Historical Fiction Nutters
A while ago David Baddiel wrote a very funny column in The Times on the subject of Historical Fiction Nutters. (Click on the link below to read it). In it, he talks about readers who seem to approach historical fiction with the sole intention of finding historical inaccuracies. Well, apparently some of these people become reviewers, and I had my first brush up against it this week.
I’m quite prepared to believe that my book does contain minor historical anomalies, but the examples she cites are not among them. It was not, as the reviewer so confidently asserts, “impossible … in 1944 in England to drink wine and coffee.” Wine was available to those who could afford it (as the Americans most manifestly could) and coffee was sold at Lyons teahouses.
Ironically, she gives away her own lack of expertise in the subject by praising my research into the historical background of Bomber Command. Bomber Command was the RAF command dedicated to the bombing strategy, and doesn’t actually feature in the novel because the hero is American and flew with U.S. 8th Army Air Force.
I find this all very frustrating and a little puzzling. Overall, she liked the book - she said it was “good story well told,” so why does she feel the need to nit pick in this way, especially when her criticisms aren’t even valid?
Oh well, if I’m going to write historical fiction I suppose I’d better get used to it.
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February 28th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Oh, I know - I’m getting used to this public blog lark, too. The whole debate about when to be open and honest and when to be tactful makes my brain hurt.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Thanks for the link to the Times article - I’m in two minds about to (I can see that Baddiel makes some good point, but on others I think he’s stepping onto the slippery slope of patchy research), but I love your remarks about the review you received. I wondered what you’d make of it when I saw it, and I absolutely agree - there’s nothing more irritating than someone thinking they’ve called you on an error that isn’t actually there.
I get this a lot with slang - a Victorian transplanted to our modern England would actually understand virtually every slang term we use (apart from Americanisms or internet terms like ‘FYI’, of course), but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to tell people that the expressions they’ve flagged as ‘modern’ are anything but. As I said to David Isaak recently, I swear some people think we went straight from forsooth to what-everrrr…
Anyway, excellent post.
F
February 28th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Hi Faye,
Thanks so much for your post - I was wondering if I should have written it really, but I needed to express my frustration somewhere! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I absolutely agree with you that there’s no excuse for sloppy research. Of course, occasionally we’re going to make mistakes (writers are just human after all) but nit picking for the sake of it drives me mad.
It’s interesting what you say about Victorian slang - I’d never really thought about it before, but I’ve read and studied a lot of Victorian fiction and linguistically it is very accessible, so I understand how irritated you must get.
Still, like I said, I guess we’d better get used to it
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Just thought I’d mention that I just wrote a blog entry on this subject myself - it’s primarily about my views on the Times article, but I have linked to you as well.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=144423417&blogID=236470703&MyToken=40cd9e2e-877c-486a-864b-80df45a83aa0
March 4th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Wow, Faye - your response to the article was way more considered and articulate than mine. I guess for me it just struck a bit of a chord…
And thanks for the link.
Sam
March 5th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Nah, I’m just obsessive.
Besides, you do have a point as regards the review of Another Time and Place (my copy arrived in the post today, by the way, so I’ll be starting on it this afternoon after my writing session!) - in your case, the so-called ‘anachronisms’ were no such thing, and it’s quite understandable that it annoyed you! As I said before, I’m always irked whenever someone smiles smugly and tells me that Victorian people wouldn’t have said something when the word or expression in question is easily that old, perhaps older.
F
March 14th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I finished Another Time and Place! I really enjoyed it, and it kept my interest, which is always difficult for a book to do when I’ve got half my head in one of my own. Extremely well done!
Oh, and I now have an account on Blogger, so you can now comment on my blog entries. It’s http://fayelbooth.blogspot.com
Faye
March 14th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Interesting post, Samantha. My novels are set in the forties and they give me endless anguish about whether people will spot things they think are wrong but aren’t, or much worse, things that really ARE wrong!
March 15th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Hi Eliza - I think it’s just the lot of the historical novelist to worry about this…
Thanks Faye - I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m impressed you can read fiction at all when you’re writing one of your own. At the moment, if it isn’t set in World War II, I simply can’t get into it at all, so I’ve given up trying.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I’ve had to adjust to it really, because I’ve been in a permanent state of working-on-a-book for over two years now. I’d never read anything that wasn’t for research at that rate! I was a bit that way when I first started Cover the Mirrors, though - I think a lot of it was fear of unconscious internalisation.