I have started reading a book on the third crusade, (as I will ask about later).   I can date its arrival into my possession quite precisely.  It is called Tomorrow's Fire by Jay Williams and is  seen from the point of view of a troubadour, mostly. I can date it because in its cover, not that I needed to see that, it says it is a prize for me followiing my time in the Upper Sixth, which became the 7th form here, and now is known as Year 13.  I won it for being first in History and third in Latin.  My husband (who also studied Latin) wondered how I could have lived my life, having only achieved third placing in Latin. I see no placing in English or French.  And surely I did a fifth subject, not science or maths or geography.  German I suppose.  There seems an excess of languages in this year's study.   

At any rate this has been on my pile to read for a while (though I have certainly read it before).  It has a blurb by Mary Renault praising it as a great adult novel about the crusades. There's an element of slightly sardonic humour in the small part I have read so far. And also in his foreword, where he mentions that some readers might be vexed by the anachronistic words or phrases.   "However a historical novel is, by its nature, a kind of anachronism in the first place, inevitably so since it is written at a great remove of time. The best one can do is give the illusion of being in a sort of living present, as if the historical novel were really a modern novel for its own period. If, therefore, whenever a disturbingly contemporary word or phrase appears, the reader will simply translate it for himself into its twelfth-century French equivalent everything will then seem perfectly natural and proper."



Is that a reasonable attitude to historical fiction? They certainly can't be completely in the language of the times, otherwise hardly anyone would understand more than a few words.  So when does a word become jarringly anachronistic and when is it reasonable?  Some things can't be used in a historical novel, since they didn't exist at the time - television or cars for obvious ones, but how accurate does weaponry have to be? or rank? or the place and attitudes of and towards women? Sometimes girls in historical fiction seem unnaturally feisty but then you think of those women who held the fort (literally) when their husbands were away.  Or women who made their mark as fishwives or witches or similar; they can't have been docile young girls.  


I haven't read enough of this book to know what he might be referring to anachronistic.

This is an interesting subject, Caro.  For myself, I guess a novel written in good modern English with a few sensible nods to the old world will suit me.  I don't mind references to the Virgin or to the saints because people living in those times would have been familiar with such references. I can do without "Forsooth thou varlet" type of things, though.  I tried to read "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott in my younger days but I had to give it up.  I don't care for Mrs G's books as I think is already known; still she won't worry about my opinions as she laughs her way to the bank.  In their time Walter Scott and Harrison Ainsworth were considered the bee's knees but people don't read them so much now.  Hugh Walpole's "Herries Chronicle" was written decades ago but from what I recall I liked the series and I liked the late Alfred Duggan's books. 

I like things to be as accurate as possible in historical fiction but I have to admit I have no expertise regarding medieval armour and weaponry (it's only when it's really dreadful like the picture of the Richard III starship trooper armour that Ferval inserted on another thread or the "graphic novel" type pictures of female warriors in bikini type things [they'd have lasted a long time on the battle field wouldn't they?] that make me as a non-expert shout "false"].

I thought about your point about the feisty females and did mention something about it on another thread a goodly while ago.  Somebody then mentioned Black Agnes of Dunbar as a woman who held the fort when her husband was away.  There was Joan of Arc of course.  Being a peasant and not having wealth to support her she ended up being burned at the stake.  I wonder how many of the "witches" who ran foul of the law in times gone by were women who dared to have an opinion and charges of witchcraft were trumped up to either frighten them into silence or plain get rid of them. In Cromwellian times Lady Fairfax's tirade against Oliver Cromwell is quite well known of course. Some of the women who supported Robert the Bruce during the Scottish War of Independence were spirited too.  Isabel MacDuff and the Bruce's sister Mary were imprisoned for a time in hanging cages on the side of castles for daring to support the Bruce.  So women of courage did exist.  If I'd lived in such times I might have stayed silent out of fear.  

The above contains my thoughts more than a straightforward answer to your question, Caro.  A book needs to be, as you say, understandable to its target audience whilst correctly portraying the period in which it is set.  Writing dialogue of the "You're a berk" type makes me cringe but so do too many "Forsooths" [and I have two in my post].  Slightly off-topic, the first year I did Latin I got percentages in the 90s in my tests - after a change of teacher at "O" level I only managed to scrape a pass [I did the unseen because I hadn't done the set books properly - they were very badly taught - and there must have been a flying pig in the sky that day].

Funny I was thinking about this just last night whilst reading Steven Saylor's "The Seven Wonders" set in about 90 BC.

It’s written in the first person from the point of view of a young roman, Gordianus, whose native tongue is therefore Latin. It is written in modern English with just the occasional "ave legate" but certainly no "hi, dude"! Gordianus is accompanied throughout by his Greek tutor who at the outset says his pupil needs to practice his Greek. This perfectly believable device thus allows Gordianus to be able to speak with most people he encounters as he travels through Greece, Asia minor and Egypt. In Babylon he converses with people who have limited command of Greek and no Latin, and then Saylor does ape the language of say the typical modern anglophone abroad when he has Gordianus say loudly and stiltedly: "you speakee Greek?", but the usage is limited and is a lot more believable than the situation where everyone of whatever station in life throughout the known world is somehow fluent in a common tongue. Saylor does use some specific archaic words where no simple or relevant modern equivalent exists. For example he uses the Greek megabyzus, which is subtly different from a priest, but is able to have Gordianus’ tutor explain this and other terms to his young pupil, and so also to the reader.

The book is historical fiction featuring a completely fictitious character but he does encounter known people and visit real places, such as the seven wonders of the world of the title. Saylor is usually very meticulous at researching and portraying the time and place. Similarly he attempts to make his characters very much of their time, but his readers do also have to be able to relate to the main characters. So while Gordianus has a somewhat modern cynicism he does act like a typical Roman in that he’s superstitious, believes in charms, magic, omens, the Gods , and he can display typical Roman priggishness and arrogance. Indeed one of the themes of the book is that Gordianus - and so also the reader - is forced to review his conservative Roman-based morality in the light of the people and societies he encounters. But at the end of the day it is only an historical whodunnit, written to be entertainment rather that as some great historical treatise.

I haven't got far enough in my book to see how he deals with languages other that his own (which would be French, but this is a book written for English readers).  At any rate that wort of thing doesn't bother me too much usually.  In the foreword Jay Williams (who I think is or was American) begins with "In following Denys's journal it is well to remember that medieval chroniclers and clerks generally used the Roman system of dividing the months into Kalends, Nones and Ideas with all the attendant confusion of reckoning days before and after those points.  They also, not infrequently, departed from the classical system and thus produced an incredible choas of what appear to overlapping dates. I have tried by periodical comparison with the popular method of numbering the days of the months to keep the chronology clear. Most readers ought, perhaps, to ignore Denys's dates altogether; those who are curious to know the exact dates of his entiires with find a splendid guide in the Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, edited by CR Cheney."

Denys's first entry is dated vi Id.Nov. mclxxxvii.  I just bothered with the year, and can understand Roman numerals. But perhaps this is around the middle of November.  Since there is a good deal of harp playing and knightly sports such as "riding to the quintain" or duelling on horseback [wouldn't I call that 'jousting'?] the medieval terms do crop up, and the fighting for one's favoured woman, and discussions of love in medieval terms.  I haven't got near the Crusade yet. But he has already introduced real people, Peire of Auvergne (who my narrator says attributed Denys's songs to himself. Was this a common complaint between troubadours?). 

Georgette Heyer was renowned for doing excellent, though unattributed, research, but I sometimes found the thieves' cant a bit disruptive, since many of the words used are either obsolete or only used among certain groups. (I seem to be answering something that isn't here, but I am sure it was somewhere.)

Re Latin: I was sad to realise that I was actually third EQUAL in Latin (missed the two little dots beside it). There were only 14 altogether in my form by then, and they certainly didn't all do Latin.  We had a teacher in Year 10 who was keen to ensure the slower girls understood with the result that we were way behind going into our important Year 11 when the national exam took place AND the girls who weren't good at Latin had given it away anyway.

Caro,


I mention this after I have read the message of LIR and MM. And it is also in relationship with your other thread: "Does accuracy in films matter to audiences"

I have read that many books when I was young and still read but only historical ones nowadays...


For me a historical novel has first of all to be a novel with a narrative that is captivating enough to the reader to get stuck to the told history...and it can be written in any modern language...if there are specific terms there is always a way in the narrative to describe and explain it...I remember for instance the word "baljuw"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailli
"Philip II Augustus of France (1180-1223), an able and ingenious administrator who founded the central institutions on which the French monarchy's system of power would be based, prepared the expansion of the royal demesne through his appointment of baillis in the king's land (the domaine royal),^[1] based on medieval fiscal and tax divisions (the "baillie") which had been used by earlier sovereign princes (such as the Duke of Normandy). In Flanders, the count appointed similar bailiffs, called the baljuw — a term directly derived from bailli ."
In one story they didn't explicitely explain the word but by the description in the narrative at the end you knew what it was..

A second necessity is in my opinion that the real historical facts are verified and accurate...if one makes from the circumstantial events some fictious stories to embellish the novel why not...nobody will ever know what really happened in the background of the great events...

A third interesting and supporting the veracity of the novel, is when the author has studied the attitudes and life circumstances of the described historical time and that in such a way that he is as embedded in that particular time, as acting of the point of view of a contemporary of that time with all the beliefs, anxieties and ignorances of it...

I give some examples of authors that in my humble opinion stick to those standards...
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/33472.Mika_Waltari
http://www.amazon.com/The-Egyptian-Novel-Rediscovered-Classics/dp/1556524412


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_P%C3%A9rez-Reverte
To learn my Spanish I read the cycle of Capitan Alatriste from him...and some other novels...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_McCullough
I read several books from her...


Michel Peyramaure
I read several books from him:
http://www.amazon.com/Michel-Peyramaure/e/B001JP3AXY

Didn't find anything in English...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Peyramaure

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Thanks for those comments.  Paul, I have only read Colleen McCullough of those authors you mentioned (and then I think just The Thorn Birds); I like the sound of Mika Waltari though I had not heard of him before this.  (By the way I haven't forgotten your reply to my other thread, which I mean to get back to sometime.)

I thought more about this the other night, and I wondered really why historical novels shouldn't use our very modern vernacular.  In a way, the most modern way of speaking would be what people were using in the past too.  It reads 'old-fashioned' to us, but unless it is poetry or poetic the reported speech of the time would have been up to the minute.  Chaucer seems to me to have written in the modern English of the time, and perhaps to get the feel of the characters our contemporary authors should use phrases like "Hey Dude" if they are writing of a young modern man.  After all, they wouldn't have used "Hello" then either, but we don't feel that is anachronistic and not to be used in historical novels.  (Of course, it is not just in historical novesl that Hey Dude makes me cringe!)

I will have said this before, but I feel this when I go to Anzac Day services. They are very solemn in NZ, and reverential (I think Australia has a more ra-ra feel to theirs and uses them for a bit of nationalistic pride) and aimed at honouring the soldiers.  But I think these were very young men often, using black humour, drinking, smoking, and trying to find fun in their circumstances.  This seems to have been forgotten in our eagerness to show our respect and honour their memory. I suppose in plays and dramas this would be to the forefront, but it's not in our services.  

Cheers, Caro. (Off now to swap books on bookshelf which will just show me dozens of books I want to read, and which I know I won't get to. Must ignore the books in the library and read my own. But how could I ignore a book with the title "The Extraordinary Life of Frank Derrick, Age 81" and a Henning Mankell?)

Thank you very much for the reply Caro.

"I will have said this before, but I feel this when I go to Anzac Day services. They are very solemn in NZ, and reverential (I think Australia has a more ra-ra feel to theirs and uses them for a bit of nationalistic pride) and aimed at honouring the soldiers.  But I think these were very young men often, using black humour, drinking, smoking, and trying to find fun in their circumstances.  This seems to have been forgotten in our eagerness to show our respect and honour their memory. I suppose in plays and dramas this would be to the forefront, but it's not in our services. "

Wise words, Caro, wise words indeed.

Kind regards and with esteem, Paul.

I may as well put this here, as it is about the same book and is about the style used.  He has in one part talked of his knowledge of what the situation is further on in time, up to his present day.  It was quite interesting but I found it a little jarring, especially perhaps since I am a third of the way through and this is the first time he has done this.



The format is we read Denys's diaries then have the authorial voice explaining beyond that; This is the paragraph I found slightly awkward - he didn't just explain what the situation was with tournaments in the 12th century and earlier, but much later as well.  "In England they were a rarity, partly because of the English dislike for show - a certain rustic simplicity which persists to this very day, so that uncouth tweeds and ill-fitting hats are the surest badges of the county nobility - and partly because of the Saxon stolidity which manifested itself in a bull-dog distruct of anything frivolous. Eventually the Crown imposed an entertainment tax upon participants. Then the Church banned tournaments as immoral...This was the turning point: at once tournaments became immensely popular in Britain. Nevertheless the English denied that they received any pleasure from them, only maintaining stoutly that it was an Englishman's right to tourney if he chose, and that in any case England's victories had been won on the jousting fields of Eton.  William de Braose's tournament, however, took place long before that day arrived..."

I don't think of this book as trying out post-modern ideas, so it reads a little oddly, sticking modern history and the author's opinions on county nobility here.  Am I just being too rigid in my attitudes to writing here?

It's true that the phrasing sounds a little strange in the piece you have quoted, Caro, but if it's only one part of the book maybe that is not so bad. Jarring style or not, the writer may have a point about people liking to do what is forbidden - when two-way radios became legal in the early 1980s the interruptions on the (normal) radio of "This is Flying Horse looking out for a copy" greatly diminished in number.  Of course these days we have the internet but the internet was not there in the early 1980s.

To me too that would seem to sit oddly in an historical novel - and I'm not sure it is even factually correct. I am reminded of some of the references in the Roman 'Falco' novels of Lindsey Davis. But her style is to have her character, Falco, make an oblique reference to some issue that the reader will recognise as a humourous and self-effacing critique of a more modern stereotype or prejudice (for example such as referring to the ancient Britons as emotionally undemonstrative, or the southern Italians as lazy). She however can get away with it by putting the words into the mouth of her character, and by doing so making the supposedly worldly-wise Falco actually appear, to the reader, as a rather parochial, ignorant, bigot ... probably like any typical Roman citizen visiting barbaric Britannia, or Sicily for the first time.