In yesterday’s Guardian, Tessa Hadley wrote a piece which she said was “in praise of novels set in the present day.” She asserts:
In a few hours – or tomorrow – the words of the rest of this piece will be written, that don’t exist yet; by the time anyone reads it another day will be present instead…So that a novel set in the present day can’t ever be exactly that; it’s always yesterday, or the day before yesterday. In a sense all novels are historical.
Well, that got my attention. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Most recently, I have been writing many promotional pieces about my new novel, A Clash of Innocents. I have happily discovered that it is one of a very few novels written about Cambodia in the post-Pol Pot era. And so I try to make that point clear. Sometimes I say it is set in “modern day Cambodia.” Other times I say it is set in “the present day.” But I am very much aware that neither is completely true. The novel is set in one specific year, 2007. It uses the real life events of that year as it’s backdrop. So, present day? Well, not really. But then again, what does “modern day” really mean? When does history start?
I am now starting to research and outline my next novel. I have the characters, themes and (hurray!) even the plot in my head. But when does it take place? I would prefer, I think, to set it in what I call the generic present. But if there are to be any specifics of place or music or art or popular culture or anything, then the “generic present” won’t work. The present flies by too quickly. Plus I decided that there will be some overlap of characters from the previous novel to the next one. But if time has moved on and a character who was, let’s say, 17 in 2007 turns up as 20, then the book can’t be set in anything other than 2010. And if I’m writing the book in 2011, then 2010 is in the past and therefore, a part of history. On the other hand, I can’t write about when that character is 25 because that would mean it would have to be set in 2015 – a time which hasn’t happened yet. That would turn it into a sort of science fiction piece, wouldn’t it?
For me, this is not just a question of semantics. It raises an important technical issue. It also makes me wonder why, as a writer, do I feel the need to write pieces that are so firmly settled into a specific time? I think that’s why writing historical fiction as one is used to thinking about it is so frightening to me. It seems to me that the longer ago something took place, the more likely there are to be well accepted facts surrounding it, and facts, quite honestly, worry me. Facts are much too easy to get wrong ( a concept I try to keep out of the writing of fiction, anyway), and I’m not so sure I believe in facts (but that’s another issue).
Hadley continues:
Writing about the contemporary present sometimes seems like a more ordinary effort, besides the huge difficulty of writing about the past – or about the future, or about imaginary worlds. When it fails, it’s probably duller…When it works, it’s at the heart of what the novel does. From whatever small corner of the world a novel starts, it opens its whole attention towards its present day, soaking up the qualities and minute particulars of an unrepeatable moment…
I have friends out there who write historical fiction. I’ve always been a bit in awe of them. But maybe all of us who use details from the reality around us in our work are all writing historical fiction. What do you think?
I think the question is too complicated for my Sunday brain to answer. However, I also think it’s great that your next novel is going to feature that character again (if I’m right about which one it is) (and I bet I am).
Ha, Queenie! My lips are sealed 🙂
Very interesting post and a difficult question. I think the important thing about any novel is that it says something – that can be done by a writer looking at time just gone, long gone – or is even yet to come.
I feel I know more than your average person about the Tudors. I read a book by Philippa Gregory about Catherine of Aragon – I asked Ms Gregory, through her website, what she based her facts on as I felt they were incorrect. Didn’t receive a reply. Perhaps it didn’t matter, but there will be readers going away thinking that what Ms Gregory wrote is correct. They forget the novel is fiction, not a non-fiction properly researched history book.
My new novel is historical. I was asked at a dinner party by a very clever guy how long the research had took. I haven’t actually sat and done a ton of research, I told him. It’s a piece of fiction set in 1948. I’ve checked facts such as getting the correct Prime minister, which films were popular. I say after the acknowledgements (where Sue’s name appears of course!)’this is not historical fact.’
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe is one of my most loved novels from 1960. I first read it when I was early teens, so 1965. It was contemporary to me then. I was living the ‘whatever people say I am I’m not,’ (I’m still like that.) But now it is historical fiction. That Nottingham depicted in the book and film does not exist. I tell my children watch this film, not only is it one of the best but it’s like when your Dad was a boy.
So yes Sue, all novels become historical but perhaps it’s the great ones that ask the ultimate questions about life that do not. I mean here such books as The Stranger (Camus) or Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn.)
That is just too complicated for my tired brain to contemplate (I have just come up for air having spent the morning looking at HIV/AIDS policy in Thailand). I am, however, very excited to learn that your about to embark on the next novel 🙂
C x