What Historical Novelists Do

It occurred to me recently that the old sobriquet applied to science fiction, speculative fiction, applies to historical fiction as well. Yes, depending on the story and whether ctual historical figures appear in a novel, the author tries to depict life in  another time as accurately as possible. That's an important factor, but it cannot be the artistry that makes the history meaningful and truly evocative.

I have been reading Morgan Llywelyn's Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas, and both the merits and the demerits of the novel highlighted for me just where the speculative aspect of historical fiction comes into play. The historical novelist starts with facts, whether about the historical personage or the events and setting appropriate to the time. Where we have documented facts about, say, Grania ui Maille's life, the author can record these or choose to skip any particular event. That's the second thing we do: we look at all we know about a person, place, event, or circumstance, and we choose which to represent in a fictional way. That is one thing I think was wrong with this book. So much of Grania's life was repetitive that it seemed to me some of the instances could have been left out. As a pirate and warrior, Grania would attack a merchant ship or make a raid on a town, get caught, suffer imprisonment or lose a loved one instead, then be released, go back home to reflect on what happened, and inevitably go back to what got her in trouble in the first place. In order to justify this the author explained each incident in the same way, that Grania felt responsible for her people, that she loved being free and wild, etc.

This aspect, the repetitive explanation, leads to the third thing historical novelists do, and that is where speculation comes in. I truly believe that this is both why people read historical novels instead of biographies and is also the hardest part of the craft. It is our job to look at the person and the facts and illustrate what we guess is the motivation for what happens. Why did Grania keep risking disaster? In other works, why did Llewellyn the Great forgive his wife Joanna’s infidelity? Why did Raymond of Toulouse desert during the Battle of Merzifon? Why did Elizabeth I stay unmarried? So often history offers us hints, but rarely does it give us definitive answers. Even when a historical figure writes down why s/he did what s/he did, can we trust that person to be honest with him/herself? In this novel the author has a big task. The historical "Grace O'Malley" is a tangle of contradictions. She appears in the historical record to switch loyalties and to betray her own people, coming back to them and fighting for them, only to switch again. One might speculate whether the woman was no more than an opportunist, or, like Llywelyn does in the novel, find other motivations, individual motivations, to ascribe this peripatetic life. That's where the book shines. You do see the speculative character based on a real person grow and you understand better her particular choices.

Those who rail at a historical novelist for an interpretation of events usually miss the point. The point is we don not know for certain. I have long believed that fiction writing is a sort of more humane form of the science of psychology. We write, and others read, a novel to examine the facts, add what we know of the human heart and mind, and we explain, suggest, and illustrate motivations and feelings. It is creative writing, but more than that it is speculative writing. It is storytelling that suggests "Perhaps?"

Lost in Translation

In my review of Finn MacCool, one of Morgan Llywelyn's reamrkable novels interpreting Irish legends, I mentioned a question that came to me while reading the novel. How much deeper meaning or emotional content is lost when a word in another language is written in English? This is hardly an original question on my part. The very existence of the expression lost in translation demonstrates that. But I just had occasion to wonder about it when a skillful author fails to quite evoke a character's feelings with the use of a single word.

There is a scene where the Irish legendary hero Finn MacCool is faced with the son of the High King he served, now High King himself. The young man demands an apology for some perceived wrong, something his father never asked of Finn. Our hero, realizing that the principle was less important than keeping the tolerance if not acceptance of the High King says the words, "I apologize." Llywelyn describes how hard it is for Finn to say it, how his tongue "did not know how to shape the words", but something was missing. I had the feeling that something in the word in its early Irish Gaelic form must have conveyed more than the readily thrown out modern English word. There must have been a touch of shame, of admitting to something virtually unforgivable or dishonorable. The character of Finn in the novel is a roiling mass of poignant feelings and qualities. No way the simple word "apologize" can mean to him what it means when I say it to someone whose email I failed to respond to promptly.

I am looking for an Irish Gaelic historian to answer my question, but the answer is no doubt evident. Perhaps it is the culture, perhaps the linguistics, but clearly the apology lost a great deal in translation. No fault to Llywelyn. Some things just can't be expressed.