All good picks! I'd have to think about how Hawthorne fits in. It's an interesting mix - trying to dive back into the period he's covering but also critiquing its morals.
Btw, David, was thrilled to see your selection for a Substack Reads. Richly deserved!
Great read and congrats on getting to the end of your novel. You have inspired me to get back to work on my own historically-themed novel, which I’ve been tinkering with for years.
The trickiness of the genre that your writing workshop leader referred to, for me at least, is that my novel is set so long ago, I struggle to summon the urgency here and now. Historical fiction can wait! (I tell myself in the immediate present.) But it has waited long enough, and despite all the research my novel requires, the idea—the characters—won’t leave me. They are very much alive and on my mind, persisting in their “coquettish way” (as you delightfully put it), luring me to write their story. Do not delay, they say—as time ticks away in my ear.
And so, to paraphrase a master, I will beat on… “…borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Nice to find your Substack! No tinkering, just write! Have you thought about sharing excerpts on this platform? Can be a nice way to get momentum moving especially if you feel like your energy has been taken by other things.
Yeah, there definitely is something weird about being so deep in the past. I remember once coming across a historical novel about Denisovans and Neanderthals and that struck me as being too far away, but there is something about other eras that is a curious kind of magnet.
Thank you. Thought provoking. Mark Twain blaming Sir Walter Scott for the American civil war. Is Scottish Australian Rupert Murdoch simply following in Scott’s footsteps in his creation of a global corporation the purpose of which is to manipulate hearts and minds ?
Congratulations on the work. Best of luck with the difficult Endgame of writing a book and navigating the period of emotional anti climax.
Thank you Monnina! Twain's idea was that Scott's writing was so thrilling but also so unhinged that all these Confederate gentlemen really had this vision of themselves as upholding these quaint medieval values against the forces of modernity and basically losing touch with the present world altogether. Yes - as with Murdoch - an interesting testament to how much a single person can manipulate the mindset of a whole era.
I love historical fiction, and I agree that’s what most novels (and memoirs) are in any case. I’ve never been drawn to the conceit of the “contemporary present” in novels, especially literary novels, that present the action as happening in some kind of universal now with almost nothing to ground it in a particular political/social landscape. Even when historical fiction drifts into stilted dialogue or wonkish explanations of masts on a schooner, I far prefer that to an ahistorical account of any life.
Interesting! I do have the idea that the main work for writers is to battle it out with the present - try and figure out what the present "means" - but I'm being increasingly taken with the other point of view.
Good article. I would mention George Macdonald Frasier's Flashman novels here. They are immersive and accurate and show the Victorian world as quite different from our own, as well as being funny and entertaining. Because he wrote them as entertainment, their literary merit and historical precision are overlooked.
Never heard of John Williams or a book by him about World War I, and a quick Google search does not disclose one. What book or books are you talking about?
Thanks Contarini! I've heard of Fraser but haven't read. Look forward to checking out!
I was thinking of Stoner by Williams, which is set in the World War I era. I'm not sure it's technically "historical fiction" - Williams' novels Augustus and Butcher's Crossing more closely fit the bill - but it's important in the novel that he's inhabiting the mentality of a different generation. In any case, Stoner may well be the best novel ever written.
“the internet would seem to give writers completely new (and, I think, somewhat untapped) resources: more documents and images are available than ever before”
Is this really true, though? The internet can point to things, but the thing itself is often behind an academic paywall, or housed in an archive, or destroyed (there was a great fad recently in university libraries for scanning old books and then discarding them).
I was thinking mostly of Archive.Org. Between that and Scribd I've virtually never had to pay for a primary source document. I think sites of this sort are a somewhat undertapped resource - it's possible, almost instantly, to pull up a wide variety of source material that, in the past, would have taken painstaking work (or at the very least a trip to a major research library).
A really interesting taxonomy of the genre, Sam! I only realised I had written a historical novel after finishing it, as a lot of what is called 'literary' fiction is set in the past and I thought I was writing literary fiction!
As for which camp I'm in, I find I have to ground my plot and description in as much fact as possible and I've actually just got back from a research trip to Paris (my forthcoming novel is about the Surrealists) where I chose half-arbitrary, half-researched locations to photograph and take notes on. But I have also gone a little way down the Quentin Tarantino route and changed some outcomes to more positive ones in order to put my feminist point across.
Reading your piece has helped me to place my choices in context, so thank you.
Haha! I think I know what you mean Kathy. That's a funny description. Did you realize after finishing that it was historical fiction or did some industry-person tell you?
Yeah, I've definitely become a fan of the Tarantino route. The past is so haphazard that why should it get the last say in what happened? It's good for the author to be boss!
https://www.americanheritage.com/little-big-mans-man. That sends us to a conversation with Thomas Berger that includes chills and thrills. In Little Big Man book you have the likely story of I guess what was liable to happen to a work that lives and breathes. Didnot sell until after the H-wood movie. But Vine Deloria said in Custer Died For Your Sins that LBM was the best treatment of native life in fiction! On the plus side, you can gather from the interview t the book gave Berger a lease on life, kind of like a positive Munchhausen syndrome where he almost lived as long as Jack Crabbe.
Berger I have read 4 of. And looking forwrd to 11 I kid you not more of his. Like fully ex pecting all of them to be more exciting than Don Delillos. You retailed the throughline in the Lanthimos film that is not the poli - psy that allegory I am loud about. Yup, you nailed the tune of t Bettina whaatever her name was.
A few other nominations to add to your illustrious list.
Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy.
David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
The Scarlet Letter
A Dance to the Music of Time
All good picks! I'd have to think about how Hawthorne fits in. It's an interesting mix - trying to dive back into the period he's covering but also critiquing its morals.
Btw, David, was thrilled to see your selection for a Substack Reads. Richly deserved!
Thanks Sam
Have you watched The New Look about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during WW2 and just after
I thought it was well acted with a great cast and good script
It also handles the questions of collaboration and resistance with some subtlety
I have no idea if it’s accurate historically or whether it’s relevant to the novel you’re researching but thought I’d mention it
Great read and congrats on getting to the end of your novel. You have inspired me to get back to work on my own historically-themed novel, which I’ve been tinkering with for years.
The trickiness of the genre that your writing workshop leader referred to, for me at least, is that my novel is set so long ago, I struggle to summon the urgency here and now. Historical fiction can wait! (I tell myself in the immediate present.) But it has waited long enough, and despite all the research my novel requires, the idea—the characters—won’t leave me. They are very much alive and on my mind, persisting in their “coquettish way” (as you delightfully put it), luring me to write their story. Do not delay, they say—as time ticks away in my ear.
And so, to paraphrase a master, I will beat on… “…borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Hi Petra,
Nice to find your Substack! No tinkering, just write! Have you thought about sharing excerpts on this platform? Can be a nice way to get momentum moving especially if you feel like your energy has been taken by other things.
Yeah, there definitely is something weird about being so deep in the past. I remember once coming across a historical novel about Denisovans and Neanderthals and that struck me as being too far away, but there is something about other eras that is a curious kind of magnet.
Look forward to reading more of your work.
I'm going to put that on a Post-It note and stick it on my desk - "No tinkering, just write!"
I hadn't thought about sharing any excerpts here, but maybe I will now that you mention it. Thanks, Sam!
Thank you. Thought provoking. Mark Twain blaming Sir Walter Scott for the American civil war. Is Scottish Australian Rupert Murdoch simply following in Scott’s footsteps in his creation of a global corporation the purpose of which is to manipulate hearts and minds ?
Congratulations on the work. Best of luck with the difficult Endgame of writing a book and navigating the period of emotional anti climax.
Thank you Monnina! Twain's idea was that Scott's writing was so thrilling but also so unhinged that all these Confederate gentlemen really had this vision of themselves as upholding these quaint medieval values against the forces of modernity and basically losing touch with the present world altogether. Yes - as with Murdoch - an interesting testament to how much a single person can manipulate the mindset of a whole era.
I love historical fiction, and I agree that’s what most novels (and memoirs) are in any case. I’ve never been drawn to the conceit of the “contemporary present” in novels, especially literary novels, that present the action as happening in some kind of universal now with almost nothing to ground it in a particular political/social landscape. Even when historical fiction drifts into stilted dialogue or wonkish explanations of masts on a schooner, I far prefer that to an ahistorical account of any life.
Interesting! I do have the idea that the main work for writers is to battle it out with the present - try and figure out what the present "means" - but I'm being increasingly taken with the other point of view.
Good article. I would mention George Macdonald Frasier's Flashman novels here. They are immersive and accurate and show the Victorian world as quite different from our own, as well as being funny and entertaining. Because he wrote them as entertainment, their literary merit and historical precision are overlooked.
Never heard of John Williams or a book by him about World War I, and a quick Google search does not disclose one. What book or books are you talking about?
Thanks Contarini! I've heard of Fraser but haven't read. Look forward to checking out!
I was thinking of Stoner by Williams, which is set in the World War I era. I'm not sure it's technically "historical fiction" - Williams' novels Augustus and Butcher's Crossing more closely fit the bill - but it's important in the novel that he's inhabiting the mentality of a different generation. In any case, Stoner may well be the best novel ever written.
“the internet would seem to give writers completely new (and, I think, somewhat untapped) resources: more documents and images are available than ever before”
Is this really true, though? The internet can point to things, but the thing itself is often behind an academic paywall, or housed in an archive, or destroyed (there was a great fad recently in university libraries for scanning old books and then discarding them).
I was thinking mostly of Archive.Org. Between that and Scribd I've virtually never had to pay for a primary source document. I think sites of this sort are a somewhat undertapped resource - it's possible, almost instantly, to pull up a wide variety of source material that, in the past, would have taken painstaking work (or at the very least a trip to a major research library).
A really interesting taxonomy of the genre, Sam! I only realised I had written a historical novel after finishing it, as a lot of what is called 'literary' fiction is set in the past and I thought I was writing literary fiction!
As for which camp I'm in, I find I have to ground my plot and description in as much fact as possible and I've actually just got back from a research trip to Paris (my forthcoming novel is about the Surrealists) where I chose half-arbitrary, half-researched locations to photograph and take notes on. But I have also gone a little way down the Quentin Tarantino route and changed some outcomes to more positive ones in order to put my feminist point across.
Reading your piece has helped me to place my choices in context, so thank you.
Haha! I think I know what you mean Kathy. That's a funny description. Did you realize after finishing that it was historical fiction or did some industry-person tell you?
Yeah, I've definitely become a fan of the Tarantino route. The past is so haphazard that why should it get the last say in what happened? It's good for the author to be boss!
https://www.americanheritage.com/little-big-mans-man. That sends us to a conversation with Thomas Berger that includes chills and thrills. In Little Big Man book you have the likely story of I guess what was liable to happen to a work that lives and breathes. Didnot sell until after the H-wood movie. But Vine Deloria said in Custer Died For Your Sins that LBM was the best treatment of native life in fiction! On the plus side, you can gather from the interview t the book gave Berger a lease on life, kind of like a positive Munchhausen syndrome where he almost lived as long as Jack Crabbe.
Interesting! I don't know Berger. So many great writers out there.
Berger I have read 4 of. And looking forwrd to 11 I kid you not more of his. Like fully ex pecting all of them to be more exciting than Don Delillos. You retailed the throughline in the Lanthimos film that is not the poli - psy that allegory I am loud about. Yup, you nailed the tune of t Bettina whaatever her name was.
Great article but you missed David Milch’s “Deadwood”! Now that’s how you do historical fiction!
Gore Vidal did a pretty good job with American history across multiple novels.