random thoughts on Elizabethan historical fiction
So one of the things my mother got me for Christmas is a book called Legacy by Susan Kay. She picked it up at a thrift store, and she bought it because my mother will buy me pretty much any book she finds in a thrift store if it has fairies or Queen Elizabeth on the cover. (There is a reason I own seven editions of A Midsummer Night's Dream--though, to be fair, she only played a very small part in my acquiring eight copies of Twelfth Night. That was pretty much all me.)
Anyway. I'm in the odd position of really enjoying historical fiction, when done well, but not having read much of it, because reading historical fiction when I don't have a good handle on the actual historical period makes me feel slightly guilty...and I never feel like I have a good handle on any historical period. (For some reason, children's books about boy actors have been the main exception to this rule. I blame Susan Cooper in addition to my obsession with boy actors. Yay Nat Field!)
And a friend in my program, during our grad school complaint-fests, has taken to saying that she thinks I'll wind up getting my degree but then abandoning academia to write historical fiction and then only come back to the university on whirlwind book tours. I find this both hilarious and slightly unsettling: firstly because it's one thing for me to say that I'm going to run away screaming from academia, but another thing entirely for someone else to say it (because the little voice in my head cries out, "What--you don't think I can do it, either?"); but secondly because back before grad school, which seems to have killed off any creative writing abilities I may once have had, I very much wanted to write historical fiction (in between the fantasy novels I was also going to write). But it's not something I ever talk about with my classmates, since I'm vaguely embarrassed by the whole thing. So it's odd for her to say that.
But this whole thing got started because of Legacy... which I feel a duty to read just because it's not a mystery (why are Elizabethan mysteries so popular?). I was flipping through the book earlier and I noticed that no attempt was made to imitate Elizabethan speech, which I'm sure saves on hassle or awkwardness (and the few times I've attempted Elizabethan dialogue have been wretched), but I feel a certain something is lost when no attempt is made. And when it works (as in Stephanie Cowell's Nicholas Cooke), it's fantastic. But I wonder if that has a tendency to put readers off, either because it's perceived as difficult, or because it can be laughable?
Not that it matters overmuch, I suppose, since I seem to have forgotten how to write anyway. But I do wish I knew of more Elizabethan historical novels that aren't mysteries. Or by Philippa Gregory.
Anyway. I'm in the odd position of really enjoying historical fiction, when done well, but not having read much of it, because reading historical fiction when I don't have a good handle on the actual historical period makes me feel slightly guilty...and I never feel like I have a good handle on any historical period. (For some reason, children's books about boy actors have been the main exception to this rule. I blame Susan Cooper in addition to my obsession with boy actors. Yay Nat Field!)
And a friend in my program, during our grad school complaint-fests, has taken to saying that she thinks I'll wind up getting my degree but then abandoning academia to write historical fiction and then only come back to the university on whirlwind book tours. I find this both hilarious and slightly unsettling: firstly because it's one thing for me to say that I'm going to run away screaming from academia, but another thing entirely for someone else to say it (because the little voice in my head cries out, "What--you don't think I can do it, either?"); but secondly because back before grad school, which seems to have killed off any creative writing abilities I may once have had, I very much wanted to write historical fiction (in between the fantasy novels I was also going to write). But it's not something I ever talk about with my classmates, since I'm vaguely embarrassed by the whole thing. So it's odd for her to say that.
But this whole thing got started because of Legacy... which I feel a duty to read just because it's not a mystery (why are Elizabethan mysteries so popular?). I was flipping through the book earlier and I noticed that no attempt was made to imitate Elizabethan speech, which I'm sure saves on hassle or awkwardness (and the few times I've attempted Elizabethan dialogue have been wretched), but I feel a certain something is lost when no attempt is made. And when it works (as in Stephanie Cowell's Nicholas Cooke), it's fantastic. But I wonder if that has a tendency to put readers off, either because it's perceived as difficult, or because it can be laughable?
Not that it matters overmuch, I suppose, since I seem to have forgotten how to write anyway. But I do wish I knew of more Elizabethan historical novels that aren't mysteries. Or by Philippa Gregory.