The True Story of the Kelly Gang (Peter Carey) is one of the best novels I've ever read. The kind of book I read and think: wish I'd written that.

Jim

Hi Emma,

I suppose authenticity is one thing: I read somewhere that Kate Grenville wrote The Secret River by approaching it as a historian, researching and working from there. I wonder sometimes though, is that not a little limiting? Of course, we need the framework to support the story, the cold hard facts to ensure we don't lose the reader's faith. But are most readers looking for that? (My history supervisors would want to shoot me if they were reading this!) I'm not sure people look and say, "ah! X couldn't have done that, because he was in Y at that time", that's for pedantic historians like myself to pick up and complain about Are we trying to be faithful to ourselves? Or our sources? (Sorry, rambling out loud to myself)

The attitudes thing troubles me. Take my current research, looking at a remote island penal settlement in the 19th Century, where prisoners who had been transported to Australia and reoffended were sent, supposedly the worst convicts in the colony. What went on there sometimes defies belief and I wonder sometimes how I'm to maintain my even-handed treatment. Mind you, I suppose that's something to explore in the story I'm writing alongside it...

By the way, if you're ever interested in checking up on some Australian history, I'd recommend Manning Clark's 6-volume History of Australia. I know it sounds daunting (and lots of other historians are a bit sniffy about it), but Clark wrote some of the most beautiful prose I've read in my life, it's almost transcendental. Worth haveing a quick poke into, anyway.

Jim - thanks for the heads-up on the TLS.

all the best,

Iain

Yes, the TLS looks great - normally I work my way through the week's issue in bits, waiting for the kettle to boil and so on, but this one needs a serious bath, and it won't go in the recycling either.

Interesting that Kate Grenville approached The Secret River it as a historian, but has still managed to get up an important historian's nose - presumably she would have read a bit of his work, if it's as major as it sounds. I do wonder if after all the facts, she just couldn't quite bear to make her MC as much of his time, morally speaking, as he ought to be. I know I sailed fairly close to the wind in the same way with TMOL.

I've just written a scene in an alchemist's workshop, starting from a real recipe and a couple of pictures and some real historical figures, but basically making it up. Does that matter? Am I morally or artistically obliged to check it all out? What if the 'real' facts I find mean that the important thematic point I'm really making isn't allowable? That's really why I'm wimping out of checking it.

What intrigues me about this business of 'getting it right' is what's going on when, as the reader, you realise the author's got it wrong - whether it's mobiles in the 14th century for most readers, or some obscure fact about the Albigensian heresy for the one expert who reads the book. We know it's fiction, so why does it matter? Somehow, we have to have a faith in a storyteller, which is then shaken by something we know to be wrong. But what is that faith made up of? It can't be that she will tell us the literal truth, after all. So what is it? It goes to the heart of what storytelling as a human activity is for, and if anyone can explain it to me, they'll get an acknowledgement in my PhD.

Emma

Here's something about Grenville and her approach:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4803084.stm
http://www.nla.gov.au/events/history/papers/Kate_Grenville%20.html


Oral history, now there's a minefield and a half...

Oral history, now there's a minefield and a half...

Indeed it is! I remember Helen Dunmore saying of The Siege that she felt responsible to the people she talked to, who were veterans of the siege of Leningrad, not to mis-represent their story. Part of me nodded and felt she was doing the proper sensitive thing, and part of me felt - Why not? This is fiction, she's not writing history, she's not using real names... And there were the Brick Lane people who got the film moved from there, because they felt it didn't represent them (not to mention the Birmingham Rep scandal).

Does no one understand any more that fiction is stories - inventions - lies? (let's leave the wretched James Frey out of it) And yet, and yet... why do we read it, if it doesn't have some correspondence with what we know of human life? The question seems to be, which correspondences are necessary, and which aren't, and which positively shouldn't be there?

Emma

<Added>

Iain, thank you for those links - another little brick in the wall of my PhD.

Emma

my 19th cent. woman in TMOL

I know I sailed fairly close to the wind in the same way with TMOL

they'll get an acknowledgement in my PhD

another little brick in the wall of my PhD.

In a futile attempt to drag this thread away from Emma's book, her PhD and back to the original thread, I've finally read one of the Booker contenders - Carry Me Down, by MJ Hyland. I'm no expert when it comes to literary fiction, if this counts as such, but I thought it was brilliant. Reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye on several levels, particular the boy trapped in a man's body and the mixture of mature in immature in one character. Some very memorable scenes and simple, clear English throughout. Hard to put down, sad and engaging. I love books like this, where the grotesque is hidden in the subtleties of the mundane - it makes your skin crawl. For some reason I found it hard to believe thew writer is female - maybe because the male MC is so real.

So that's my offering. I'd love to read another, but I've just picked up the Da Vinci Code instead (only because I'm too skint to buy the DVD - out today )

Colin M

Yes, a friend of mine read the Hyland book recently and was absolutely bowled over by it - obviously a remarkable piece of writing.

Colin, I'm sorry if you feel this thread has gone off-topic. As the subject turned to historical fiction by way of the shortlisted The Secret River, in the discussion I was using such examples as I have to hand, which in the nature of things stem from my day job.

Emma

I've got all the Booker shortlist now,and am struggling - really struggling - with the Sarah Waters' novel. To me it seems very cliched and has some interminably dull long sections about the womenfolk - surely all these women can't only go out with each other?? There must be other Lesbians in wartime London they could try - it's all very incestuous!! And don't even mention the (groan!) miscarriage and the (more groaning) affair with a married man section ... haven't we had all this before, and wasn't Bette Davis in the film??

This is such a surprise, as usually I enjoy Waters' writing. Ah well, even Homer nods.

A
xxx

Oh dear, I've been saving it up for a treat. I did feel one passage she read at an otherwise excellent reading - she's very articulate and interesting about what she does - went on a bit long, but it had been a long day...

Emma

Oh, I'm sorry, Emma - it's probably just me though!!

==:O

A
xxx