History
and The Novel:
A Manifesto

The past is not a foreign country. It’s knowable, alive, and around us. How do novelists learn about the past? Often, they start reading history. But novelists are freer than historians; they may use their imagination.

Were people in the past like us? In my opinion, yes and no. But I think we share more with our ancestors than what separates us from them. A novelist may lift Joe Doe, Wall Street stockbroker, add or subtract a few character traits, and drop him into a jungle transformed as a conquistador.

 

Knight of Malta
Knight of Malta

So, how do we seize the Past?

Here is a personal catalog of places where I’ve learned history and conducted research.

-Museums

When I travel, museums are obligatory stops, and that's all kinds of museums: historical, art, photography, food, military. Museums tells us how people lived, dressed, what weapons they used, and what they believed.

One example: Find the suit of armor of a boy prince. Takeaway: our concepts of war and childhood don't apply to the past.
Another Example: This page cover photo, the knight of Malta (Museum of Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain). There is so much to learn from this portrait: the knight's societal status, the fashion of the historical moment. Also, it's a character waiting for someone to tell his story.
Learn More
Thomas Jefferson Main Reading Room, Library of Congress

-Reference Guides

A while back, I attended a conference in Madrid entitled, "History and Literature: Crossroads." The conference was moderated by the historian Jordi Canal of the École des Haute Études in Paris. For days, eminent historians and novelists debated the borders, hybrid forms, and the commonalities between History and Literature. The lessons were incredible. Again, I will mention just two.

First: Santiago Posteguillo, author of the Scipio trilogy, advised: "You can't write without having read the great references of the period."
Well, you can't or you shouldn't because it shows and, granted, it's hard. First sources can be ponderous bores.

Second: Novelists must find a balance between their stories and the research. As Juan Eslava Galán put it: "the scaffolding must be there but the reader mustn't see it."

Start with librarians.
Learn More

-Landscapes

I once read a novel about medieval Arabia where the desert was barely mentioned. It was obvious that the author had never visited the country or even researched it. 

Do novelists have to travel to the setting of their books? Actually, I don't think so. Shakespeare is often quoted as a writer who set stories in distant lands without having traveled. Of course, we don't live in Shakespeare's times when few people roamed far from home.

In the 21st century, readers may not have visited Arabia but if they live in Arizona, they will be familiar with how sand flows on surfaces, for instance. Once again, novelists must do their research.

Travel guides are a great place to start.
Learn More
junto-al-muro-elias-nir-shalom-1926.jpg

-Faith and Social Mores

Historians and novelists are creatures of their times. Nowhere is this clearer than in the areas of religion and social mores, where modern mainstream culture and sensibilities clash with past values.

What's the path of least resistance for novelists in historical fiction? To ignore faith and old social mores and endow characters with our ideas, to write against religious thought and its heros (see: Hilary Mantel and her Wolf Hall trilogy). To turn history upside down and transform historical characters into "the modern man" or woman. The trend, called presentism, results in the multiplication of freethinkers across societies and eras.

So, why write about Renaissance Europe? Or Mecca. Or ancient Athens. Why not abandon historical fiction altogether and write fantasy?
Learn More
Master Abbot, Human Cultural Asset #48

-Arts and Crafts

Folklore and crafts are usually of no interest to historians, but they are invisible mooring cables to the departing ship of the past.

When I lived in South Korea, I visited the temple of Bongwon-sa. Yi Manbong, Master Abbot of the T'aego sect, lived there. Yi was an authority in temple painting, a little man with tremendous eyebrows and knowing eyes that the South Korean designated as Human Cultural Asset #48, a national treasure.

Lucky me, I walked into his study, smelled his brushes and paint saucers, and the Jaseon dynasty of the Hermit Kingdom flashed before my eyes.
Learn More
Muslim-Judge

-The Detail

In the novel Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes writes about the detail that elucidates the past, a detail that connects the story with the present, illuminating the fictional moment, making it understandable and relevant to present-day readers. That detail may be as simple as the smell of sesame seed sprinkled on a warm roll. Or it can be an unexpected sight, such as the presence of a Muslim judge on the main altar of a Spanish cathedral.
Learn More