The Last Nights of Ventôse

[elwen-rhiannon.livejournal.com]

"Actually, they were almost the same age, with a difference of two years only, but never really realizing this fact. They both accepted Maxime as the older one with no doubt. Their mutual feelings were much stronger than normal friendship; it was simply love from both sides, in Camille's case with a huge amount of adoration. The condition for his own happiness was Maxime being close to him; an adult child tended to live in a constant exhausting rebelion against his own slave's dependence. Yet the feelings of the older one were probably even stronger, though they did not restrain his being. Maxime's love was 'at least strange', entirely protective, much more passionate than fraternal attachment, not even paternal, but typically maternal. A kind of love hard to bear, painful, monstrously deep, mindless to the point of absurd, full of nervous fear and insatiable tenderness - in the case of a man, of course, hidden extremly well. During the last months, he didn't have time - nor right - to ponder Camille, aching in his all body with a dumb pain he refused to even think about; for half a year Camille had been giving him one stroke after another, deliberately and knowingly hitting the weakest point each time. An incredibly strong attack of malaria, from which Maxime was pulling through with such a toil, was probably the result of this game. A love of this kind is ripped of any dignity so far that the more your darling one harasses you, the more loved he is."

Not mine, though I wouldn't mind it to be. This piece of fanfiction is almost a hundred years old, being a part of a novel by Stanisława Przybyszewska, Ostatnie noce ventôse'a / The Last Nights of Ventôse. Posted in this community because it's one of a very few places where the author's name is recognized, and I think she is worth it.

Translation by me.

Comments

[elwen-rhiannon.livejournal.com]

If so, I misunderstood.

A question came to my mind: what exactly makes a good historical novel?

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Well, first of all, I'd like to make clear one thing. I am not nor intent to be a qualified arbiter of literary values. As for good or bad historical novels, I can only give a superficial opinion based on me liking it or not.

What I was speaking about especially in the other entry, but to some extend also here, is NOT AT ALL a differentiation between good and bad historical novel, but an idea of a honest approach to real people in any historical fiction, good or bad. I think writers of historical novels do have certain responsibility when writing historical fiction using real people (and, to some extend, real events).
I have already explained what I consider a more or less respectful approach in my answers in this thread: http://community.livejournal.com/revolution_fr/95311.html?thread=1136463#t1136463

In the cases that are apparently realistic (i.e. do not "warn" by their non-realistic form and, on the contrary, give signs of authenticity), but they use the real people as vehicles to express other kind of ideas that have nothing to do with those people and for that reason manipulate with ahistorical hints on, let's say, modern Poland, like Wajda does in his Danton, then I find it still legitimate and acceptable, as the literature has always been using the past like that, but I also see as totally legitimate to point to the ahistoricity and manipulation in the critique and especially if used in class or in a novel's introduction.

As for the writers who do believe that they are offering an interpretation "faithful in spirit" (though, of course, inventing dialogs and even some events and people), what a writer of "realistic" historical fiction should not do is what H.Mantel does: she ends up using her novel as a historical source when asked for her analysis/opinion on the real events and real people.

As for the historical novel just for fun, I think I have explained my opinion in sufficient detail in the debate below the entry mentioned above.