By and large I’m not a person who favours any kind of compartmentalising. But I acknowledge that many people have this need and for matters of organisation it is often a necessity. When it comes to books I am always reluctant to restrict myself to preferring this or that genre but perhaps I might make an exception when it comes to historical fiction. I do like the genre and my little ‘booktennae’ respond when the genre is mentioned or I catch sight of it somewhere. Given my eclectic taste in literature why is this genre such a pull? Perhaps it is because I am a bit of a history nerd. Except that I love physical history. I love being in places of historical significance; to be in Anne Boleyn’s bedroom at Hever Castle touching the wall or the fireplace and wondering if her hand had lingered over those very spots, to walk in Hampton Court Palace wondering if I was treading the same steps as Henry VIII, St. Georges Chapel at Windsor had me overflowing as I passed the last resting places of so many persons of note and when I stood by the coffin of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral knowing I was a few feet away from his very bones gave me what I will simply call a ‘histgasm’!
But historical fiction is not physical history so perhaps my enjoyment of the genre is a way of vicariously enjoying history from the comfort of my own unhistorical home.
Historical fiction requires a fusion of thorough research and expansive imagination. The writer of historic fiction has to be careful that the overlap between the two doesn’t tarnish the research because there’s always the risk that some nit picker is waiting, ready to pounce on the slightest inaccuracy. You just can’t mess with the facts. If you’re writing a novel abut the Titanic you can’t change the outcome and have the ship sail on into New York with the Strauss couple and the Astors intact. I suppose you could but that would be a whole new genre - ‘historical magicism’! But it’s also the motivation for writing historical fiction that fascinates me. In one sense some of the work is already done - characters, locations, events - it is the writer;s research and imagination that fuse the lot together. But what is the initial stimulus? A favourite period? An admired monarch or historical figure? An event from the past that consumes the imagination to the extent you simply can’t let go of it? It isn’t enough to read and research the facts. The facts are used to construct a fictional, yet plausible narrative around what is already known. I wonder, if for the writer, it is a way of vicariously getting closer to the subject matter? It certainly is for the reader. Or it is for this reader anyway! Or maybe there are parallels that enable a writer to figure something out in their own life? The conjectures are many. I actually think that authors of historical fiction are extraordinarily brave because it’s always going to be something of a gamble. So much depends on ‘getting it right’.
So what has suddenly prompted all this analysis and ruminating on the subject? Well, I’ve just read Sophie Haydock’s The Flames. A debut novel, apparently. I say apparently because it didn’t read like a debut! It read like the work of an experienced novelist. And I loved it. It had been on my radar for ages when an author friend mentioned that she had bought a copy for her son’s 21st birthday and wondered if I had read it which I hadn’t at that point. Then it seemed to pop up everywhere on social media by which time my ‘bookstinct’ had firmly kicked in. My copy was a reward for my contribution to an online book community, a reward I got to choose, I hasten to add. But the book has been sitting on my TBR pile for weeks if not months. Then by some strange coincidence I noticed that the author of the book was at Ilkley Book Festival with……..the author who first put the book on my radar back in May. To me that augured well. So, finally, this month I treated myself to the reading of it and treat was the operative word!
The book is an imagining surrounding the lives of four women who were the muses of Austrian artist Egon Schiele. And in this substantial, powerful work the writer gives voice to these women who provided the subjects for some of the startling and explicit work of this incredible artist. The four women are Edith and Adele Harms, two sisters who lived opposite Schiele, his sister Gertrude and Vally, a model, friend, loyal to Egon yet fiercely independent.
Each woman is given her own section of the book and thanks to the immaculate plotting of the novel the crossover between their lives is seamless as we read each woman’s story and make the relevant links. What struck me was how the writer’s development of each character enabled the relevance of the reactions and interactions to be seen from each individual woman’s perspective. So the reader was privy to viewing the same event through different eyes. It was quite fascinating.
As well as being a work of historical fiction it’s also a book about art and artists. We learn much about Schiele himself, and his upbringing. He is a fascinating person, brought to life under Haydock’s skilful pen. I can’t say I warmed to him but his passion for his art was consummate. His paintings were challenging during his lifetime time and I imagine that for some they are no less so now. But I chuckled at Adele when her sister questioned her about whether she liked Schiele’s painting of her.
‘It’s not about whether I like it or not. It’s art.’
And perhaps the real point of the book is best summed up by a present day character, Eva,
‘I never stopped to imagine that these models had lives of their own. Living, breathing….’
I think that what makes this such a engrossing work is how vibrant the narrative is. It is no dry imagining, these women leap out of the pages, living and breathing their lives into our consciousness in such a way that we will never forget them. And of course the novel impacts on our future appreciation of Schiele’s work, how could it do otherwise? In fact I can think of no other work save perhaps Tracey Chevalier’s Girl With a Pear Earring that propels art and history to such a palpable and accessible place. And against it all the backdrop of WW1 and the Spanish flu.
But we’ll let Edith have the last word,
’There’s only one choice Edith can make, that much is clear, to believe in love.
For without it we are nothing.’
No comments:
Post a Comment