Forever_Amber 
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RE:Historical Fiction
(Date Posted:02/20/2009 12:15 PM)
| From: judymar |
Sent: 2/23/2004 10:42 AM |
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From one Judy to another, though our education is not on the same level, I am happy to see we enjoy some of the same reading. I also loved Anya Seton's Katherine. |
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Katheryn: My take? Nobody's gonna start out reading deadly dull
scholastic stuff. Nobody. Certainly, kids aren't.
Lilith: While I would say I generally agree with you. However, I was the odd kid who wanted nothing to do with fiction (except mythology). If it wasn't true history (or science) I had NO interest. By the time I was 12 years old, I probably knew as much about ancient civilizations as a graduate student! It was not until my Soph. year that I fell in love with the Medieval era (through a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine) and ended up a Medievalist. It was several years after graduation that I discovered Jean Plaidy and the like and found the speculative "fleshed out" history of these books, enchanting.
I will say, for my own tastes, those which are "loosely" based on history or diverge from what facts ARE known, I do not like. Many of the Tudor based ones are like this and I find them appalling. We had a discussion here on one about Mary Boleyn that was atrocious (quite some time ago). |
| About education...a very long time ago, I became thoroughly exasperated with the brittle, showoffy one-upmanship of some, rather immature, graduate school students [and not a few professors!]. What they may have gone on to do to the cause of history and to education, by their impatience and sheer rudeness, really is an affront to decency. I always thought that a desire to learn something, coupled with a genuine effort to do so, is laudatory and should be so treated. Just because someone begins in historical fiction or films does not make her/him a yob. I devoutly wish that some of the academic snips I have had the misfortune to meet might have the experience of dealing with the truly voluntarily ignorant, and they might show more respect and gentleness to those who try to learn. There is nothing wrong with tactfully suggesting that one might try a different kind of reading material, nor with thrust-and-parry between those who have the academic equipment to enjoy the game. But to put people down simply because they have not been academically privileged enough to know about the levels of historical information is rather like shooting a hamster from a tank turret: cruel and pointless. |
| From: judymar |
Sent: 2/23/2004 5:07 PM |
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I do agree with the above statement, where else but in history can someone with only a high school education, like myself enjoy the same reading material as college grads... |
i have to say though that i really did start out reading the dull stuff! but i'm a nerd... heheheheheheh.
autumn
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and its such a testament to your knowledge and love of the game that i would never have guessed you didn't have a college education!
autumn |
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greensleeves,
thats so true (in response to your earlier post!) if people get interested enough by fiction, they'll do the research. the distinction i'm making in saying plaidy isn't very good is not because of her stories so much as because of her writing. but who cares, right?! its fun reading. just as there are so many brilliant writers who write the WORST books! i think my argument is just that while plaidy might not be a writer to study, she is a wonderful jumping off point and its great her novels were so popular!
autumn |
amen and amen! thats why i've loved this board so much! so many people with a geniune interest in history and yet working in other, completely different sectors! the coolest thing to me is someone who has no financial incentive to study history (not having an academic job, for instance) and yet who spends so much time doing it just for the sheer joy. this is actually one of the reasons i myself am leaving academia! i think its time to take my love and knowledge of history elsewhere! in fact, i am thinking of writing some fiction myself. one of the benefits of fiction i have found was not the wealth of historical fact (that can be suspect) but the little details of life in a particular place at a particular time. aside from social historians, where else do we get such a great feel for this if not in the fictional stories surrrounding a true event?
autumn |
Do you teach history in academia? I teach computer
science. I personally would have a hard time leaving
higher ed if for no other reason than the termination
of my interlibrary loan privileges!
Judy
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heheh! i knew someone would not like the stephen king comment! but i must defend my plaidy comment now! a lot of people are saying that at least she puts a fun face on history and i totally agree. i was merely stating that she's a terrible writer. but there are terrible writers out there that we can't stop stuffing our brains with and thats because we decide we like the subject more than we hate the writing! at least thats how i feel. jean plaidy is the kind of reading i do when i'm sick in bed for a few days or stuck on the pot.
autumn
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Oh, certainly - I don't think there's anything wrong with Jean Plaidy. But I think the frontrunning ambassador for Tudor interests these days is David Starkey: his historiography is always questionable, but he sure does it with a lot of dramatic pizzazz.
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| <HTML>What do you think of Simon Schama [s?] compared to Starkey? |
oh, tell me about it! but i guess i'm lucky since i'm still a student besides being a teacher! my privilages won't end! i'm thinking of getting my master's in library science. then my privilages will NEVER end!
autumn
ps. i know nothing of computers so i'm taking a computer science class next quarter! its a beginning programing class... oh boy.
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Mmmmmm...., you mean, like, skinny-dipping in moats?
Judy
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I actually haven't read any Simon Schama, although I've been meaning to - the books are too expensive at the store and too dauntingly heavy to carry home from the library! I'll take a look at some point, though.
I actually attended a conference at the NMM in Greenwich this past fall as a delegate from my university, and Starkey was the keynote speaker and guest curator; he didn't do that great a job. I think aesthetics is his strong point - he generates interest, and that's never negative. But the only book of his that I truly enjoyed and thought was based absolutely on reality was his early one on Henry VIII - the book on the six queens was more sensationalist than anyone else.
David Loades is just as pithy and interesting, but a lot more reliable. I recommend him to anyone interested in personal history in early modern England.
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| I second the Loades reference as accurate and thorough. [His book on Mary I is a benchmark - and costs more than I have available any time it makes its appearance.] Schama is good for a thorough grounding at a slightly higher than basic level of interest, a bit quirky [which I like], whereas Starkey has rather an inflated status at the moment. Or so say I...happy to entertain other views. |
| From: judymar |
Sent: 3/2/2004 6:48 PM |
To anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction, I have just discovered Tracy Chevalier, she wrote "The Pearl Earring". I am reading "The Virgin Blue" by her, and it is excellent. It seems in the last few weeks the message board hasn't been what it use to be, just fun "chatting" about the Tudor's and other bits of history or even historical fiction. Is it possible the messages have become too scholastic, and not just fun like some weeks back?? Just a thought  ......Judy |
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I agree that its become scholastic but I think that the fun discussions are still here too. Thats just my opinion. I like both so I'm still having a good time! I hope you can find what you like here, though.
Thanks for the book suggestion! I love historical fiction as much as I despise it!!! I will undoubtedly pick up the books you mentioned!!!
autumn |
<HTML>Hi, Judy -
I hope scholars can have fun, too! I teach Tudor history [Anne Boleyn this term] and I positively encourage my students to read what they like in the fiction about the period. It's one way I can gently indicate the material which flagrantly departs from history, tell them why and how it does so, and nudge them in the direction of the primary sources and thence to the 'scholarship'. When you think about it, Chapuys was the most gossippy thing that side of the National Enquirer, and to be read with the same skepticism - AND he, like the other ambassadors, is just pure fun! Then again, there are scholars and scholars - some, like Ives on Anne Boleyn, are a joy; others are dry, pedantic, and far more interested in scoring academic brownie points than in love of their subject. I think the spirit of fun, a real zest for learning, was far more at home in the Tudor period, and that modern academic squabbles miss that spaciousness of real discovery. I do think some of the fiction is better than others; e.g. _The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn_ sticks fairly closely to the traditions about Anne , but Maxwell does it in a dreadfully stilted pseudo16th-century prose. Margaret George's_ Autobiography of Henry VIII_ provides a much-needed sympathetic 'take' on him, but she goes too far about both Anne B. [negatively] and Jane Seymour [positively]. C.C. HUmphries' _The French Executioner_, quite literally picking up where Anne ends,I found tedious, too much like a fantasy flick, but it does pull in some of the legends about Anne.
So read away, ask questions, and I wish I had you in my class!
Best - mme marquess |
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but isn't it only right that "the autobiography" should hate anne and adore jane? i mean, it is supposed to be henry's account. |
I actually think that the best fictional portrait of Anne - and it's only a snapshot - is found in the introduction to _Legacy_ by Susan Kay, which is a patchy work at best, but at least gives Anne some backbone.
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Forever_Amber
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Rank:Diamond Member
Score:572
Posts:572
From: USA
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RE:Historical Fiction
(Date Posted:02/20/2009 12:17 PM)
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you never know. maybe will somers was like the rest of his contemporaries and thought anne to be obnoxious and therefore had no reason to take her part. this would be my assumption, anyway. |
<HTML>My problem with the _Autobiography_ lay in the fact that I thought Anne Boleyn was almost made a caricature. I do think that Henry thought she was a witch, however, and since the book is supposed to reflect his mind, he would doubtless have edited his memories in the direction of extant stereotypes of witchcraft. Also, Margaret George has Lady Boleyn the stepmother of Anne, George and Mary - for which I know of no historical evidence. But it is an engaging read about Henry, which is what it is intended to be. Just as much fun, however [although it too makes mistakes] is Alison Weir's _The King and his Court_.
BTW - has anyone read her latest, about MQOS and the Darnley murder? |
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LOL I just asked the same question re the new Weir in another thread. I have read the Lady Boleyn thing both ways; in some books it is Elizabeth Howard, in others it is said Thomas Boleyn was a widower who remarried a country girl from Blickling who did not come to court. At any rate, I think it's interesting that Anne's mother, whichever she may be, plays absolutely NO role in the entire affair from start to finish. I have never seen anything stating Lady Boleyn came to court or was involved in any way with the scheming Norfolk branch of the family. I find that rather odd, considering the social scrambling the Howards & Boleyns made their life's work, & considering that Thomas Boleyn came of somewhat humbler stock than his Norfolk-connected wife. You would have thought a wife at court in the queen's service would have been an asset to him. |
<HTML>Lady Elizabeth Boleyn was a member of Queen Katherine of Aragon's household, and her proxy at the christening of Lady Frances Brandon in 1517 [the daughter of Henry's sister Mary, erstwhile Queen of France, and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and ultimately the mother of Lady Jane Grey]. As to her having been Thomas' second wife and therefore stepmother to Anne, George, and Mary, I had never encountered such an idea before reading MArgaret George's fictional _Autobiography_ of Henry VIII. Certainly I have never encountered it in any scholarly reference work about the Boleyns. Do you have any idea where George got it? Is there an 'alternate' tradition, or did she just make it up out of whole cloth, and, if so, to what purpose? I can't see that it serves any plot function in her story!
mme marquess |
<HTML>Has anybody yet read Robin Maxwell's latest about Elizabeth and Grace O'Malley? I saw it on the fly in a shop; it is called, I believe, _Gloriana and the Pirate Queen_. Not being a great fan of Maxwell's, I shall wait until it is remaindered unless one of you tells me it is well worth reading - so I'd be interested in your reactions.
mme marquess |
Mme,
I found her _Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn_ literally unreadable, so the only thing she contributes to my life is the hope that if major publishers promulgate her drivel, my fiction has a chance!
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Autumn
I am new here so am a little late in reading messages.
I should imagine in the History of any era, which we have read and has been acknowledged as "true", there has been always the possibility of a little - or more than a little, fiction, having crept into the "facts" as time went along.
Also, considering that there was such a tremendous amount of intrigue - especially in Courts of various Kings and Queens, what came to light eventually, might not always be a true account of that which really happened.
I suppose we can only believe what we ourselves, as individuals, take away from reading History. There is also of course, the problem of the many movies regarding the famous in History and they have (unfortunately) gone a long way to give the casual viewer, an incorrect view of the truth or at least the truth as far as it has been laid down for us through the ages.
Maybe the "wondering if indeed" though, is really what makes us all love History so very much.
I find it interesting that you are writing a book. I am also deep in such a work. While mine also has time-lines and events well documented, mine also is completely fiction. However the longer I become involved in the lives of my characters, the more I (sometimes) believe it to be true! |
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welcome to the site! i must say, i'm having a hard time seeing which post you're replying too! sorry! i don't think anyone would say that court accounts are necessarily accurate or that history cannot get distorted.... this disucssion was born of someone's comment that some people seem more likely to lift their theories from historical fiction!
Yes, it seems we're all writing a book of some kind! I am a freelance writer and I mostly write articles and such for human rights magazines, publications... but I figured I would do fiction next since I don't really EVER do fiction! The closest I get to fiction is in literary theory journals (i'm a big time nerd!)
I hope that first paragraph helps. Again, I am not sure what exactly you were responding to but I thought it would be rude not to respond myself!!
autumn |
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Hello Autumn
I was basically replying to this part of your post...
"I know that there is some tension on this site because of some people's tendancies to take historical fiction very seriously "
I had no wish to join in any "tension" but decided to add my own thoughts on that which you had written.
Lizzie |
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oh no! i wasn't implying that you wanted to create tension at all. i was just curious as to your reply. the statement of mine that you replied to came from someone else's statement...(thats hard to explain!!) i think that historical fiction and the "untruths" that can be found in some true histories are a bit different. one is intentional, a form of entertainment. i suppose the other can be intentional too, sometimes but its purpose is not entertainment. i think most of us here were talking about novels, plays and fiction related to entertainment. |
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Forever_Amber
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Rank:Diamond Member
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From: USA
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RE:Historical Fiction
(Date Posted:02/20/2009 12:18 PM)
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Don't worry, I didn't think you thought that at all. Coming in a little late, I just added a thought or two of my own.
I must agree with you regarding intentional additions/untruths etc. The Motion pic industry unfortunately hasn't done much (usually) to give the general public, a true idea of that which really happened. Or at least, that which Historians believe to be true. Certainly there are a few writers/directors etc. who do believe in presenting entertainment which is as close to the truth as possible and I always feel they should be applauded for such thinking.
However, within the industry, it often comes down to "what sells" as opposed to that which might not.
I'd be interested in your views on the BBC series' of Henry and Elizabeth if you saw them.
Lizzie |
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i'm not sure which series you mean exactly. i'm not sure if you mean a series with both names in it or two series! i have the videotapes of the one called "elizabeth" and another of the six wives. i think they're great fun but inevitably inaccurate, which doesn't bother me really since i don't expect them to be otherwise!!!
unfortunately, i have to buy all these without having seen them since we only get BBC America here. I only get to see (or hear) regular bbc when we're over there visiting dave's family... and only a few seconds here and there!
Autumn |
I think she was talking about the 1971 BBC miniseries _Elizabeth R_, which is about 98% accurate in what it actually covers; and the one that came before it, the 1969 miniseries _The Six Wives of Henry VIII_, which is accurate in fact but harsh on Henry's character. They continue to be the best work done in the film/TV world on these subjects, even if they do look like they were filmed in a trailer - the BBC budgets are certainly better than they used to be!
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I am glad to see your opinion on these two series (the
first being done with Glenda Jackson in the title role
and the second with Keith Mitchell, I believe, and the
almost uncanny resemblance of I forget the actor's
name but he really did rather resemble Cramner), as I
had always thought them among the best of the genre.
Fun was the Mary Queen of Scots with Vanessa Redgrave
as an improbable blond Mary Stuart but a delightful
Patrick McGoohan as her half-brother the Earl of
Moray.
Judy
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Yes Sarah, I was indeed speaking of Elizabeth R and The Six Wives of Henry V111.
I'm certain no expert on History but thought them well done and probably the best I'd seen on the subjects.
Keith Mitchell certainly "became" King Henry for me and I couldn't have imagined anyone better in the role.
I originally saw them on KCET in the US but of course, had to purchase both sets for myself - among many other series originally BBC productions such as Poldark, Upstairs, Downstairs, A Year in Provence etc.
Great series all.
Lizzie
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actually, i think i am talking about the same one... unless keith mitchell made a career out of being henry, which he certainly could've done! he was superb! i think that above the resemblance (which would not be too difficult for some men) was the voice. he had that amazingly imperial voice, complete with shrills and perfectly "kingly" inflection. very musical...! |
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Forever_Amber
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Rank:Diamond Member
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From: USA
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RE:Historical Fiction
(Date Posted:02/20/2009 12:20 PM)
| From: mme-marquess (Original Message) |
Sent: 2/21/2004 5:32 PM |
| <HTML>Well, maybe a taste for Jean's work is generationally related. Back in the bitter old days, especially if one lived in the back of beyond, sometimes she was all one had to feed a driving hunger for more about a world one otherwise encountered only in tantalising bits in encyclopedia entries. And her 'cardboardy' aspect gave one some tolerance for the dustier, drier writers we have to wade through in scholarship. On the other hand, it also meant that the encounter with Giustinian or Chapuys, and others of the juicier primary sources, became an unexpected delight! |
| From: judymar |
Sent: 2/21/2004 8:45 PM |
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I always thought of history as a fun subject, thats probably why I have always enjoyed historical fiction. I thought of the message boards on this group as a fun way of sharing different opinions about history, especially the Tudors. |
what a breath of fresh air you are, judy! i wholehartedly agree! i think there is always a danger of intellectual snobbery in a subject like history and i've always loved that so far this board has managed to avoid it! not to disrespect those of us who have worked hard to attain our educations but certainly there is much more to life!
autumn
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i think thats such a good point! while most of us would not nominate her for the booker or nobel prize for literature, jean plaidy makes history a bit more fun and that has value, certainly.
autumn
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Just kidding!) and I am using political and social events as a backdrop... all else is complete conjecture. 
SarahChalk
