Peter, out the window, but having the queen.. no, I mean the wife of the king.. having sex with and conceiving Edward III with William Wallace was enough to make me shriek aloud. I don't like real people so thoroughly moved around in history and acting out of character... I guess. I like Edward II. I don't want to see him, rewritten that thoroughly... I guess.
The question I am asking here is not what bugs us individually but where to draw the line. In some cases the facts are known, so it is easy enough to point to fiction being no more than changing facts. That's not what I think fiction is. To me fiction is interpreting and amplifying on facts. I would say that if the author explains himself or herself, as I did with my entirely fictional kingdom in An Involuntary Kingdom, but Randall Wallace does this in Braveheart. He says he communed with William Wallace in the porch of a church overlooking where Wallace was executed and he said OK to the changes. He wishes. Now it's my task to decide why what I did was OK, but not what Randall Wallace did. Have any thoughts on that?
Let's take it from there. I could go on with other reasons people change history in their novels and movies, but let's consider just this one for now. Why was it Randall Wallace's altering history was over the line, but my whole cloth creation of a kingdom was not? Or was it?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Where To Draw the Accuracy Line
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Altering history is very different from creating a new kingdom. Well, in a sense you're altering history, but no one actually believes that what you're writing about happened. In Braveheart, real historical figures are involved and we know a great deal of what happened. Changing what actually happened isn't acceptable. At least, not to me. You can make stuff up, as long as it isn't anachronistic, but you shouldn't change what's there.
ReplyDeleteI'd stop reading a book that had knights and castles in Anglo-Saxon England, too. That's just too wrong.
I've never understood why, if documented history is readily available for discovery, as in the examples you give, some authors willfully (and egregiously) rewrite it instead of either (1) working within facts as a framework, and devoting their imagination to inventing those incidents, relationships, and episodes that are NOT documented; (2) giving their fictional characters fictional names instead of giving what are obviously fictional characters the names of historical personages yet only very selectively granting them the known attributes and actions of of their namesakes. Whenever I stumble across what are obvious historical gaffes - and especially willful ones - my suspension of disbelief is shattered, and more times than not I abandon the book.
ReplyDeleteKaren Mercedes
Excellent post. I have just had to put down Peter Ackroyd's The Clerkenwell Tales because he was being too much of a realist geek about how he portrayed late 14c England. I think he intended to provide a faithful recreation of the time in speech and thought, to out-Chaucer Chaucer almost. Unfortunately for a modern reader that's going to far. It is possible, as Ellis Peter's and Umberto Eco do very well, to recreate the feel of the times but connect to a modern reader.
ReplyDeleteYour examples about when changing history goes to far are spot on. I think the thing that bugs me is that these changes have been communicated as if that's how things were. If the author was saying 'look I am changing things consciously' to the reader then that's acceptable and can be interesting - we're then on the cusp between historical and fantasy fiction perhaps - like Sheri S Teppers' Beauty. Changing history is OK, but there are certain rules that you should follow in respect of your reader.
As an aspiring historical fiction author, I defintely understand the importance of accurate research. I too cannot stand when facts are so altered that it in effect alters history. I think books like that should be classified as "alternate history" since that is what they are telling.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there's bound to be mistakes, some even purposeful for the sake of the story. But as you said there is a line. For me, I'm writing a story set in Meiji Japan, an era I'm still learning a great deal about, and I'm trying my best to find the research for it to be accurate. For example, I recently discovered my MC's name wasn't exactly accurate to the time or culture. I didn't want a gaffe like that in my book, so I went out and looked for another.
Anyway, great blog! I like finding other historical authors like myself :)