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History and fiction
Nov. 22nd, 2011 11:02 amI've just been listening to Alison Weir's speech at the IHR conference on history and fiction. Weir speaks from a position of supreme confidence and feels she's right on every front. For me, this perfection undermined the really good stuff she said in the first ten minutes concerning such things as the need for writers to do their homework for historical fiction. It especially undermined it when it became apparent that 'good history' was history that matched her emotional interpretation of a place and time and her own research. Her personal insights, it appears, are universal insights.
I didn't expect this. I should have. Now I've heard her articulate it, her writing (fiction and non-fiction) proclaims it very loudly.
It's odd. It takes her further away in terms of historiography in fiction than writers such as Hilary Mantel and Sharon Penman*. Weir admitted appreciation of Wolf Hall, but Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell was wrong and hers was right. Apart from Mantel (who was named with those caveats) she didn't name any of her peer group (writers who have popular acclaim who use similar subject matter) as good writers who use history well.
I find it fascinating that she assumes only one interpretation of any historical person or event and that she asssumes that she has more capacity to furnish that single interpretation than anyone else. This is a very odd view of modern historical writings. It makes sense for the passion that one needs to communicate a character in a novel, but it takes it beyond the pages of the novel and it assumes a universal reliability for her (Weir's) opinion, one that doesn't apply to other writers, who do not have her deep knowledge of history.
I've seen this sense of self in other places. Some of the telling marks in Weir's speech were the assumptions that her views were special, that no-one before her did this particular thing, that her judgements were always right, that what she had done to get to her particular place of eminence was especially onerous. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong (except that I can demonstrate that she's incorrect about the shortage of historical novelists prior to herself, and that she really ought to choose between claiming to be an historian and choosing only one true factual path that she happens to know), just that I've seen it packaged before by other people who have achieved public success. It's an odd mixture of pain, privilege and perfection.
I wish I had more time now, to explore some of the other talks and reviews that are part of the conference. Tonight, maybe.
if you want to make your own judgement on Weir (since my judgement is not the one true judgement, but only my personal thoughts on the matter), you can find her on the IHR conference page: http://ihrconference.wordpress.com/
*I was going to say Elizabeth Chadwick, which would also be true, but it was Elizabeth Chadwick who alerted me to the conference page, so she gets mentioned in this footnote instead.
I didn't expect this. I should have. Now I've heard her articulate it, her writing (fiction and non-fiction) proclaims it very loudly.
It's odd. It takes her further away in terms of historiography in fiction than writers such as Hilary Mantel and Sharon Penman*. Weir admitted appreciation of Wolf Hall, but Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell was wrong and hers was right. Apart from Mantel (who was named with those caveats) she didn't name any of her peer group (writers who have popular acclaim who use similar subject matter) as good writers who use history well.
I find it fascinating that she assumes only one interpretation of any historical person or event and that she asssumes that she has more capacity to furnish that single interpretation than anyone else. This is a very odd view of modern historical writings. It makes sense for the passion that one needs to communicate a character in a novel, but it takes it beyond the pages of the novel and it assumes a universal reliability for her (Weir's) opinion, one that doesn't apply to other writers, who do not have her deep knowledge of history.
I've seen this sense of self in other places. Some of the telling marks in Weir's speech were the assumptions that her views were special, that no-one before her did this particular thing, that her judgements were always right, that what she had done to get to her particular place of eminence was especially onerous. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong (except that I can demonstrate that she's incorrect about the shortage of historical novelists prior to herself, and that she really ought to choose between claiming to be an historian and choosing only one true factual path that she happens to know), just that I've seen it packaged before by other people who have achieved public success. It's an odd mixture of pain, privilege and perfection.
I wish I had more time now, to explore some of the other talks and reviews that are part of the conference. Tonight, maybe.
if you want to make your own judgement on Weir (since my judgement is not the one true judgement, but only my personal thoughts on the matter), you can find her on the IHR conference page: http://ihrconference.wordpress.com/
*I was going to say Elizabeth Chadwick, which would also be true, but it was Elizabeth Chadwick who alerted me to the conference page, so she gets mentioned in this footnote instead.