History or historical fiction?

[stacer]

Interesting article, especially in the case she makes that we shouldn't fictionalize history--that truth is much more interesting:

http://www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-01/author/

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I always find it interesting how we're trapped in a dichotimous point of view. It's either history OR historical fiction. You can't have both. Either one is good and the other's bad, or vice versa. Yes, there are a lot of really good stories that can be told factually from history. But it's also a lot of fun to make some up.

[Skar]

This is why so many people find it dodgy to sprinkle historical fact with fiction.  From the views expressed by this author in this essay

"Hence my surprise at finding that in the Lunenburg case, white men in several instances ran enormous risks to uphold the rule of law."

"Does it seem plausible that an illiterate, twenty-three-year-old washer and ironer could stand up in a packed courtroom and conduct herself like a seasoned trial attorney? Nope, but it happened in Lunenburg, as did many other transcendent events. What a waste, should they be dismissed as fiction."

It's pretty obvious that had she not decided to be rigorous with the facts we would have had yet another "Whitey keepin' the poh ignernt black man down, shouldn't we all be ashamed of our skin color now" book. Instead she seems to have produced a piece of work that might actually give insight to the time period.


There's nothing wrong with historical fiction as long as it is billed as such.  Often it is not.  Even in straight history books it is seen as acceptable to include made up details for flavor.  Well, as we well know, the devil is in the details.  If the goal of history is to present information about the past for analysis and knowledge then maintaining a solid distance from fiction, even in the details, should be the overriding goal.  Of course, as someone would be quick to point out, all history is biased.  The effect of that bias should be lessened as much as possible and avoiding fiction at all costs is one good technique.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

ah, but that doesn't say anyhting about the false dichotomy. I agree with you that this is good history practice. No disagreements there. What's wrong is her view that good history practice precludes someone writing a historical fiction.

[Skar]

There's nothing wrong with historical fiction as long as it is billed as such.  

I agree with you in the sense I quoted. However, I think there needs to be a dichotomy of a sort (not the sort you're talking about apparently) when it comes to History and Historical fiction.  The two must remain clearly separated.  I think that is the essence of the argument.  When the line between the two is blurry, as it often is today, that is a bad thing.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

"I wish I had asked them what lay beneath the question. Did the students approve of inventions, provided they were essentially authentic to the time and place? Or perhaps the students thought the opposite, that we should abandon the very concept of authenticity. History, fiction, it's all a construction anyway, so fictionalize all you want. As my teenagers would say, what-ev-er.:"

Her implication is that fiction is a bad thing. Nuff said. THat's where my issue is. With the author's implications. She seems to say that there's no power in fiction. That only the factual history has any worth. That's very problematic in my view.

[Lieutenant Kije]

Saint, from what I get in the essay she was attempting to write a non-fiction piece in the style of a detective novel, and asked her students whether they cared if she included fictional but nonessential (flavor) details.  Her students said they didn't care.

Her point is that if she peppered her account with fictional details, however trivial, it might jeopardize her credibility when it came to seemingly unbelievable yet factual details.

She wanted to write nonfiction, and didn't want to risk credibility.  In my opinion she never says that historical fiction, if it's claiming to be fiction, is bad.

Her statement: "One last time, why not fictionalize? In time I was able to articulate an answer. A fiction-like form gives this story its entertainment value. But it is the truth that gives it power" means to me that she didn't want to jeoperdize the truth by adding flavor details for entertainment value.  Perhaps her criticism is directed towards those who might write historical fiction and seek to protray it as non-fiction either directly or indirectly (not unlike how The DaVinci Code indirectly protrays some things as nonfiction.)

[stacer]

I think one of the biggest problems is that today many children's books are being billed as history, when they are in fact historical fiction. The Dear America series and all its ilk are the case in point. These books are written by authors, but they're presented to kids as actual journals written by someone of the time period. The author's credit only appears on the copyright page, if then--sometimes on the title page--but never on the cover.

So if you really want to know if that person (the protagonist) actually existed, you have to go through a lot of work to figure it out. Most kids reading them just assume that they're what they purport to be, however.

It's that kind of blurring of the lines that I don't agree with. Yes, it helps get kids interested in history, but there are so many interesting things that actually happened, why do they need to package historical fiction as fact?

So I agree--historical fiction is great, when billed as such. But too often publishers (Scholastic is the worst at this, apparently) are trying to push fiction as fact and it gets confusing.

[Skar]

One last time, why not fictionalize? In time I was able to articulate an answer. A fiction-like form gives this story its entertainment value. But it is the truth that gives it power.

Perhaps what SE is getting at is that fiction has power.  At least as much as history.  For that matter truth is often expressed far more clearly in fiction than in history.

I see the author saying it's bad to "fictionalize" not that it's bad to write fiction.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

also, i REALLY like to argue.