History vs. Story

As those of you who read this blog regularly will know, the work in progress involves events in and around West Wales in the 1840s. Specifically, that area of Wales where the three old counties of Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire meet, in the summer of 1843 when the Rebecca Riots – nocturnal gatherings of men dressed as women for the purposes of destroying tollgates and addressing other perceived social ills – were in full swing.

One of the things the characters are having to grapple with at the moment is whether folk history/oral history is as valid as the written down variety.

In my research I came across this lovely quotation from Gore Vidal

‘Since I have been written about, perhaps, a bit more than most historians, I am not as impressed as they are by what I see in print, no matter how old and yellow the cutting.’

Yes, quite. I think I’ve mentioned here before that things look far more official when in print so I would have to agree with Mr Vidal. But why is this? The phenomenon of the apparent trustworthiness of print, I mean, not my agreement with GV. Is it a hang-over from the time when simply to be able to write things down meant that one was educated and therefore entitled to speak with authority? Or do we generally find the things we believe in print to be mostly true and therefore believe it all on balance?

I’ve had the odd brush with the press myself in a previous life (more of that at some future date, maybe) and know, to my cost, that what is written is not always objective or truthful. The story is all and facts take second place. But is oral history – interviewing people who took part in events – or fok history – the stories which have come down to us by word-of-mouth about those events - any better?

It seems to me that cold, hard, literal truth (if such a thing exists) is nearly always pushed into second place by the need to tell an engaging story. Newspapers will alter facts if they think this fits their story better and I’m sure documentary makers do the same. Otherwise the cutting floor would not be littered with dozens of hours of footage and we would be watching very lengthy television programmes.
Folklore may, possibly, do this cutting and colouring less consciously but only those elements which contribute to the thrust of the story will be left in, details which go against the grain will, either from the beginning or over time, be winnowed out. I guess that’s why folk tales from the same country can look quite different in separate regions as the tellers have adapted the tale to their own local agenda.

Inevitably, I’m doing the same in my book. Obviously, I have a particular view of what it must have been like to participate in the Rebecca Riots and I am, in all probability, ignoring facts which don’t chime in with that. At the very least, I will be chosing to tell those bits of the story of the riots which fit in with my views and the way my characters perceive events. If I had no view, it would be an indication that I have absolutely no interest in the events and there would be no point in spending all this time writing a book about it.

Some people might say that that makes my book – possibly all historical fiction – a less valid enterprise than writing a textbook. But, aside from the fact that the motivation for writing a novel is very different from that which inspires non-fiction, haven't we all read historical fiction which has catapulted us lock, stock and barrel into a different time period, immersed us totally in the way of life and ways of thinking of the time in a way which a non-fiction book, however brilliant, never could . As I write, I’m thinking of Lindsey Davis’s books starring Roman 'private informer' (and sometime spy) Marcus Didius Falco. I’m fascinated by the Romans and have read numerous books about them but none brought them to life and made me feel that I knew how they ticked like Falco’s exploits. You can hear, see, taste, touch ancient Rome. And, what’s more, it’s quite clear from Lindsey Davis’s take on the Romans that human nature doesn’t change. Or, at least, Lindsey Davis doesn’t think it does!

Fiction isn’t just about facts (the clue’s in the word, folks) it’s about how people interact with the events they are caught up in, how they feel about them, how they perceive them, how they remember them, how those events change their lives. And, I’m assuming, that’s what folklore represents. Not just what happened but how what happened shaped the people to whom it happened.

The debate between narrative history and ‘respectable’ history is not academic in the book I’m working on. Which side wins the argument will determine how the book proceeds, whether a dream flourishes or dies, but it’s been interesting to think about the whole issue and to come to the conclusion that, whichever version you prefer, all history is story, whether we recognise it as such or not.

Research and Google

Hooray for Tim Berners-Lee because his invention - the internet - must be the best research tool ever for writers. Today, for instance, I was writing away, describing an ancient, sagging roof when I suddenly realised that I didn’t know whether it was sagging on to its beams or its rafters. Quick trip to Google-land and I knew more than I ever needed to about the difference.
It’s rafters, by the way.

I did the bulk of the research for Testament nine or ten years ago and you wouldn’t believe how much less information was on the net in those days. When I wanted to find out about medieval proofs of age, or the exact beliefs of the Lollards, I had to go and find a book which would tell me. And finding the relevant kind of books took AGES. Now, although every search will bring up a ton (probably actually would be a ton in reality if you printed it all out) of useless references, if you’re canny about the search terms you put in you can usually find some relevant stuff pretty quickly. And Google-hounds like me get ever so savvy about looking at a site or a page and working out within a couple of seconds whether it’s going to be any use or not. You can also quick-search the page you’ve come to for all your relevant search-terms using Ctrl-F and, if half of them aren’t there, bye-bye page.

As my current novel is set in the area I grew up in, I’ve discovered a lot of history I didn’t know when I lived there. My home town, Newcastle Emlyn, has a fantastic website as does the local history society, Hanes Emlyn. So I have not had to go to Aberystwyth University or any other University of Wales library, to trawl through their archives looking for information about, for instance, the Newcastle Emlyn workhouse. Everything I need is on the Hanes Emlyn site, including the name of the Master in the relevant period and census material for each decade of the workhouse’s eighty-odd-year history. Amazing!

Old maps, sadly, seem not to lend themselves to being scanned and put up on the internet and, during the writing of certain bits of this book, I have spent ludicrous tracts of time comparing place-names which occur in early nineteenth-century records with contemporary names and trying to work out whether they are referring to the same place. Sometimes, the places referred to seem to have vanished without trace; or place-names have changed their spelling, from an Anglicised version back to a more authentic Welsh rendition. At other times names have been used which don’t seem to relate to anything. The workhouse in question appears in a 1920s photograph, for instance, as Voelallt Castle which it never was!

I must confess, it was much easier writing a historical novel which was set in a city which has never existed. Salster, the city I invented for Testament, is situated roughly geographically where Canterbury is but bears little resemblance to historical Canterbury. (Though there are some similarities, I’ll be interested if those who read the book and know Canterbury well spot the references!)

I deliberately chose to write about a fictitious city so as not to give myself too hard a time with research. I knew I’d have enough to do finding out about the professions, religions, eating habits, dress etc etc of my characters’ world without having to place them somewhere which really existed. There are a lot of people out there who love it when authors get things wrong and delight in writing to them and saying ‘there wasn’t a White Horse lane in Oxford in 1352’ or ‘the church you mention in chapter 32 wasn’t built until half a century later’. I can do without that sort of hassle.

So why set the current book in a real time and place? Because I’ve always been fascinated by the Rebecca Riots – a sudden outbreak of nocturnal activity in my home area in the 1840s which mostly concentrated on destroying tollgates but which had some pretty interesting off-shoots. But that’s a post for another time…