Historical fiction is my preferred genre these days. Particular favorites are the TV series Mad Men, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, and the novels of E.L. Doctorow (The March in particular). Maybe the best thing about historical fiction is that even though it partakes of history, it isn't history. In the postcript of her novel In the Time of the Butterflies (a fictional account of the Trujillo-resisting Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic), Julia Alvarez explains that distinction well: "A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart." Yes. To read Doctorow's The March is not to scrutinize Sherman's battle plans but to be a tourist alongside his vinegary soul on the road to Savannah.
So creators of historical fiction aren't historians (thank God), but if their work leans on history for its appeal, then they owe something to history, right? But how much? As one commentator wrote, historical fiction is frontier territory - nobody knows exactly what the rules are. Any fictional account of the past raises the question of what level of fidelity its creator owes to the historical record. Readers know what went down, and they expect certain things to happen. Mantel surely knew that her account of the marriage of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII couldn't lead to some kind of heartwarming rapprochement between them - divorce through decapitation had to be on Anne's schedule. But other than details of that magnitude, what fact-based constraints was Mantel under? I’m sure she took care not to bend the record too much, but I don't want to dwell on whether she did. What makes the experience of reading her Thomas Cromwell novels so glorious is not that she maintained a bookkeeper’s adherence to the known factual details but that she used her creative brilliance to infuse new life into those hyperfamiliar characters and their overtold story, giving them depths and nuances and psychological drama they never had before.
So I make the complaints below in that spirit. I do not want to be the historical fiction accuracy police, the prig who only flaunts his capacity to miss the point when he whinges, “Actually, there's zero evidence that Cromwell and More ever met when they were kids.” Who cares? It's plausible, and the story is a thousand times better that way.
And yet . . .
The last few days I’ve been watching two new TV series set in olden times: Manhunt, about the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination and the search for John Wilkes Booth, and Palm Royale set in Palm Beach’s monied social scene circa 1970. They're both entertaining, and the production designers have gone all out to give these shows an authentically retro look, both in the attire their characters wear and the settings in which they move. The performers wield swords and wooden tennis rackets as the characters they depict would have. But the things they say to each other? The top hats and mod fabrics may be old timey, but the language isn't. Jarring anachronisms in phrasing abound. If you have any ear at all you will hear terminology that is not just somewhat unmatched to the times but utterly out of place, making members of Lincoln's cabinet sound like they've just flown in from a corporate seminar in Orlando. For instance, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton says of assassination that it was part of the “playbook” of the warring sides. Playbook? It's supposed to be 1865, man - why are you talking like Joe Namath? In another scene a Union officer who must be a time traveler from the Vietnam-era CIA tells detectives to find all the "intel" they can on Booth. In Palm Royale the members of a militant feminist group use “construct” as a noun and “people of color” in an SJW fashion that is about three decades premature. These aren't isolated instances. Characters in both series regularly smear conspicuously 21st century terminology all over an otherwise meticulously created period vibe.
Yes, creating dialogue that is both era-authentic and engaging to a modern audience may be the trickiest aspect of writing historical fiction. Read Arthur Miller's The Crucible and try not to wince as his 1692 protagonist claims to have quailed to bring men out of ignorance. Writers who dare to mix archaic vocabulary with contemporary language must feel that they run the risk of sounding silly. But doesn't it sound sillier to have a Civil War character use NFL lingo? And these deviations from the idiom of the times are so baffling because these shows are at their best when they stay true to their respective eras and get us neck-deep in that foreign country that is the past. Though separated by 100 years, Manhunt and Palm Royale are closer to each other than to us in that they depict that long gone world where print media ruled. It is kind of jarring but historically authentic to see characters in 1865 Washington and 1970 Palm Beach alike get worked up about what's in a newspaper, a newspaper they clutch furiously. In the same vein, characters in both series flex their connections to influential print journalists. That's really how it used to be. The trouble is, because of the ways these series are written, I half expect these same characters to use the word "flex" the way I just did. I don't get it. At times it is as though the writers didn't even try.
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