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The Edinburgh literature festival that could change history The Edinburgh literature festival that could change history
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This weekend, the Summerhall arts venue in Edinburgh is hosting the first ever literary festival devoted to historical fiction. It's the brainchild of Iain Gale, the art critic and author of several works of military historical fiction in the vein of Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brien, and Allan Massie. Massie tends to be slightly overlooked in discussions of contemporary Scottish literature; the peril, I presume, of being an intelligent Conservative. His work shows how peculiarly elastic the historical novel is – he has written historical crime (the ongoing Bordeaux series featuring Superintendent Lannes, trying to uphold justice in Vichy France), historical romances (Arthur the King, Charlemagne and Roland), historical political thrillers (his series on the Roman emperors, which led Gore Vidal to call him "the master of the long-ago historical novel", historical biographical novels (The Ragged Lion, about Sir Walter Scott) and historical literary novels (The Death of Men, loosely based on the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, is a masterpiece, and A Question of Loyalties, his subtle and mildly postmodernist novel about how one copes with losing a war, ought to have been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize).This weekend, the Summerhall arts venue in Edinburgh is hosting the first ever literary festival devoted to historical fiction. It's the brainchild of Iain Gale, the art critic and author of several works of military historical fiction in the vein of Bernard Cornwell and Patrick O'Brien, and Allan Massie. Massie tends to be slightly overlooked in discussions of contemporary Scottish literature; the peril, I presume, of being an intelligent Conservative. His work shows how peculiarly elastic the historical novel is – he has written historical crime (the ongoing Bordeaux series featuring Superintendent Lannes, trying to uphold justice in Vichy France), historical romances (Arthur the King, Charlemagne and Roland), historical political thrillers (his series on the Roman emperors, which led Gore Vidal to call him "the master of the long-ago historical novel", historical biographical novels (The Ragged Lion, about Sir Walter Scott) and historical literary novels (The Death of Men, loosely based on the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, is a masterpiece, and A Question of Loyalties, his subtle and mildly postmodernist novel about how one copes with losing a war, ought to have been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize).
The "historical novel" isn't really a genre – since every genre can be made historical. Steampunk is really just historical SF; and Adam Roberts has written superb works, such as Yellow Blue Tibia, featuring science fiction tropes in a historical setting. And steampunk begat flintlock fantasy: I'm rather fond of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (Napoleonic sagas with dragons). Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series gives us historical horror. I have so far been unable, much to my chagrin, to obtain a copy of Peter H Cannon's 1994 intersection of PG Wodehouse and HP Lovecraft, Scream for Jeeves.The "historical novel" isn't really a genre – since every genre can be made historical. Steampunk is really just historical SF; and Adam Roberts has written superb works, such as Yellow Blue Tibia, featuring science fiction tropes in a historical setting. And steampunk begat flintlock fantasy: I'm rather fond of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (Napoleonic sagas with dragons). Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series gives us historical horror. I have so far been unable, much to my chagrin, to obtain a copy of Peter H Cannon's 1994 intersection of PG Wodehouse and HP Lovecraft, Scream for Jeeves.
Even within literary fiction, the idea of the "historical novel" is problematic. I doubt it's just the "Mantel bounce" that has led to novelists as different and distinctive as Jim Crace, AN Wilson, Kate Atkinson, Lawrence Norfolk, Naomi Alderman, Rupert Thomson and Andrea Levy all recently producing broadly historical fictions. What's more interesting is how different they are from each other, in terms of technique, purpose and detail. It's worth remembering that when Mantel first won the Man Booker, all the shortlisted novels were historical (AS Byatt's The Children's Book, The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer's The Glass Room and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, and JM Coetzee's Summertime – which, being set in the 1970s, would contravene the Walter Scott prize's injunction that, for their purposes, a historical novel has to be set at least 60 years in the past: as Alan Bennett put it in The History Boys, there is no period so remote as the recent past).Even within literary fiction, the idea of the "historical novel" is problematic. I doubt it's just the "Mantel bounce" that has led to novelists as different and distinctive as Jim Crace, AN Wilson, Kate Atkinson, Lawrence Norfolk, Naomi Alderman, Rupert Thomson and Andrea Levy all recently producing broadly historical fictions. What's more interesting is how different they are from each other, in terms of technique, purpose and detail. It's worth remembering that when Mantel first won the Man Booker, all the shortlisted novels were historical (AS Byatt's The Children's Book, The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer's The Glass Room and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, and JM Coetzee's Summertime – which, being set in the 1970s, would contravene the Walter Scott prize's injunction that, for their purposes, a historical novel has to be set at least 60 years in the past: as Alan Bennett put it in The History Boys, there is no period so remote as the recent past).
Since the historical novel is not a genre, but rather a choice of setting, is there any meaningful distinction we can make within it? Massie proposes that there is a difference between a historical novel and a novel set in history, and suggests there are "self-enclosed" historical novels and those "open to the winds of the world", novels where historical events are almost a character in themselves. Scott's Waverley, or George Eliot's Romola, or Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay would be examples of the latter; as events impact upon the characters. Eliot's Middlemarch, or Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, or Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose would count among the former.Since the historical novel is not a genre, but rather a choice of setting, is there any meaningful distinction we can make within it? Massie proposes that there is a difference between a historical novel and a novel set in history, and suggests there are "self-enclosed" historical novels and those "open to the winds of the world", novels where historical events are almost a character in themselves. Scott's Waverley, or George Eliot's Romola, or Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay would be examples of the latter; as events impact upon the characters. Eliot's Middlemarch, or Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, or Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose would count among the former.
Then there is the distinction between novels that follow the known historical record (what Lockhart praised in Scott as the beautiful illumination of the margin) and those that interpolate hidden motivations and events. Alexandre Dumas started the game: d'Artagnan and his allies kidnap the man due to execute Charles I in Twenty Years After, only for Mordaunt to take his place; and in The Vicomte of Bragelonne, the Musketeers successfully kidnap General Monk to precipitate the Restoration. Robyn Young is a good modern practitioner: in her historical novels, Robert the Bruce invades Ireland to prevent Edward I obtaining all four of the ancient treasures of Britain. By contrast, there's something less ingenious but perhaps more moving about novels where characters can't avoid the oncoming storm of history: Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children manages this very well (especially given the recent nature of the events); it underpins Mantel's work, perhaps more in A Place of Greater Safety than her Cromwell novels. It gives one of the most poignant moments in Byatt's The Children's Book, when Florian is asked what he wants to be when he grows up and replies "A fox, in a foxhole, in a wood": the naivety, both wilful and innocent, of the pre-war generation suffuses the whole novel.Then there is the distinction between novels that follow the known historical record (what Lockhart praised in Scott as the beautiful illumination of the margin) and those that interpolate hidden motivations and events. Alexandre Dumas started the game: d'Artagnan and his allies kidnap the man due to execute Charles I in Twenty Years After, only for Mordaunt to take his place; and in The Vicomte of Bragelonne, the Musketeers successfully kidnap General Monk to precipitate the Restoration. Robyn Young is a good modern practitioner: in her historical novels, Robert the Bruce invades Ireland to prevent Edward I obtaining all four of the ancient treasures of Britain. By contrast, there's something less ingenious but perhaps more moving about novels where characters can't avoid the oncoming storm of history: Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children manages this very well (especially given the recent nature of the events); it underpins Mantel's work, perhaps more in A Place of Greater Safety than her Cromwell novels. It gives one of the most poignant moments in Byatt's The Children's Book, when Florian is asked what he wants to be when he grows up and replies "A fox, in a foxhole, in a wood": the naivety, both wilful and innocent, of the pre-war generation suffuses the whole novel.
The paradox is that the "historical novel", in its myriad forms, need not necessarily pay much heed to history. Scott is again the originator and forerunner – Redgauntlet is about a third Jacobite uprising which never actually happened, and goes on to show why it has to be fictitious. Our terminology for dealing with genre is notoriously unwieldy and vague, and the historical fiction festival is at least starting to debate some of the issues raised by setting novels in the past. There are panels on the moral obligation of the historical novelist; the recent past in historical fiction; the use of characters from earlier novels (Ronald Frame's backstory for Miss Havishman and James Benmore's continuation of the life of the Artful Dodger); and a celebration of the completion of the Edinburgh edition of the Waverley novels. The whole seems to exemplify the famous dictum of William Faulkner which bedevils the whole business of historical novels: "The past isn't dead. It's not even past."The paradox is that the "historical novel", in its myriad forms, need not necessarily pay much heed to history. Scott is again the originator and forerunner – Redgauntlet is about a third Jacobite uprising which never actually happened, and goes on to show why it has to be fictitious. Our terminology for dealing with genre is notoriously unwieldy and vague, and the historical fiction festival is at least starting to debate some of the issues raised by setting novels in the past. There are panels on the moral obligation of the historical novelist; the recent past in historical fiction; the use of characters from earlier novels (Ronald Frame's backstory for Miss Havishman and James Benmore's continuation of the life of the Artful Dodger); and a celebration of the completion of the Edinburgh edition of the Waverley novels. The whole seems to exemplify the famous dictum of William Faulkner which bedevils the whole business of historical novels: "The past isn't dead. It's not even past."
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