Historical Musings #4: Time Periods

July 12, 2015July 12, 201521 Comments

I find history fascinating and am happy to read books set in any historical period, but there are some I seem to be drawn to more than others. While it’s good to discover new eras and new subjects, it can also be very rewarding to read several novels set during the same period, each one adding to your knowledge and helping to build up a bigger picture. It’s interesting to see how different authors approach the same topics, interpret the same historical sources and portray the same historical figures.

At the moment my favourite historical period, without a doubt, is the Wars of the Roses. My interest in this period is relatively recent. It began five years ago when I read The White Queen by Philippa Gregory and since then I’ve been reading everything I can find on the subject, from the better known books such as The Sunne in Splendour and The Daughter of Time to the more obscure ones such as The Adventures of Alianore Audley. A list of the Wars of the Roses books I’ve reviewed on this blog is available here and I still have lots of others waiting to be read!

Other time periods I love reading about are:

* Renaissance Italy
* The 19th Century
* Plantagenet England (the period before the Wars of the Roses)
* The First and Second World Wars
* The French Revolution
* The English Civil War and Restoration
* The Tudor and Elizabethan periods

I’m starting to develop an interest in Anglo-Saxon England as well, but I think I’ll need to read a few more books set in this era before I can decide whether it is a ‘favourite’. I also enjoy reading historical fiction set in Scotland and in India, China and Russia, to name just a few other countries, but not necessarily during any particular period which is why I haven’t listed them above. And then, of course, there are authors like Edward Rutherfurd who write novels that span centuries and other authors – Susanna Kearsley and Kate Morton, for example, whose books are often set in dual or multiple time periods.

As I mentioned in my Historical Musings post a couple of months ago, the historical periods I struggle with tend to be the Ancient ones – Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt. I’m hoping it’s just a case of finding the right books to spark my enthusiasm for these subjects.

What about you? Which periods of history do you like – or not like – to read about? Can you recommend any good books set in your favourite period?

Historical Musings #3: Perceptions of the genre

June 14, 201522 Comments

Before I introduce this month’s Historical Musings topic, this is probably a good time to mention that the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was announced yesterday. The winner is The Ten Thousand Things by John Spurling, a novel set in 14th century China, which I haven’t read but am looking forward to as I love reading about Chinese history. As you may know, I am slowly working my way through all the titles shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize since it began in 2010. You can follow my progress here. Kay of What Me Read is doing the same and I hope other readers will consider joining us! I have found the winners and shortlisted books that I’ve read so far to be of a consistently high quality, which leads nicely into this month’s discussion topic…

Can a novel be both historical and literary?

My answer, unsurprisingly, is yes, of course it can…but for a lot of people, the answer doesn’t seem to be as simple as that. Here are some examples of the sort of comments I often see and hear when people talk about historical fiction:

* I don’t read historical fiction but I enjoyed this book and consider it to be literary fiction anyway.

* To describe this as a historical novel is doing a disservice to the author’s writing skills.

* This is very well written and explores some interesting themes, but it’s historical fiction so it’s hardly literature, is it?

* I’m not interested in historical fiction, but this is more of a literary novel set in the past so I was happy to read it.

* This was surprisingly good; it went beyond any expectations I had for historical fiction.

I respect other people’s points of view, of course, but I do think it’s disappointing that so many people have such a low opinion of a genre I love. I read a wide range of historical fiction and while I think the lighter ones can often be perfectly enjoyable and entertaining, I can think of many authors who have successfully managed to write novels that are historical and could also be considered to have literary merit: Hilary Mantel, Umberto Eco, Dorothy Dunnett, Patrick O’Brian, A.S. Byatt, Amitav Ghosh and countless others. Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Victor Hugo have all written historical fiction too; are their novels not literature?

This makes me wonder why historical fiction is sometimes viewed in a negative way. Is it because people have had bad experiences in the past? I know there are some badly written, poorly researched historical novels out there, but you could say the same about any genre (and there are also plenty of books classed as literary fiction that haven’t impressed me at all). Or is it that people sometimes associate the term ‘historical fiction’ with a certain type of book that doesn’t appeal to them – family sagas, maybe, or books with a lot of battle scenes, or romances with women in pretty dresses on the cover – and aren’t aware of how large the genre is and how many different sub-genres it encompasses?

It does seem that there are some readers who will avoid a book because it’s described as ‘historical fiction’ but who will happily read that same book if the term ‘literary fiction’ is used instead. As someone who never gives a lot of thought to genre labels and has always read whatever I want to read regardless of how other people might perceive it, I find this a bit difficult to understand. The Historical Novel Society website has an excellent article on this subject written by Sarah Johnson in 2002. I think the reputation of historical fiction has improved since then and so has its popularity, but she still makes some interesting points.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have low expectations of certain genres or certain types of book? Is there a difference between a well-written ‘historical fiction novel’ and a ‘literary novel set in the past’?

I would also like to know if anyone has read John Spurling’s The Ten Thousand Things – and if so, what did you think of it?

Historical Musings #2: Books about Ancient Rome

May 10, 201536 Comments

For my second monthly post on history and historical fiction (see last month’s here) I’m going to focus on a topic I know very little about: Ancient Rome. Despite living close to Hadrian’s Wall, I’ve never been particularly interested in Roman history and have only ever explored one or two of the many sites along the wall, but last weekend I decided to take advantage of my English Heritage membership and visit Corbridge Roman Town.

The granary at Corbridge Roman Town

Hadrian’s Wall was built in AD122-30 during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian and stretches for 73 miles across the north of England. It does not separate England from Scotland, as many people believe! Corbridge, in Northumberland, was the site of a busy Roman town and supply base and the remains of the streets and buildings can still be seen today. As well as walking around the ruins, there’s also a museum where you can see a display of some of the items excavated from the site, including the Corbridge Hoard (a collection of Roman weapons and armour found buried in a chest) and the Corbridge Lion (a large stone statue which was originally an ornament from a tomb).

Steps leading to the ‘Strongroom’

This brief sojourn into Roman history made me wonder why it is that I so rarely choose to read books about the Romans. It’s just not a time period I’ve ever felt drawn to, though I’m not sure why that should be. A quick search for posts using the ‘Ancient Rome’ tag on my blog brings up only two novels set in Rome that I’ve read in the last few years – Colossus: The Four Emperors by David Blixt and Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran – and I’m having trouble thinking of any others that I may have read before I started blogging. I would love some recommendations!

Corbridge Roman Town

I already have copies of The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff and I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Do you think I would like either of these or is there something else you would recommend? Fiction or non-fiction, books set in Rome itself or in other parts of the Roman Empire – all suggestions are welcome!

What are your favourites?

Historical Musings #1: Do you read historical fiction?

April 12, 2015May 9, 201531 Comments

Something a bit different today – and hopefully on the second Sunday of every month to come. I am conscious that my blog is, and always has been, very review-dominated and that despite experimenting with different types of weekly or monthly features in the past I have never managed to keep posting them regularly. I’m hoping that I’ll be more successful if I stick to a book-related topic that I’m particularly interested in and passionate about – and one of those topics, as will be obvious to any visitor to my blog, is historical fiction!

I have a whole list of potential ideas for future posts (and I know not everyone shares my interest in historical fiction, so some posts will be less specific to the genre than others) which include discussions, lists and recommendations. For my first post in the series, though, I just want to ask a very simple question:

Do you read historical fiction?

If you answered yes, what is it that attracts you to this genre? And if you answered no, can you tell me why not?

I enjoy reading historical fiction for many reasons. If I’m honest, one of them is purely escapism. I spend every day living in the 21st century and as I unfortunately don’t possess a time machine, I rely on books to take me somewhere different. The term ‘historical fiction’ encompasses a huge variety of books covering almost any time period, person or event you can think of, so I can usually find a book that will take me wherever and whenever I want to go!

Another reason is that reading historical fiction gives me an opportunity to learn about other times and places while also enjoying an entertaining story. I often struggle with non-fiction and find that I’m more likely to retain historical facts if they are presented to me in the form of a novel. Also, many of the themes and ideas in historical fiction are universal and timeless; understanding the past can sometimes help us to understand the present.

There are many, many other things I love about historical fiction but I’ll talk about some of those in future posts.

Now, what about you?