![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Tom Holland, in reviewing Robert Harris' latest Roman tome, has some interesting thoughts about writing historical fiction.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1863043,00.html
All the same, though, I think his example of anachronistic historical fiction, Lindsey Davis' Falco is poorly chosen. Yes, in many ways Falco is very like a modern private eye, but there's more to it than that. For one thing, her research into the material culture is pretty impeccable - not perfect, but very good. The easiest way to get an understanding of the Roman aqueduct system, for example, is to read Three Hands in the Fountain (and I've seen it recommended to undergraduates on reputable Classical Studies courses for that reason). Falco's appalling attic office might recall those inhabited by his counterparts in hard-boiled fiction - though I don't think Philip Marlowe ever had a landlord who was quite as bad - but it's also quite plausible given what we know about Rome in that period. Falco's private life, too, is complicated by specifically Roman factors, like his falling for a woman two classes above him. Whether or not you think it plausible for a senator's daughter to get involved with an informer, and I suspect that Tom Holland doesn't, it's all worked out very neatly and the consequences are consistent with the 'rules' of Rome.
It all comes down, I suppose, to your view of human nature. Lindsey Davis believes, I think, that although people's attitudes and prejudices vary with the culture, in the end all humans everywhere are pretty similar - or at least that character types are constant across time. Indeed, she states as much here: www.lindseydavis.co.uk/LDinterviewTCA.pdf . Scuzzy landlords are scuzzy landlords, and decent but hapless men love their families and try to do the right thing by them (whatever is deemed to be the right thing). But while Davis doesn't follow the Steven Saylor method of constantly hitting you over the head with the message that People In Rome had Different Ideas About Sex and Slaves, to name the most titillating obvious examples, Falco isn't just a modern chap in a a toga. He has sympathy for the most wretched slaves, because he is basically a nice guy (and has had one fairly horrid experience which means he also has total empathy with them), but he doesn't question the basic system. He physically attacks a group of over-persistant Christian missionaries, because he finds people proslytising for 'weird religious cults' annoying, which I think is clearly a Roman rather than a modern attitude. I mean, however annoying people repeatedly trying to sell me 'Watchtower' are, it wouldn't occur to me to thump them (though I think the reason why Falco gets away with it, in terms of reader sympathy, is that lots of people have probably briefly wished they could). But there is another school of thought: if you believe some views of the past, the people living then might as well be aliens that we happen to be related to. For instance, the theory that people weren't bothered by infant mortality, despite textual witnesses like Ben Jonsons' heartbreaking poem on the subject.
Of course, the other aspect is that there is a romantic comedy element to Davis' books, even though some of them are quite dark, and she does play with semi-anachronism and jokes that are only apparent from a modern perspective. The most notable example is probably the extended joke about Falco's attempt to write a serious tragedy about a young man seeking vengeance after his father's ghost reveals that he was foully murdered by the boy's new step-father. Ridiculous, cry the company of actors with whom he is travelling, and turn it into a farce under the name of 'The Spook Who Spoke'. It doesn't go over well. Still, the plot of Hamlet had to come from somewhere....
For my part, I think I'm closer to Davis' view. There are aspects of other cultures which we may find it difficult to understand properly - and you don't have to look for examples in the past to see that - and that should never be forgotten. But when it comes down to it, I think our common humanity means a lot more than shared DNA. Writing fiction about other cultures is a bit like translation, though: how much do you preserve of the original foreigness, and how hard do you work to find analogies with in your own language and culture?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1863043,00.html
All the same, though, I think his example of anachronistic historical fiction, Lindsey Davis' Falco is poorly chosen. Yes, in many ways Falco is very like a modern private eye, but there's more to it than that. For one thing, her research into the material culture is pretty impeccable - not perfect, but very good. The easiest way to get an understanding of the Roman aqueduct system, for example, is to read Three Hands in the Fountain (and I've seen it recommended to undergraduates on reputable Classical Studies courses for that reason). Falco's appalling attic office might recall those inhabited by his counterparts in hard-boiled fiction - though I don't think Philip Marlowe ever had a landlord who was quite as bad - but it's also quite plausible given what we know about Rome in that period. Falco's private life, too, is complicated by specifically Roman factors, like his falling for a woman two classes above him. Whether or not you think it plausible for a senator's daughter to get involved with an informer, and I suspect that Tom Holland doesn't, it's all worked out very neatly and the consequences are consistent with the 'rules' of Rome.
It all comes down, I suppose, to your view of human nature. Lindsey Davis believes, I think, that although people's attitudes and prejudices vary with the culture, in the end all humans everywhere are pretty similar - or at least that character types are constant across time. Indeed, she states as much here: www.lindseydavis.co.uk/LDinterviewTCA.pdf . Scuzzy landlords are scuzzy landlords, and decent but hapless men love their families and try to do the right thing by them (whatever is deemed to be the right thing). But while Davis doesn't follow the Steven Saylor method of constantly hitting you over the head with the message that People In Rome had Different Ideas About Sex and Slaves, to name the most
Of course, the other aspect is that there is a romantic comedy element to Davis' books, even though some of them are quite dark, and she does play with semi-anachronism and jokes that are only apparent from a modern perspective. The most notable example is probably the extended joke about Falco's attempt to write a serious tragedy about a young man seeking vengeance after his father's ghost reveals that he was foully murdered by the boy's new step-father. Ridiculous, cry the company of actors with whom he is travelling, and turn it into a farce under the name of 'The Spook Who Spoke'. It doesn't go over well. Still, the plot of Hamlet had to come from somewhere....
For my part, I think I'm closer to Davis' view. There are aspects of other cultures which we may find it difficult to understand properly - and you don't have to look for examples in the past to see that - and that should never be forgotten. But when it comes down to it, I think our common humanity means a lot more than shared DNA. Writing fiction about other cultures is a bit like translation, though: how much do you preserve of the original foreigness, and how hard do you work to find analogies with in your own language and culture?