I recently finished Robert Graves' I,
Claudius, a book I'd heard about
for the better part of my life, but had never felt any great urge to
read, despite its near-universal accolades. This was really, for no
other reason, the subject matter. As ecumenical as I try to make my
tastes, the notion of a novel of intrigues taking place in the Roman
Empire just left me cold for years.
In fact, the whole
notion of historical fiction did.
And
yet I had no trouble reading any number of other period pieces –
Blood Meridian, Baltisar and Blimunda, The Name of the
Rose, Ragtime, The Baron in the Trees,
Borges' “The Witness,” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de
Zoet – all favorites of mine,
and all determinedly antique in their subject matter.
Similarly,
I have absolutely no trouble with films and series in period
settings, including the Roman (Fellini's version of Satyricon,
that's some mind-bending, next-level shit), although I had little
patience for any of the CGI-laden epics of antiquity Hollywood was
cranking out about a decade ago.
But what bothers me
most, I think, about most so-called “historical fiction” is the
absolute primacy given to the historical period. The author is
supposed to set their story in historical times, and has a duty to
maintain serious fidelity to those historical times. To keep faith to
the tactics employed at the Battle of Waterloo, to know what would
constitute the musical program at a debutante ball in the antebellum
American South, to know something of the character of Marcus
Aurelius, and to give him his due. Once, we relied largely upon
literature for our understanding of the past. The rise of Wikipedia
has made this approach largely obsolete, although of course it
retains its devotees.
Consequently, this
sort of constricted writing inevitably forms a “genre,” and
genres tend to develop cult followings, most of which we don't
necessarily ascribe positive associations with. We think of sci-fi
fans as those who don't bathe, and romance fans as those who only
bathe with scented candles and a high-pressure showerhead.
When I think about
the historical fiction readership, I tend to think first, of
middle-aged men reading novels about tall ships, men who would have
had flat tops 40 years ago, and retain a Mittyish sense of romance
about the life of battlefield heroics they could have had. Or I think
about the subset of neckbeards who did better in English than in
math, reading the more whimsical science fiction novels and behaving
like the physical manifestations of Mumford & Sons songs.
Not a fair
assessment, I know. And a lot of people would look at my bookshelf,
and think it reeks of Gauloise smoke, single-origin coffee, and
artisanal facial-hair conditioner.
Because I have my
own set of criteria for literary work. I tend to prioritize mood and
texture over plot, introspection over action, innovation over
tradition, formal technique and ambition over entertainment value.
It's all escapism,
in the end, isn't it? The middle-schooler reading Lord of the
Rings for the first time might imagine a world beyond the
drudgery of P.E. followed by Earth Science, in which there were
quests that mattered. A few years later, he picks up William Gibson,
and thinks about a world infinitely richer and more varied, in which
the bread and circuses of homecoming court and his parents nagging
him about whether or not he finished his college entry exam are so
paltry by comparison. He grows up, gets his 9-to-5, and reads the
naval novels of Patrick O'Brian and wishes they were living in a
world defined by codes of masculinity and virtue, or sees himself as
a hardboiled Raymond Chandler hero, and meanwhile the woman the next
cubicle over reads her Nicholas Sparks and thinks about her
dull-witted husband parked in front of the TV with his nachos. All
easy to make fun of, but all ultimately sympathetic to me in the end.
Because when I go
home, or when I'm on my lunch break, I want to turn off the steady
flow of bullshit of daily life, and immerse myself in a terraformed
space in which exotic ideas and structural complexities matter. To
find some deeper reality on paper, when everything else seems to be
banner ads, video billboards, smoggy air, and stale coffee.
