Motion: “Historical novels, entertainment or knowledge?
Presented by Adriana Carriles
What is a historical novel? It seem to be an easy definition: an historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author.
There are many ways of writing a historical novel. In some of them, for example, famous events appear from points of view not recorded in real History, or historical characters have to deal with events in a way that is not recorded in History. Other times, the real historical event just complements in the background the main story. Sometimes, the general story/history can be true but the names of people and places have been in some way altered.As a novel is fiction, some artistic license is permitted… as long as it does not redraw in significant ways from real History!
I’ll give you an example of a bad historical novel (”The da Vinci Code”) and some terribly good historical novels (”Foucault’s Pendulum” and “The name of the rose”)
“The da Vinci Code” is a well-known book for everyone, I suposse. The most important problem is that Dan Brown rewrote a vast number of historical events making people think that those distortions are ‘facts’. From my point of view, novels that try to present historical facts should be written and researched carefully. It is for this reason that “The da Vinci Code” is just a mystery or detective novel, but never, I said never, a historical one.
Do you really want conspiracies, codes, a chase around the monuments of Paris, including the Holy Blood conundrum and the Knights Templar? Ok, them please read Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum”. This book has all of that but does so in a more critical way. In fact is a satire about the futility of conspiracy theories. But there is not the slightest doubt that the best Eco’s book is “The Name of the Rose”, a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327. The combination of historical documentation and narrative is, in Eco´s books, just superb!
By the way, if you haven’t notice yet, I have a degree on History of Art… this is the reason why I take historical novels to heart!
Comments»
What a concidence! I am reading “The name of the Rose” these days and I’m really enjoying it.
I find historical novels amazing. Not only provide they knowledge in terms of historical facts but, even more importantly, they also make you understand how people lived in other frametimes.
To name some of my favourite ones: “The Physician” by Noah Gordon, “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follet or “My name is Red” by Orhan Pamuk are fantastic examples of how an intriguing plot can be set at a historical scenary.
There are other kind of books like “The Clan of the Cave Bear” by Jean M Auel that are not strictly historical because they are not set at any precise frametime but they can help you understand how human beings “think and live” from time inmemorial.
I almost completely agree with everything that has been said including the introduction to the motion. I’ve chosen this topic to write because I do like History, unlike most of people who find it boring or heavy. And I don’t know many people who is keen on History. My mum is a graduated in Geography and History which certainly has influenced me in being interested on it. As far as I’m concerned , I believe that what puts me into loving History, is the curiosity. Since ever, I’ve wonder how people lived in the past and how were things and everything. I find it fascinating. When I was a child I asked myself how people knew what had happened before television appeared, because there were no cameras to record events. Mum explained to me that in the past, people wrote how life was and, by studying ancient rests too, we were able to imagine live in the past centuries. At that age I found it really shocking because I thought that if someone spent his time writing on a book what was happening in his ‘present’ , this man should have been very intelligent and have had a marvellous idea. Now ,although this already is not a mystery for me, I still want to know and learn more things about History. And reading is a great source of knowledge so historical novels are good examples or ways of entertainment for the people who want to have a good time and learn interesting things
I really enjoy reading historical novel too, and I think that it’s the best way to remenber the basic conceps about History all people should have! When I read this article, I felt the necesity of give my opinion because my parent have studied History, they have a book shop and I am studying History of Art, so… since I was a little girl I was introduce in this books! I’ve thought in your article, Adriana, and yes, there are many good authors who write what all should write: an imaginary story in a real past period, and there are others who write imaginary things of real people or period…and that it’s very dangerous
From my point of view, most of historical novels is fiction. The author uses historical facts and characters to build an unreal plot. The problem is that, sometimes, the current reader considers them historically certain, mainly if they contain scandalous elements that attempt against the official historical truth and that distorts the cultural baggage of people.
You need to know your past, to understand your present.
But, as Xil has said, most people only read historical novels (or watch historical films) when “they contain scandalous elements”. Well, it’s an option, but for my point of view, the worse and saddest one!
By the way, what all of you think about the new movie-fashion? I mean, those recent films like the Brad Pitt’s version of “Troya”? (it’s incredible the damage that can be done to a jewel of the Wold’s Literature?)
I agree with Xil. Historical novels are fiction. They should be fiction. Actually they can contain some real historical facts or details, but litterature is fiction, litterature only wants to entertain. If it’s litterature what we are reading, not a pamphlet. And these novels can lead us to learn more by investigating on scientific books or fonts. That could be good for comparing. Fiction and history go together, for exemple, on “The Borgia”, from Mario Puzo (which contains its dose of fiction, of invention), or better on “Q”, set at Luther’s time (XVI century).
I believe historical novels are a mixture of entertainment and knowledge.They bring you historical facts and also a fantastic atmosphere.I like this kind of novels very much.I’d recommend you ‘Adriano’s memories’,written by Marguerite Yourcenar.This is the story of the famous Roman emperor,surrounded by misteries and extremely well-written.
Yes, I’ve read “Adriano’s memories” and I agree with you, Águeda, it’s superb!
I would like to recommend also “Ladrones de tinta”, for example, setting in our Gold Century. It’s a thriller about the Cervantes’ manuscript of Quixote part II. You will find it amazing!
It is quite controversial to analyse the way how the writers make their novels. It is true that some of them don’t be realistic, they change some historic events in order to favour their imaginary stories. From my point of view, if they want to call their books historic novels they must follow the real events without changing any date, name or place. If not they only have to call them novels because they can invent or imagine different things or events that don’t follow the reality without offend anyone. People who have studies History of Art could be offended by this kind of writers as Dan Brown.
On the other hand, I must recognize that Dan Brown’s books make me feel quite hooked and I enjoy a lot with them. But one thing is the pleasure of reading, special moments where you can feel that you are taking part of the story, and other thing is going to visit places which are used to write books, where you can check that the reality is not the story the author has told us, for example, Roslyn Chapel doesn’t have any underground floor with old papers related with Maria Magdalena, however, it has got a lot of beautiful engravings with secret messages. Although the structure of the chapel isn’t the same as the one on the Dan Brown’s book, when I visited it I had the same sensation of respect and a bit of fear that I had when I read the book.
I am absolutely aware of the fact that after reading my comment you all would think I’m uncultured. The easiest thing for me to say would be that I do agree with you all, but in spite of saying what I don’t believe in, I’m going to tell you my version. I loved The DaVinci Code; it took me no more than 24hs to read it, and believe me: it was a miracle.
When I read a book I’m not interested in the historical aspect, I’m sorry, in fact I don’t pay attention to that aspect. I do only read. Not only did I overlook the historical things in The DaVinci Code but I also did it when I read The pillars of the Earth(everything about how they constructed the cathedral…, I simply jumped it. It was a bit boring for me). When I’m reading that kind of book I’m not searching for historical events…I just want to have a good time with my book. If I wanted to learn about historical things I would just look it up in specialized and not biased books.
I’ve read the comments and now I am surer of my opinion ! A book has to contain a little of fiction, of course, to make people more interested! But it’s extremely important to respect the History, you can create a character but you should never create the whole History! specially because of people who only read ” entertainment books”, we would be lerning at the same time that enjoying.
Dear Chiquilla,
First of all I must say that you have been very brave: telling your point of view is not easy sometimes, so I do respect you.
Secondly, I don’t think you are “uncultured”, as you called yourself (?), just because you don’t enjoy History. But, as far as I know, it’s a pity. If you jump the pages where the book describes the historical backgrounds, you are loosing important information, because those “boring pages” allow you to understand characters behaviour of future fatcs.
Maybe you get surprised but, when I read “The pillars of the Earth” (some years ago, before this book became a best-seller… but that’s another topic), my favourites parts were, as you can imagine, the description of how they constructed the Cathedral. His research on medieval building techniques is superb, I enjoyed every page. Even more, I used to read them twice or three times! Sounds paradoxical, isn’t it? Well, it’s my way of reading.
According to his preface, Ken Follett is not a spiritual person, just a storyteller who found something that so many others have missed. It is impossible to go inside these magnificent structures (a Gothic Cathedral) without wondering at the cost in human capital (not to mention money) that went into them. Follett was able to show the human side of the story in just 900 pages. So far, so good.
Despite a few minor inconsistencies in characters, Follett’s story is fascinating. I would definately recommend it to everyone!
MNT 009, I’ve been reading again all the comments and I think you should be very proud of your mother: she has made a “good job” with your education and now you can have the best of both fields: Humanities and Science lessons, enough knowlegde and tools to think for yourself in any aspect of an adult life. As far as I concerned, this is the best thing parents can do for their children. If I were mother, I would like to do the same.
And I’ll introduce a new issue: don’t you think that tales of real History sometimes are better for children than some of the currently cartoons? (Of couse, they should be adapted to the age and interests of each child, but probably, they’ll be more educative and even interesting)
Tales of reality vs cartoons
I believe sometimes we can achieve a great mixture as I remember some cartoons which I used to love when I was a kid and they were not only entertaining,but also educative (I’m,for instance,talking about Willy Fock.I used to learn and enjoy a lot from this tripping tiger!)
Children enjoy historical trips and reality is often more fascinating than imagination,so I’m in favour of balanced cartoons.
I would like to make a comment about the fact that the tales of real History are better than cartoons. This is totally true. Nowadays, children are too much obsessed with that kind of cartoons that are quite violent and then, it affects their behaviours in a negative way. Tales about History make them to be critical about all of our past and after that, they can think about doing better things in our future.
Today we can’t find educative cartoons as in our childhood. What kind of comparison can we make between South Park and David, the gnome? The first only uses waste words to talk and the other one tries to teach in an educative topics.
Other thing that I would like to say, is for people who only say that they only read books without thinking if the novel is based or not in real events. I admire them only because they are able to read them so quickly but I would like to recommend them than after reading the books, they should search about the most important events. If they do it, they can learn more and finally, they can admire our History.
First of all, Pollock: thanks for not considering me an uncultured person, and what’s more you’ve even called me brave. Such a word coming from you sounds especially grateful.
About the new question you’ve raised: as Agueda has already written I think it’s necessary a mixture between cartoons and tales. She has mentioned one of my favourite series in my childhood, however there’s still one which I simply adored. I did never lost one of “la vida es asi” chapters. That was studies and entertainment at the same time don’t you think? It has happened to me another curious thing and it’s the fact that I ended up studying medicine, and from time to time I do imagine the platelets as I did see them in the cartoons and not as they really are…hope none of my teachers listen this, jejeje.
I think I’ve changed the item a little bit…I’m sorry but what I wanted to say is that violence is not necessary to get children in front of TV…if you show them a good story they’ll get stuck anyway. So isn’t it better to use that time teaching them something that could turn to be (as in my case) helpful in their future?
Pollock, thank you very much for your comment. I’m very proud of my mother, of course, and I wish she’ll be proud of me too. Probably because my father is better at Science lessons and my mother at Humanities, they have gifted me the possibility to be keen on both aspects and have wider range of knowledge. Someone may think that , at school, you are taught about History, Geography and Maths at the same time, but if you don’t really like one subject, are you going to learn anything? That’s the reason why I agree with you because I think I am very lucky to have been given such a good education. I have to thank my parents for all this. I don’t know whether this knowledge will be useful tomorrow when studying a degree or working, but I’m sure that I’ll be happier as I learn more and everything new will be welcomed in my mind.
Talking about the question you suggested, when I was a child I enjoyed two TV cartoons very much. One of them, although it has nothing to do with History, was called El Cuerpo Humano or something like that. It appeared on TV at 8 o’clock in the morning I think, and as I was sleeping by that time, my mother or my father recorded me the chapter everyday so I was able to watch it when I arrived home after school. I still have the videos and ,in my opinion, this was of the best cartoons I’ve ever seen. I learnt a lot with them. The other cartoons were something like Los Inventores and Erase Una Vez El Hombre. I also loved them because they explained all the History facts, and civilizations, and the greatest inventor’s live. I’m not very sure but I think that I still keep that video tapes at home. They were wonderful cartoons , for me. Nothing to do with nowadays’ ones.
From my point of view, a historical novel is one of the most entertaining way to learn about history. Many people hate history at school because they think that it consists of memorizing lists of dates and learning by heart all their notes, but I consider it to be more than that.
It is important to know about history in order to understand most of the problems we are facing nowadays.So reading novels of that kind you can learn a lot without effort and what is more, have a good fun!
For me it is a way of entertainment and knowledge as the same time. In fact this kind of literature is one of my favourites. I remember having read “El Anillo” (Danielle Steel) it was fantastic. In novels like this the author relates a historical moment or a conflict in a society with the help of a romantic story. It makes the novel to be more interesting and you can not give up reading it.