Gore Vidal, in the afterword of his novel, BURR, pretty much sets out the rules of the road in historical fiction. "To me, the attraction of the historical novel is that one can be as meticulous (or as careless!) as the historian and yet reserve the right not only to rearrange events, but most important, to attribute motive--something the conscientious historian or biographer ought never do."
We sometimes get ourselves into trouble commenting on novels set in ancient Egypt when we confuse historical fiction with the historical romance novel. In the former genre the author is privileged to exploit all of the advantages that come with the literary license defined by Gore Vidal. The same is true for historical romances. The difference then is not one of license, but of performance. The practitioner of historical romance is not required to value character development or complexity of plot with the same urgency as the writer of historical fiction. In today's world the distinction between the two genre is sometimes blurred by CPA editors and all too willing bloggers who by sleight-of-hand pawn off historical romances as historical fiction.
All of this is not to denigrate historical romance novels. This genre has tens of thousands of followers. Witness for example the success of Michelle Moran's novels. She is most certainly the present queen of the historical romance. It would be a mistake, of course, to compare her romance novels with the stellar lights of historical fiction such as Robert Graves, Collen McCullough,Pauline Gedge and Mary Renault. Ms. Moran has not reached for those heights, and it is perhaps unfair to measure her work outside the genre she writes in.
Friday, September 9, 2011
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