The Sweet Filth of History (Guest Blogger Jesse Bullington)
In yesterday’s essay I talked a bit about writing fiction set in a historical past on a rather broad level, and so today I would like to address what to me constitutes the single most important aspect of writing historical fiction—realism. Coming from the guy whose novel contains witches and demons, I know, but hear me out. The pleasure I get from a book often hinges on how realistic—according to its own fictional reality—I find it, which goes just as much for consistency and realization of character as it does for the setting and plot. Given the wide sea of scholarship one must wade through, writing a realistic past as opposed to a romanticized one is almost as difficult as creating realistic characters to populate it.
Capturing the mindset of characters the better part of a millennium removed from both writer and reader is hard work, and before it can even begin one has to have as tight a grasp as possible on the catfish-slick beast that is history because until one really knows their physical world they have no hope of knowing the minds of the people who populate it. Then there is the infinitesimally fine line of describing the world for readers without being overly expository—it’s not as though real people usually comment on the details and peculiarities of their era or locale in a fashion that would be easily understood by an outsider. Flora and fauna, landscapes both political and literal, theology and superstition, currency and attire, transport and technology, specific cultures and general lifestyles, in short, everything that constitutes reality, must be both present and unobtrusive, lest the novel tilt toward an anachronistic or simply unrealistic world or go the other direction and be a plodding exercise in world-building with all the excitement of an especially dull textbook. Obviously including everything and rendering a perfect facsimile of a historical past is impossible, but the struggle to come as close as possible is, in my opinion, an important one.
One thing which has been brought up in many a critique of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart is the book’s perceived filthiness. All I really care to say in response is that I set out to write a very human novel, a story, for all its supernatural elements, about real people. Real people get sick, real people void waste, real people are full of all sorts of substances that can be distasteful when they leave the body by hook or by crook. Blood, excrement, urine, pus, vomit, and yes, even sexual fluids are all occasionally referenced in the book, but such things are simply human, and in attempting to write a fantastical novel with a human heart I needed blood, and once the blood got going and the heart started beating the skin started to sweat, and soon the excreta began to build and the rest, well, is perfectly natural.
I understand why some writers choose to gloss over matters they find unfit for dinner table conversation but to me it often smacks of willful escapism—swordfights are not glorious, they are vicious and desperate, and living in pre-modern cities is not romantic, it is, by today’s standards of hygiene, rather disgusting. This is not to say that everyone needs to write in graphic detail about their character’s bathroom habits for a book to be realistic, but for me the actions and settings of many a historical-set text come off as whitewashed. This does not even touch on the endemic problem of characters in historical settings having a modern, broad worldview instead of a realistic, era-appropriate mindset that might rightly be perceived as narrow and comparatively uneducated.
Again, a call for more realism coming from the guy whose novel contains witches and demons. For me, however, having realistic characters and settings is as crucial to successful fantasy and horror as it is to straight historical fiction. Period pieces should have dirt under their fingernails, not Converse All Stars under their ballgowns.
Pierre Lourens on December 02, 2009 at 04:53 PM
When I read at a young age, I always became upset when I realized that the protagonist had never, ever gone to the bathroom (in the entire book!), yet I had to rise several times in my whole-day-reading-extravaganza.
It was just unfair. I agree: bathroom habits aren't necessary, but some level of naturalness helps provide empathy.
Pierre Lourens on December 02, 2009 at 05:03 PM
As an example, I read Wilbur Smith's "Birds of Prey" when I was probably 14 years old. The sexual parts, other than being understandably exciting for a 14-year-old, completely helped me step into the characters' shoes. Love that book.
Jesse Bullington on December 03, 2009 at 10:54 AM
Ha! Right you are, Pierre--realism extends beyond the obvious examples of unpleasantness I listed, and anything from a well-described meal to a (plausible) intimate encounter to a character getting burs in their trousers or sea-spray in their eyes can help ground things and remind the reader that these are supposed to be actual people instead of Garys and Marys who have never gotten a cold or seen the inside of a privy.