In the scheme of historical novelists, Dame Hilary Mantel is kind of a big deal, so when she says something, people listen. And what she has to say isn’t going to endear her to those who prefer to rewrite history.
Women writers must stop rewriting history to make their female characters falsely “empowered”, Dame Hilary Mantel has said.
Mantel, the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist, said writing about women in history was a “persistent difficulties” for her contemporaries, who “can’t resist” retrospectively making them strong and independent.
The genre of historical novels is a fascinating one, the intersection of historical accuracy and an interesting, if wholly fictional, story.
Mantel said: “Many writers of historical fiction feel drawn to the untold tale.
“They want to give a voice to those who have been silenced.
“Fiction can do that, because it concentrates on what is not on the record. But we must be careful when we speak for others…
“If we write about the victims of history, are we reinforcing their status by detailing it? Or shall we rework history so victims are the winners?”
See the problem? Not only is it trendy to morph victims into winners, but it sells to readers who want to believe, even if history dictates otherwise. So what’s the problem? Well, if it’s no longer historically accurate, then it’s not historical, but just fiction.
“This is a persistent difficulty for women writers, who want to write about women in the past, but can’t resist retrospectively empowering them.
“Which is false.”
Mantel’s answer? Don’t do it.
“If you are squeamish – if you are affronted by difference – then you should try some other trade.”
She added: “A good novelist will have her characters operate within the ethical framework of their day – even if it shocks her readers.”
For those outside the confines of historical novelists, who might adhere to an ethical imperative to maintain historical accuracy rather than fabricate a story that turns their victims into empowered women, characters that never existed in their times and whose lives might offend readers today, does this matter?
“And writers of all kind are more aware of the potential deception of the smooth narrative.
“When the reader of a story says, ‘Which bits of this are true?’ he must ask that question of the historian, as well as the novelist: increasingly, the historian is ready for the challenge.”
Readers, she argued, are not “victims who need protection”, but able to read novels without spoiling history for themselves.”
Should historical novelists write for historians, who enjoy it as “history porn,” or for delicate readers who might prefer historical characters that are written as empowered to conceal historical reality and create a false narrative that conforms with what today’s readers would prefer to believe?
Are the characters the victims or is the reader? Or does historical accuracy no longer matter?
H/T Stephanie West Allen
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I don’t see why authors should make any special effort for accuracy in historical fiction, given the inaccuracy with which history has come to be taught in the schools and recounted in the news media. Our society has come to be as revisionist as the former Soviet Union, and only the few who especially focus on studying history as it was have any sense of it.
So you’ve given up, eh, comrade?
I have come to accept that the general public will never know real history anymore, but at least those who care to look can still find it. It comes down to individual choice, and most people today, when put to that choice, choose not to know. They want a good story, not a real story, and the best historians will be able to do is (perhaps) protect, through the Dark Ages, the threads that lead to actual facts in case people ever change their minds.
Complicating the problem, though, is that the progressives have already rewritten history to vastly overstate the degree to which various favoured groups have been “victims” in the first place, cherry-picking cultural nadirs like the Jim Crow south and the mid-20th century peak of repression for women and projecting them across all time and space. Rather than a call for historical accuracy, I suspect this is mostly a complaint that authors aren’t sticking to the narrative.
Only the most victim-y victim can escape historical denigration through the presentist’s lens. See all the jargon I threw in there? Pretty cool, right?
For some reason, this made me think of John Wayne’s disagreement with Clint Eastwood over High Plains Drifter. Could it be that Eastwood was following Dame Mantel’s preferred approach and Wayne was the revisionist?
How did you know I really wanted this to be a discussion of High Plains Drifter? It’s like you read my mind.