Historical Novels

[poliphilo]

How long ago does a novel have to be set for it to qualify as an historical novel?

I reckon the events it deals with need to be outside living memory (at the time of writing).

Thus a contemporary novel set in the trenches of WWI would be an historical novel and one set on the beaches of Dunkirk wouldn't.

I'm reading Stevenson's Weir of Hermiston,  He was writing it in the 1890s and it's set around the time of Waterloo. That's a gap of about 80 years- which puts it on the cusp. Is it an historical novel ? I can't decide. 

Comments

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it has to be that far back - I mean a novel about the miners' strike would still be a historical novel if it were written now, wouldn't it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. The writer would be able to draw on the memories of people who were around at the time- and possibly his/her own. Speaking as someone who was in their 30s at the time the miners' strike hardly seems like history to me.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

In my humble opinion hsitorical novels are ones written before the 20th century or written now in the genre of an historical novel. So, for example, Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" is not histotrical whereas Peter Ackroyd's "Chatterton" is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The question of genre is interesting. I think there are probably things that distinguish the genre that aren't just to do with when the book is set- but I don't know what they are. :)

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

From my experience (right up to my neck in it) I would say the historical-ness of a novel is proportional to the amount of times you have to Stop What You're Doing In the Middle Of Your Narrative and Hit Google...

...in my case, "very often".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've toyed with historical fiction- and, yes, one of the joys of writing it is doing the research and sharing the results with one's readers.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

It's a bit irritating when you're on a roll though and then realise you have to check if ping-pong balls were around in 1914...and end up deleting that whole section anyway afterwards :)

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

As to the Weir of Hermiston and when it was wrote i would say that the gap of 80 years between the author writing it and the period of Waterloo does not make it an historucal novel.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with you. Stevenson wrote books that are unquestionably historical novels- Kidnapped, the Master of Ballantrae, the Black Arrow. This one feels a little different.

Lord Hermiston is based on a real person who died in 1799. Stevenson has moved him forward a decade and a half- bringing him into the 19th century. It's as if he's saying, "Look, I'm not particularly interested here in writing about the past."

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Well this would come under biography or to use that horrible Americanism "faction".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not really- Lord Hermiston is based on the famous Scottish "hanging judge" Lord Braxfield, but the story he features in is pure fiction.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 and I would consider THAT a historical novel. The dictionary defines it as

A novel that re-creates a period or event in history and often uses historical figures as some of its characters.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, but what do we mean by "history"?

Is the last decade "history"? How about the 1990s?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

YESTERDAY is history. Five minutes ago is history.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree, but if I set a novel in the recent past I don't think that makes it an historical novel.

I don't know. I think the genre is poorly defined.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think that a historical novel is one which is set before the author was born, and which involves actual people and events. Yes, I believe that a novel about Woodstock (1968), written today by an author of my generation, would be a historical novel, even though my mother was there. If my mother wrote it, though, it wouldn't be.

Certainly, recent novels about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911), are considered historical fiction.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think I'd want to argue that it can't be historical while there are still living witnesses walking around, but I wouldn't want to make it a heated argument...

I'll accept 1911 as historical. 1968 I find it hard to accept. Same goes for 1948 and 1938. I wasn't around for those last two, but I know people who were.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

See, I'd argue that, for instance, the movie MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS is historical fiction, and that takes place between 1937 and 1944. Poking around at various websites, I find some people whose classification agrees with that -- not everybody, but it appears to be within the universe of reasonable opinions.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's "within the universe of reasonable opinions". (Love that phrase!) I don't agree with it, but I give it respect. :)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I've just co-written a book (out next year, I hope!) on history in books for children, and when we came to look at the 20thC we had to consider this question. I'm not going to try to summarise our conclusions here, though I'd be happy to send you the relevant chapter if you felt like it. But I am interested in why you feel that it can't be history unless everyone who witnessed it is dead.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see that chapter....

Why do I feel what I feel? It's a gut thing, really.
Memory doesn't discriminate between recent and far-away. I remember my 50s childhood better than I remember many more recent things. Old people notoriously live in the past. When my father-in-law talks about his experiences as a military policeman in the 1940s he's bringing them into the present. The things we remember belong to an eternal "Now". Only when there are there no witnesses left do events drop out of that eternal "Now" into history.

Does that make any sense?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot of sense. Although, I think that what you're proposing as a distinction between history and memory, I'd prefer to see as the site of a complex relationship between them.

If you pm me your email address of choice, I'll send you the chapter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

pm dispatched.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I agree with you here. If there is still extent witnesses to the past than the novelisation could not technically be called historical.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I'd say a novel can be "historic" if its time setting is intrinsically vital to the plot. For instance, Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty is steeped in the 1980's and as such displays all the characteristics of an historic novel.

And "History"? Does that need to be something that happened long ago? Of course there needs to be enough temporal difference to allow reflection on the social and cultural setting, but I think that can be possible even if it's well within living memory.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe I'm changing my mind here. History is a particular form of discourse- a way of looking at things...