Accuracy in Historical Fiction?

[Brian G Turner]

But that doesn't mean they had the same conscious state. Language shapes reality as well as the other way round. Our ideas about ourselves -- the fact that we can talk about having "a self" -- is made available to us by language that might well not have been available to ancient peoples.

Indeed, and this is actually a really big issue and is really hard to get into. Something I remember especially from McCulloughs First Man of Rome were the latin jokes, written in English, which was very clever.

But if people think differently, I would put it down to cultural differences, though, not to one of level of development of consciousness (though I admit I may completely misunderstand the argument).

Even still, I would definitely agree that being unable to cover cultural attitudes and differences properly is going to undermine historical fiction. I suspect this is part of what the original argument was about.

And Porius sounds like a very interesting book for seeing this in action.

 

[svalbard]

I would imagine that someone living circa 1000 would most definitely think differently to the way a person living in the year 2000. Cultural differences would play a large part to this, but so also would technological advances. For example if I was a living in Anglo-Saxon England back in the day then my life would be very much be dictated by the seasons, whether they were good or bad. I would have no understanding of the Gulf Stream, weather systems etc. but would very possibly look to the Celestial Heavens as a reason for the changing weather patterns, or if I lived even earlier I might even have offered up a sacrifice(possibly human depending on culture) to the gods to avert inclement weather. In the year 2000 I know differently and would think to look back on my ancestor as quite superstitous. But I do not. This is because I have more data to work with, which means I am not more intelligent than my ancestor just better informed.

Yet, I do think differently and look at the world with different eyes because of the technology that has made our world smaller and more transparant. It was not so for the person living back in 1000.

 

[Montero]

Yes on looking for as much accuracy as possible - and preferably in the details too. Having done re-enactment stuff really sticks out for me when the writer gets it wrong - for example how long it takes to cook a hog roast on a spit - overnight is best, because you need to start the firepit early, get it to a good bed of coals not leaping flames, gradually heat the whole pig through etc. So a scene where important visitors turn up, the host goes, quick, kill a pig, and they are all eating roast pork not much later - nah. Then makes me wonder what else the writer got wrong. (This is a real example from an author I won't name.)
Conversely a hot fire can cook a pot of stew or porridge far faster than your kitchen hob.

As to mindset - superstition and religion also weighed far more heavily than now. There was a wide spread belief in fairies still going strong in the 17th century and people surreptitiously trying to appease them.

Expression of emotion. Interesting documentary the other month by Ian Hislop on the Stiff Upper Lip - and how it evolved in England. Tudor England was actually known by other countries for being ultra-emotional - more so than their neighbours - and then for various reasons a new way of interacting with other people evolved.

 

[JoanDrake]

This is, IMO, one of the reasons King Arthur is so popular. There are a lot of theories about that period but almost no real records that can be used to gainsay the elements of your story

The past, as much as the future, is something of an undiscovered country. We know a little of who did what and when, sometimes even a smidgen of how but none of it's very reliable and we have practically no idea of why. Don't get me wrong. I do research. It's called historical fiction because History is an interesting part of the story and I'm going to use that history for all it's worth, even if I have to make it up.

As far as consciousness differing, that's true as far as it goes. Cromwell's roundheads never lost a battle because their Puritan precepts meant they couldn't use cell phones to coordinate the troops but a Cavalier poet did find time to write poetry bemoaning the fact that his lady wouldn't give him a little before the battle.

 

[sknox]

This is an excellent thread with insightful comments all around. Since this is an area of personal interest for me, I have to chime in.

First, about historical accuracy, I would state it differently. What I want from a novel is believability. Consistency and continuity are important components of making a novel believable. If the author has someone ride a horse for five days straight, he loses me because that's not believable. It doesn't matter if this is a historical novel or not, it's the detail itself that is not believable.

At the other extreme, if the author has written a historical fantasy and there are elves kicking around 12th century London, that's fine, so long as they behave in believable ways. OTOH, if that same story has England being ruled by King Henry IV, now I'm out of the story again, because I know my kings. Thing is, maybe some other reader would not be bothered by that detail at all.

But it's more subtle than that. I wrote my dissertation on early modern guilds, so whenever I encounter stories (or games) with assassins guilds and fighter guilds, you'd think I'd yelp, but I don't. I understand that these aren't real guilds but are just conveniences for assigning traits and checking the jobs board.

On the other hand, just about every movie treatment of the Crusades bothers me because I've yet to see one that handles the participants in anything like a convincing manner. Plus, they keep doing the same damn two crusades over and over. Somebody do the Second Crusade!

Anyway, I find the question of the importance of historical accuracy in historical fiction to be much more subtle and difficult than one might think. It's heavily dependent upon the individual reader.

I'll make a separate post on the topic of consciousness, modern and pre-modern, because this one's gone on long enough.

 

[sknox]

Did people in the past think differently from people in the present? Yes and no, but it's tricksy.

There is an easy analogue we can all consult. We already have people from other cultures. They're called foreigners. Does a German think differently from an Italian? From an Australian? Heck, does a man from Alabama think differently from a female New Yorker? And how much of that is due to upbringing, gender, social class?

You get the idea. It's too much an over-simplification to proclaim that the medieval mind was fundamentally different from the modern. The discussion abstracts the historical realities to the point where we're talking philosophy more than history.

In important ways, all human beings think alike. We all fall in love. We all fear the unknown. We are all foolish at times and wise at times.

In important ways, every human being thinks differently. We even think differently from ourselves, young or old, before or after a crisis, etc.

In important ways, humans can be grouped and patterns of thought discerned--grouped by tribe, by gender, by social class, by urban versus rural, and so on.

I read Moore's book and thought it an interesting experiment but ultimately a failure as fiction. If I were somehow able to portray the *otherness* of a medieval knight or a Roman slave, I would very likely lose my reader. The reader wouldn't understand my character, wouldn't understand his motivations. First and foremost, I want to engage my reader.

So there's a constant and difficult dance I perform as author, trying to give a sense of someplace different, yet also familiar; of people of another time and place who yet make sense to my reader; of places and objects and foods and turns of phrase unknown to my reader yet not turn my book into a series of explanations. I find the exercise to be endlessly fascinating.

But I don't think I can reduce it to "now" versus "back then".