Fiction, History, and Time

[sartorias]

A couple of recent conversations (including a letter conversation with Mrissa about history and social customs)plus some interesting links made me think about exploring the connection between history and fiction beginning with time.

Comments

[whswhs]

You know, I just ran into that bit about timekeeping in the past. I'm getting ready to run a campaign set in 1300 at an English university in Shropshire with a Faculty of Magic. One of my players lent me his copies of the first few Brother Cadfael novels. And overall I found them quite enjoyable reading. But about once per novel, I was caught by a sense of anachronism . . . and it was always about time: a time being given as "two o'clock" rather than "nones," an interval being described as a few minutes. Most of the time I felt that I was seeing through the eyes of the characters, but those time phrases plunged me back into the twentieth century.

[sartorias]

Exactly. How do the characters appoint meeting places for time? Do they glance at the angle of the sun, or sense that it's time for a specific bell? If the time is given in minutes and seconds, some readers will find it convenient, but others are poked out of the story.

[marycatelli]

I got pitched out of two of them, hard, by doctrinal errors.

[sartorias]

I didn't catch those, but other modern slips bothered me.

[bunn]

One problem I find I am running into, trying to write Rosemary Sutcliff fanfic (specifically, second century Roman Britain at the mo) is that quite often readers have an idea of how that culture worked that isn't backed up by the historical evidence. They will say things like 'oh, but they didn't have... I dunno, semaphore, or sponges, or stirrups - or, wolves just don't behave like that (referencing modern North American wolves, not second century British ones

[sartorias]

I think that this, too, is where the art comes in. I think it's great to bolster a given time and place with a ton of research (especially if it's fun!) but if there is a question, opt for Sutcliff's [alternate] history. That way the Sutcliff fans are going to enjoy the story more, and not feel jolted out.

There is an entire subgenre, called Regency romance, that is largely built on Georgette Heyer's own alternate London. It doesn't take much digging to discover where she chose to paper over awkwardnesses, or interpreted words, events, and custom through her own particular lens, but her world is so detailed that readers want that world, and not necessarily a faithful evocation of the time as it probabl was.

Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen and the Regency

[jordan179]

There is an entire subgenre, called Regency romance, that is largely built on Georgette Heyer's own alternate London.

Which is in turn largely built on Jane Austen's impression of Regency England. Here we have a different problem: Austen, who wrote fiction set in her own time, understood perfectly well how things worked and people thought, but

(1) did not always explain it in a way which someone from two centuries later -- why should she? She was a contemporary writer writing for a contemporary audience; and

(2) wrote from a particular point of view: that of a highly intelligent, in some ways idealistic and in some ways cynical unmarried gentlewoman, which is of course who she was; and

(3) advocated specific ideas, which were sometimes the ideals of her own particular class and generation, and sometimes her own personal obsessions, whether we tend to agree with them or not.

For instance, how many modern readers of Pride and Prejudice understand that the entail of an estate could only be set aside by the agreement of the

Re: Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen and the Regency

[sartorias]

Though not disagreeing with most of your facts, I disagree that Heyer is based on Jane Austen's view of the Regency, especially as Austen makes it clear in her books that she thinks very little of London life, or the haut monde. Heyer's books seem to be to derive directly from the silvery fork novels of the 1830s and on, romances set in high life, wherein the haute monde and their attitudes and goals are held up in a heroic light.

[mythusmage]

What makes for a profound difference between Tolkein and other fantasists is John's knowledge of and love for history. To paraphrase another author, there's a there there.

In contrast, for all he tries to include history, Stephen R. Donaldson fails because he has no knowledge of or appreciation of history.

History is not merely a dry accounting of events, it is a story of people. A story of their loves and hates, a tale of their motivations and their animosity. History is a narrative of events and motivations, of dreams and aspirations, of failures and success. When you can pull all that off than your world has a history.

[sartorias]

In another post I want to talk about that--how sometimes readers can't perceive layers or levels of history. Like many young readers today who see a staid, slightly stale tale if they read Lord of the Rings. Impossible for them to perceive is that profound end-of-an-era sense that those who lived through World War One felt, or that readers who studied it could catch echoes of.

[mythusmage]

Whenever stories are told, as Jordan pointed out in his comments on Jane Austen and her world, what the audience gets from the tale depends a great deal on what they bring to it. A modern audience can not know, and so can not understand in fullness what older people of the Cold War generation know and understand.

That said, keep im mind that I speak not just of Tolkein's comtemporary world, but too of the world of his creation, and of how he incorporates history into that sub-creation. That is part of the professor's genius and makes his story a work of literature.

[sartorias]

This is true.