It's a current fact that I love historical fiction. No, not the kind that wrongly says President Obama was born outside the U.S., but the kind in novels such as Stephen King's new 11/22/63.
Why is historical fiction great? For one thing, it enables you to learn about the past in a way that goes down easily and entertainingly.
I realize it's better to read historical fiction and nonfiction history books. After all, historical fiction can idealize, overdramatize, and "error-ize" the past. But this fun and absorbing book genre is better than reading no history at all -- especially when the novelist does plenty of research.
Books of total fiction are wonderful, but there's something about partly factual novels that excite readers. Knowing that the made-up characters you're bonding with are experiencing real events, living through real times of societal progress or regress, and meeting real celebrities of their era can help make a novel fascinating.
Want to know more about U.S. history? There's the aforementioned 11/22/63, which takes its title from the day of JFK's assassination. Or try E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime and Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex -- two books that happen to share a real-life character by the name of Henry Ford. Or William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner and David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident -- a pair of novels that address America's brutal system of slavery. Or Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, which includes Mexican as well as U.S. history; Gore Vidal's Burr, Lincoln, and 1876; and many other titles by many other authors.
Almost everything I know about pre-1800 Scottish history I learned from Sir Walter Scott's excellent novels, including Rob Roy and Old Mortality. I picked up some French history by reading Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (the French Revolution), Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers and its sequels (in which Louis XIV appears), Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock (French immigrants in 17th-century Quebec), and Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (perhaps you've heard of her).
Care for some baseball books that mix fact and fiction? Try E.R. Greenberg's The Celebrant (about an imagined jeweler who befriends famous pitcher Christy Mathewson) and Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back (about a time traveler from the 20th century who hooks up with baseball's 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings as well as Mark Twain -- before he wrote that Joan of Arc novel).
The 1800s are also the time of Alias Grace, in which Margaret Atwood brilliantly reconstructs a Canadian double-murder case and makes an engrossing character out of Grace Marks -- who may or may not have participated in the killings.
Whether the real-life people in novels are obscure (Ms. Marks) or famous (Mr. Twain), historical fiction can humanize them -- moving them from cardboard cutouts to flesh-and-blood protagonists who seem as three-dimensional as the made-up characters with whom they interact. That, if you'll excuse the hackneyed phrase, makes history come alive.
What are some of your favorite works of historical fiction?
thanks again for commenting!
Anything by Zoe Oldenbourg - medieval France - The Cornerstone, The World is Not Enough
Rose Tremain's historical fiction - Music & Silence, Restoration, The Colour
Karen Maitland - medieval England - Company of Liars, The Owl Killers
Robert Graves - I, Claudius & Claudius the God and his wife Messalina
Theodore Dreiser - Sister Carrie
Kenneth Roberts - American Revolution - Arundel, Rabble in Arms
I could go on...Thanks for all the recommendations people ~ my tbr list just grew larger!
you seem to have an interest in history so i thought perhaps you would appreciate the correction. personally i find history books, even ones used in academia for a long time, are full of falsehoods when they are written by the side of the conqueror, oppressor, or invader, as "the true account" of what happened.
Whether or not you believe the process was legitimate, Hawaii is part of the US and the President is a US citizne and the world has moved on.
you can choose to better yourself and accept the facts, you know gain a little knowledge and intelligence, or you can just live in the dark like a good american lap dog, i really dont care.
I tell my students that historical context is important. You can't introduce Huck Finn by saying once upon a time, a young boy and escaped slave took a raft ride down this big river.
I also talk about the difference between truth and fact. History may be fact when you study the Great Depression. If you read The Grapes of Wrath, you get more a feeling for the truth of the time.
Dumas IS an incredibly engaging writer. Very readable and exciting. I think a number of his novels are also classic literature, not just adventure stories.
I agree that books such as "Huckleberry Finn" and "Moby-Dick" are historical fiction in a way, even if they contain few or no characters who actually lived.
And, yes, there might be no better way to truly understand the Great Depression than to read something like "The Grapes of Wrath." (Though talking to our parents and grandparents who were alive in the 1930s is a pretty good way, too!)
If there are two classics we should be re-reading relative to our time, they should be The Grapes of Wrath and Orwell's 1984.
the glass palace by amitav gosh.
history and '' foreign '' places.
Margaret George is great if you're looking to learn about the Tudors.
I read a great book about "Eleanor of Aquitaine", by Alison Weir. This is an extremely hard period to write about as little is known about the 12th century. It's great to know that a woman of this intelligence and power existed at this time.
I agree with the Astor that historical fiction is great as long as the author sticks by the facts. I find this mostly happens in books. Television can be an historical killer, i.e. Cate Blanchant (sp?) in "Elizabeth". I cringe everytime that comes on. The story this show tells is so far wrong I can't imagine what was going throught the writers minds. The problem is that people see it and take it for truth.
Yes, it IS hard to write about the 12th century! Sir Walter Scott pulled it off with his great "Ivanhoe" book. And Daphne du Maurier's excellent "The House on the Strand" time-travel novel included a very convincing 13th century, though it wasn't really an historical fiction book.