Contemporary English Historical Fiction

Contemporary English Historical Fiction
I. Introduction
Britain is the home of European historical fiction. Walter Scott, a famous English novelist whose main contribution to literature is largely in historical novel is generally believed to be the true father of European historical fiction. From Walter Scott on, many British writers focus on history and many historical novels came into being, but for quite a long time British historical novels could not match the glamour of the historical novels by Walter Scott.
However, since the end of the sixtieth in the last century, there comes the sudden boom of historical fiction in Britain. Not only historical novelists write historical novels, but also some famous serious novelists write some historical novels. Such a boom is due to the historical turn in literature. Since literature is related with either philosophy or history in some literary critics' eyes, and many materials in novels are from history, the boom of historical fiction in English literature is quite understandable: "almost all novels are set in the past, even those written in the present tense."
There is a dispute over what novel concerning the past is a historical novel. The father of historical fiction, Walter Scott, set the rule: "it is sixty years since." In the thirties in the last century, the Marxist critic Lukas argued that early historical novels like those by Scot, Balzac, and Tolstoy showed that man's nature was not fixed but transformed over time; thus, they showed that revolution was possible and, in doing so, made it more likely. But now it is generally believed that historical fiction includes a wide range of works on the basis of biographical details and historical events which are set in the periods other than the writer's and contemporary readers' time, representing characters in interaction with settings, culture, and people of the past.
For quite a long time historical fiction was considered to be a kind of popular literature, but not a serious genre of fiction, but since the seventies in the last century, the historical novel has become fiction's most prominent and enduring subgenre and has, moreover, unshackled itself from its earlier image as a somewhat lowbrow cousin to serious writing. Critics have perceived changes in the fundamental attitude of some historical fiction, changes that appear to be related to a parallel narrative turn in historical writing, and to the impact of poststructuralism and post modernism on literary fiction. Historical fiction now is a hybrid form, half between fiction and nonfiction. It is a pioneer country, without fixed laws. To some, if it is fiction, anything is permitted in the novel. To others, wanton invention when facts are to be found, or, worse, contradiction of well-known facts, is a
horror: a violation of an implicit contrast with the reader, and a betrayal of the people written about.
In contemporary British literature Booker Prize is generally believed to be the bellwether for the novel writing in Britain. In 2009 all of the six novels in the shortlist of Booker Prize, J.M. Coetzee's Summertime, A.S.Byatt's The Children's Book, Simon Mawer's The Glass Room, Sarah Water's The Little Stranger, Adam Foulds' The Quickening Maze and the final winner Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall are all historical novels. The competition was very fierce. The Booker Prize Committee chairman James Naughty thinks, the Booker Prize awarded Wolf Hall because "this is a great work. Narrative and plot bold...... Strange is that, in the words of Hilary Mantel, one of the judges said, with the contemporary novel tells of a sixteenth Century story." "This morning we several together, we don't know who will eventually win."Naughty said, "I think we in the voting process were very tired, but let us encouraged, we finally selected a worthy Man Booker Prize to honor the work." Naughty also said: "the 6 entries are very good, close, Mantel's Wolf Hall is just the mountains the slightly higher head mountain, other works will be remembered for the reader."
Very interestingly, but not accidently, Lost Man Booker Prize went to J. G. Farell's Troubles in 2010. Farell won the Booker Prize in 1973 for his novel The Siege of Krishnapur, a historical novel. After Mantel won the Booker Prize in 2009 for her historical novel, Wolf Hall,which is set around the English Reformation in Tudor period, in 2012 her another historical novel Bring Up the Bodies as a succeeding novel to Wolf Hall won the Booker Prize. Historical novels have won many literary prizes in Britain so far, which has attracted a great attention of literary critics. If we look back at the history of the Booker Prize, in its 45 years' history altogether 17 historical novels have won the prize, accounting for 1/3 of the total.
These historical novels are P. H. Newby's Something to Answer for in 1969，John Berger's G in 1972, J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur in 1973, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust in 1975, Paul Scott's Staying On in 1977, William Golding's Rites of Passage in 1980, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children in 1981, Thomas Kenneally's Schindler's Ark in l982, J. M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K in1983, Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda in 1988, A. S. Byatt's Possession in 1990, Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger in 1992, Pat Barker's The Ghost Road in 1995, Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in 2009, the Lost Man Booker Prize winner J. G. Farell's Troubles in 2010 ( The Lost Man Booker was designed to be awarded just once, to a book published during a period in 1970 that wound up being unsuitable for the Booker Prize because of rules' change.) and Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies in 2012.
Besides the historical novels that have won the Booker Prize, such historical novels as John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman in 1969, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient in 1992 and Margret Drabble's The Red Queen in 2004 are very famous and noteworthy.
The boom of historical fiction in Britain has many reasons. First, Britain is the home of historical fiction and for quite a long time historical fiction has fully developed and there is very large and stable readership of historical fiction in Britain, and secondly, the wave of new historicism in the west gives rise and impetus to English historical fiction, and also many novelists try their best to make some experiment in fiction and they use history as a platform to convey some ideals and practice their writing techniques.
That recent British and anglophone fiction has taken a historical turn has become a focus of critical commentary on the contemporary British literary scene. The historical novel, a subgenre of the English novel with a continuous presence since the eighteenth century, has in the past two decades flourished, enjoying popular success with a devoted readership, undergoing energetic feminist and postcolonial revisions, winning significant prizes, inspiring film and television adaptations, and commanding significant critical attention.
Historical fiction includes a wide range of works with a basis in biographical details and historical events, set in periods other than the writer's and contemporary readers' times, and representing characters in interaction with settings, cultures, events, and people of the past. Some writers, such as Patrick O'Brian and J. G. Farrell, built careers on historical fiction. Many more novelists (Penelope Fitzgerald, Hilary Mantel, Timothy Mo, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson) have written one or two critically acclaimed historical novels, while not dedicating themselves exclusively to this genre. A few writers (Peter Ackroyd and Stevie Davies) have written both nonfictional historical works or biographies and also fictional narratives set in the past.
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II. The Characteristics of Contemporary English Historical Fiction
In contemporary English historical novels readers can find six outstanding characteristics such as imperial complex, reflection on wars, exposure of humanity and transmission of ideals, reflection of colonialism, rewriting of history and experiment in historical novels in techniques.
1.Imperial Complex
After the Second World War, Britain began to decline dramatically and irreversibly. The obvious recession in every aspect in the country disappointed the English people. As the English strength was decreasing gradually many English colonies began to resort to independence and finally gained independence one after another. Although Britain is never an empire where the sun never sets, the contemporary English people are still obsessed with the past glamour of the Commonwealth. Many people have very strong imperial complex. Some novelists also have strong imperial complex and they show such a nostalgic historical novel to recall the past good time in colonial countries. Historical novels to reflect colonial life and historical events come into being successively in Britain.
P. H. Newby's Something to Answer for, J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur and Paul Scott's Staying On are such representative historical novels. On the basis of Suez Canal Crisis the novel Something to Answer for shows the helplessness and hopelessness of British Empire through the loss of the protagonist's identity in Egypt. The Siege of Krishnapur shows the true India at the time of the Indian national uprising throughout the country in 1857, but the historical novel tries its best to beautify English rule and weaken the reality that English manipulated India in very field. The insulting event of oiling bullets with butter and lard is only considered to be the result of cultural misunderstanding and therefore, it is treated lightly but not seriously at all. There is not any reflection on it, and there are, quite understandably, no any words of criticism on it. Staying On focuses on one English couple who decide to stay in India after India gained independence and British army left India. The novel unveils from the perspective of the couple. It exposes the contradiction and conflict between Britain and India before Indian independence in comparatively authentic way, and it also shows some aspects of politics, economy, people's life and their state of mind after Indian independence.
2. Refection on Two World Wars
The bloodiness and cruelty of the two world wars leave an inerasable memory for the Europeans, including English people. The war trauma remains as a collective or historical memory that gives rise to the depiction of the two world wars in the historical novels in British literature. In addition, the cloud of the cold war was cast over the whole world. Many people at that time were afraid that the deepening tension between the two regimes might lead to the third world war if the situation could not be properly handled. Any miss meant a terrible disaster. There was a universal call for world peace and a resistance against wars among the western people, and the English were not the exception. Based on the First World War Pat Barker's The Ghost Road reveals the distortion of humanity and the cruelty of the war.
Besides the two world wars, civil wars in ex-colonial countries were frequent after independence, which brought misery and disaster to the people in those countries. J. M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K narrates the disaster brought about by the civil war in South Africa, revealing the humble, helpless and hopeless situation for the common people, and the people's life was nothing but only dust.
3. Exposure of Humanity and Transmission of Ideals
Some English writers use historical materials as a platform to reveal humanity and express their ideals. William Golding's Rites of Passage narrates a story which is about the happenings in a ship sailing to colonial Australia during Napoleon War Period in the early 19th century. The historical novel exposes the grace and also vices of humanity, illustrating the idea that human nature is both benevolent and vicious. Thomas Kenneally's Schindler's Ark tells readers a heart-touching story about rescuing the lives of the Jews in the Nazi concentration camps at the risk of lives during the holocaust in the Second World War. At the time of creating the image of the hero, Oscar Schindler, the shortcomings of the hero's are also exposed as an average man. The novel radiates humanitarian glamour here and there, projecting the greatness of humanity.
4. Reflection of Colonialism
After the Second World War English colonies became independent successively, but many remain as members of the Commonwealth after their independence. In Britain there are many immigrant writers from the ex-colonial countries, and there are also many writers who write in English in the Commonwealth countries beyond Britain. Some of these writers write historical novels to expose and reflect the influence and harm that colonialism has brought to their mother countries.
Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust covers a history of fifty years before and after Indian independence. Under the English rule before independence, Indian people suffered enormously from the English exploitation and enslavement. Their customs and tradition were despised and tramped, too. There was no dignity for the native Indian people. The colonists were only interested in exploitation and plunder, and therefore, India, "Imperial Jewel in the Crown", was only the producer of raw materials and manufacturing factories. There was no any real development for India. Such colonial exploitation and plunder resulted in India's poverty and backwardness for more than ten years after its independence. The Indians were still ignorant and unintelligent, and old habits and customs remained the same. The novel relates the sufferings and permanent harm that English colonists have brought to Indian people.
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children displays the significant historical event in India from 1919 to 1997 through three generations. The novel describes the side effects of colonialism and exposes such disastrous consequences of English colonialism in India as religious conflict and national disunity.
On the basis of England and Australia in the 19th century as the background Peter
Carey's Oscar and Lucinda narrates the history of English cultural invasion into Australian native culture. Under the help of guns and cannons English culture erased native Australian culture. English invasion not only has ravaged native Australian culture, but also spoiled the natives' souls. Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger directs its attention toward the detestable slave trade in the 18th century. The novel denounces the monstrous crimes that the colonists have committed when they explore the colonies.
5. Rewriting of History
Due to the limitation of historical recording historical events can be covered, or ever worse, be distorted. Since the end of the 1970s a new trend of thought which is concerned with rewriting of history first appeared in America and soon it swept throughout Europe and then the whole world. Some historical events have been reexamined and rewritten, and some people who have been marginalized or seldom, or even not mentioned at all in previous history have a chance to appear in some of the historical novels. Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang reexamines the distorted image of a forest bandit Kelly Gang in previous history, rectifying the long-held wrong image of the hero.
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in 2009 recreates a historical figure Thomas Cromwell, a controversial but outstanding statesman in the transitional period of Britain from medieval feudalism to modern capitalism. For quite a long time the great statesman has been regarded as a villain and a cheat. However, under Mantel's pen this historical figure is recreated as a loyal and faithful courtier, a grateful man, a filial son, a benevolent master and a sympathetic humanist. In the novel Cromwell takes center stage, and here he plays the "enlightened" statesmen: "a gentle father, a just and forgiving patron, and a defender of the common man---in short, the ideal modern man." Thomas Crowell is also a good and affectionate husband and a trustworthy friend.
Thomas More, on the contrary, is depicted as a religious zealot who persecutes heretics without any mercy. He torments them only for one purpose: to change their religious belief so that he can accomplish his great deeds in religious endeavor. In history, although More wrote Utopia and for this he has long been considered a humanist, he is actually very cruel to protestants. The depiction of Thomas Cromwell and that of Thomas More have
reverted the traditional images of the two historical figures. Some critics say that this dichotomy between Cromwell as a servant of the people and More as a religious tyrant simply doesn't match the historical record, but the vivid description and step-by-step narration make the depiction authentic, or at least believable in artistic world.
6. Experiment in Historical Novels in Techniques
For one time there came such voices as the death of literature, and the death of fiction, but just as what the famous contemporary English novelist Fowels once pointed out, no matter whether literature has died or fiction has died, it is not literature or fiction itself that has died, but its old form. Just like the literature in other countries at present contemporary English literature is always exploring new forms to write works in. Meta-fiction is just one of the forms ever and still tried. Meta-fiction is a kind of novel about how to write a novel. It pays attention to the process of the novel writing. A. S. Byatt's Possession is considered to be a typical meta-novel. In fact, John Berger's G is also a very typical meta-novel. Although its subtitle has the words "A Novel", the use of large quantity of historical document makes the novel quite different from any traditional novel. The protagonist talks a lot about his duty and responsibility as a writer, and he also relates the problems such as story narration, arrangement of plots and depiction of characters. Such layout obviously intends to communicate and consult with readers, which renders the novel a typical meta-novel.
Margret Drabble's The Red Queen is also a meta-novel. The novel has borrowed a lot from The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong in Korea two centuries ago. The novel not only includes the historical narrative, but also has rich historical imagination. It not only has historical penetration, but also intense humanistic concern in the present world. It not only has concern over humanity in alien world, but also consideration of the existence at home. In addition, the novel's peculiar ghost narrative, and the well-knit structural design of Prologue, Afterword, Acknowledgements, A Note on Sources and Bibliography fully show that The Red Queen is really a novel of a kind.
Whether in terms of artistry or of thought the novel The Red Queen by Margret Drabble has won high praise. However, under the aura of praise in its depth there is implied cultural hegemony and Orientalism which should not be neglected. The author has declared her position of cultural relativism on many different occasions and the novel shows such a stand many times. Readers may be easily blinded by such endeavors. Since the choice of the late Korean princess, Lady Hyegyong as the narrator to realize self-orientalizing, a strategy of new Orientalism, is more deceptive, readers should be more alert to such works so that they will not lose critical voices.
III. Conclusion
From what have been mentioned above, it is quite clear that contemporary English historical novels are rich in subjects with adequate criticism and reflection, and also the novels dare to break new ground in artistry. Due to the creativity both in contents and in forms contemporary English historical novels are attracting more and more readers in Britain, and also foreign readers.。