First, it's a pretty safe bet I'm not going to enjoy reading/watching/listening to/whatever anything counterrevolutionary. There could theoretically be an exception to this, but it would have to be very good in other respects. Of course, many counterrevolutionary works already transgress against proper literary practice, by doing things like turning Robespierre into a cardboard villain, or are simply manipulative to a greater or lesser degree.
I'm also probably not going to enjoy any fiction where the author didn't do his or her research. This one is largely self-explanatory: I study this period; I will be seriously annoyed by any fictional portrayal of it that seems to be based on having watched the History Channel documentary. This is not to say that I require perfect accuracy. There are mistakes in "City of Darkness, City of Light" (as well as places where I disagree with the interpretation, but we'll get to that) and I still think it's probably the best English language novel on the Revolution. There are plenty of inaccuracies in the movie "Les mariés de l'an II," but it's a farce and the inaccuracies were clearly deliberate changes made for the sake of humor and the plot, by authors who knew the period well enough to give a flavor of it even while diverging from a strictly accurate account, and it's one of my favorite films on the Revolution. Note, of course, that comedies of this nature are the exception to the rule about well-developed characters; all the characters in the film are stereotypes, but that's the point, and in fact, the more you know about the period, the more the portrayals of different groups become like an inside joke.
And then there's the question of interpretation. And here a distinction needs to be made between works which have an original plot, often with fictional characters, in which the Revolution is the setting, and works in which the Revolution is the plot, or a large part of it, in which the main characters are usually, but not always (think R. Margerit's La Révolution series, in which the main characters are something of a composite of various historical figures - plus the author's own perspective and characters from late 18th century novels - and take part in major historical events) actual historical figures.
In both types of novel, I think it's helpful for the author to have his or her own, plausible interpretation of events, but I think it's absolutely crucial for the latter type - or at least for my enjoyment of it. The former type can get away with simply adopting an existing interpretation and rolling with it, provided the original plot and characters are worth reading about.
Works in which the Revolution pretty much constitutes the plot have to have an original interpretation for me to consider them any good. And yes, I do mean original in the sense that one expects a historians work to be original. There is no point in my reading yet another fictionalized biography of Robespierre unless that author has an original take on his life and ideas. If you're just going to write another piece on his and Danton's dueling personalities - a trope that cliché and dull from a literary perspective as well as, in my view, a poor interpretation of the historical events of the fall of the factions - no one has any reason to read you, if only because that's already been done to death.
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I'm also probably not going to enjoy any fiction where the author didn't do his or her research. This one is largely self-explanatory: I study this period; I will be seriously annoyed by any fictional portrayal of it that seems to be based on having watched the History Channel documentary. This is not to say that I require perfect accuracy. There are mistakes in "City of Darkness, City of Light" (as well as places where I disagree with the interpretation, but we'll get to that) and I still think it's probably the best English language novel on the Revolution. There are plenty of inaccuracies in the movie "Les mariés de l'an II," but it's a farce and the inaccuracies were clearly deliberate changes made for the sake of humor and the plot, by authors who knew the period well enough to give a flavor of it even while diverging from a strictly accurate account, and it's one of my favorite films on the Revolution. Note, of course, that comedies of this nature are the exception to the rule about well-developed characters; all the characters in the film are stereotypes, but that's the point, and in fact, the more you know about the period, the more the portrayals of different groups become like an inside joke.
And then there's the question of interpretation. And here a distinction needs to be made between works which have an original plot, often with fictional characters, in which the Revolution is the setting, and works in which the Revolution is the plot, or a large part of it, in which the main characters are usually, but not always (think R. Margerit's La Révolution series, in which the main characters are something of a composite of various historical figures - plus the author's own perspective and characters from late 18th century novels - and take part in major historical events) actual historical figures.
In both types of novel, I think it's helpful for the author to have his or her own, plausible interpretation of events, but I think it's absolutely crucial for the latter type - or at least for my enjoyment of it. The former type can get away with simply adopting an existing interpretation and rolling with it, provided the original plot and characters are worth reading about.
Works in which the Revolution pretty much constitutes the plot have to have an original interpretation for me to consider them any good. And yes, I do mean original in the sense that one expects a historians work to be original. There is no point in my reading yet another fictionalized biography of Robespierre unless that author has an original take on his life and ideas. If you're just going to write another piece on his and Danton's dueling personalities - a trope that cliché and dull from a literary perspective as well as, in my view, a poor interpretation of the historical events of the fall of the factions - no one has any reason to read you, if only because that's already been done to death.