Here, we agree completely.And maybe my problem to explain myself is that my English is not great. My replies uses to be long too, because I'm afraid of not being undrestood.
I think that the trouble could be more in the reader than in thw novelist. Sometimes, readers don't realize they are reading a fictional book, and when they read real history books they still have the fictional characters portrayed in their minds. For them, when they read about Robespierre, Maximilien will be the guy they read about in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" or "A Place of Greater safety". Of course, this is pretty common when we thinks about French Revolution movies. For some people, Camille will always be the "goody-goody" boy from "The French revolution; Years of Hope" and "Years of Rage", while for others he'll be the hysterical and childish guy from "Danton", and so on...I suppose that this problem wouldn't exist if people could read history books about French Revolution BEFORE watching fictional films or reading fictional books. Bit of course this is totally impossible. Only a desideratum.
You are right about fictional characters being 100% good or 100%, a thing that wouldn't exist in real life. But people likes to see the characters simplfied .It didn't happens only in history fiction, but in all kind of fictional narrative. In the case of real characters the only thing you need to do to show him as a bad or good person is to magnify the evil or good side of his/her personality to make his/her characterwork in the general plot.
I agree about "A Place of Greater Safety". Again, I could understand the book only for I had read historical works about French revolution before. If not, the whole thing could become very confusing indeed.
I've also watched the infamous BBC documentary in which Hilary Mantel spoke about Terror, and it was really pitiful. But it was quite useful for me too, since I understood much better why she wrote her novel the way she did.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-11-21 07:09 pm (UTC)I think that the trouble could be more in the reader than in thw novelist. Sometimes, readers don't realize they are reading a fictional book, and when they read real history books they still have the fictional characters portrayed in their minds. For them, when they read about Robespierre, Maximilien will be the guy they read about in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" or "A Place of Greater safety". Of course, this is pretty common when we thinks about French Revolution movies. For some people, Camille will always be the "goody-goody" boy from "The French revolution; Years of Hope" and "Years of Rage", while for others he'll be the hysterical and childish guy from "Danton", and so on...I suppose that this problem wouldn't exist if people could read history books about French Revolution BEFORE watching fictional films or reading fictional books. Bit of course this is totally impossible. Only a desideratum.
You are right about fictional characters being 100% good or 100%, a thing that wouldn't exist in real life. But people likes to see the characters simplfied .It didn't happens only in history fiction, but in all kind of fictional narrative. In the case of real characters the only thing you need to do to show him as a bad or good person is to magnify the evil or good side of his/her personality to make his/her characterwork in the general plot.
I agree about "A Place of Greater Safety". Again, I could understand the book only for I had read historical works about French revolution before. If not, the whole thing could become very confusing indeed.
I've also watched the infamous BBC documentary in which Hilary Mantel spoke about Terror, and it was really pitiful. But it was quite useful for me too, since I understood much better why she wrote her novel the way she did.