My most recent historical fiction read was The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette: A Novel by Carolly Erickson. How was it? Well, dear readers, prepare for a rant.
The book started off innocently enough. It purports to be a diary kept by Marie Antoinette up until her execution during the French Revolution in 1793. We begin with the 13 year old Maria Antonia, Austrian Archduchess, daughter of the famed Empress Maria Theresa, and future betrothed of the Dauphin of France. At first, I enjoyed it. The voice of Antonia was fresh, vivacious, and natural, much as I would have imagined the actual princess to be like. I had a few qualms when at one point, Antonia was kissed by her stablehand, Eric, but kept going. Well, then Antonia managed to find herself on a ride all alone with her adoring stablehand. Nothing happened other than more kissing, but I had my doubts. It's not the kissing I mind so much, it's the prospect that an Archduchess was preparing to ride out alone when Eric was sent along. I just don't think that 18th century princesses were able to spend that much, if any time alone. Maybe that was a possibility at the relaxed Austrian court, but definitely not at the exceedingly formal French court, where every moment was regimented by etiquette.
I did enjoy the depiction of the relationship between Antoinette and her husband, the future Louis XVI. It seemed like they had an amicable and natural relationship, even if they weren't in love. Nor did I mind the depiction of Axel Fersen - he was the Queen's great love, apparently. Erickson chooses to have them consummate the relationship, and that's fine. Marie Antoinette deserves some love from someone.
This is where I became very angry with the book. Erickson sends Marie Antoinette off to Sweden with Axel on some sort of diplomatic trade mission. Really? The Queen of France, mother of no male heirs, is sent off for months to Sweden? And the inconsistencies kept on piling up: Marie Antoinette and Axel spend a lot of time alone together - without servants even! Inconceivable for the time. Sweden is described as a land where snow will linger to July, yet a poor peasant's cottage is depicted as having cockroaches. If it's that cold, there would be no cockroaches because it would be too cold to support them! But I read on, wondering vaguely if I'd missed some trip to Sweden in my previous non-fiction reading of Marie Antoinette.
To refresh my memory, I turned to Marie Antoinette: The Journey, the best recent non-fiction biography of her life, by Antonia Fraser. No mention of any trip to Sweden. I quickly turned to the Note To The Reader at the end of Erickson's novel and read this little gem: "So far as is known, Antoinette never went to Sweden;...." NO! She NEVER went to Sweden - just pick up a book and look it up! It's not like this is the 11th or 12th centuries and the facts are hard to come by and are confused. Marie Antoinette was a celebrated and reviled public figure. She lived in the late 1700's. We have lots of sources about her and we know where she was and what she was doing for a good part of her life. And we know she didn't go to Sweden!
This is what I hate about historical fiction: authors who don't follow the story and make stuff up. If you want to make stuff up, write non-historical fiction. Then your characters can do whatever they want. Writing historical fiction is like writing a sonnet: you are constrained by the form, but you can express your creativity and imagination within that form. An excellent historical fiction writer doesn't make stuff up: he or she takes the facts that we know and clothes them with thoughts and feelings. That is the stuff we don't know - why did Marie Antoinette act as she did? What did she think about when she was married to the Dauphin? Did she love her children? Was she scared on her way to the guillotine? Her outside life as she lived it is known: it is her inside life I want to know more about, not some imaginary trips to Sweden with her lover.
I might have been a little more forgiving if the trip was depicted more realistically for the times. Marie Antoinette and Axel would never have been allowed to go off to his estate alone with no servants. Marie Antoinette would have never been sent off on any kind of diplomatic mission if she had not yet given birth to a male heir - probably even if she had borne a male heir! For all her ability in advising her husband, her role was to bear a male heir. End of sentence. And for the Queen to go off to Sweden alone with her lover - what a scandal! It was just so unrealistic that it really spoiled the rest of the book for me.
I did finish the book, but just barely. I thought Marie Antoinette seemed a little more flighty as the book went along. She was probably not the most serious of women, but she seemed a little stupid in this book. Further, I also did not like how people just appeared in her diary with no mention of who they were or what they did. I suppose that is a little more realistic as to how diaries are actually kept: one does not explain who people are, unless one is keeping the diary for posterity. And the villain character of Amelie was really preposterous and one-note.
After I finished the book, I turned to Antonia Fraser's non-fiction to clarify a few of the actual facts about Marie Antoinette and have ended up re-reading most of the book. Now that book is an excellent read. It is non-fiction that reads like fiction.
For those who want to read about Marie Antoinette, I recommend Antonia Fraser's book. I do not recommend Carolly Erickson's book. Read it at your own risk.
The problem historical fiction writers have is that the social customs, mores, and daily life was very different "back then" and a realistic portrayal may not appeal to much of today's audience (used to fast-paced Hollywood blockbusters and the like) ... readers like you (and me) are a smaller (and much harder to please anyway) subset of the audience and in some ways I don't blame a "novice" writer for going the easy route. Which is why I usually stay away from 90% of historical fiction. I mean, I sympathize, but I still don't like it, LOL!
ReplyDeleteLove Cessna's expression, by the way ;) Bah humbug!
Here's the thing - she's hardly a "novice" writer. She's been writing historical fiction and non-fiction for 30 years. She's written a non-fiction historical study of Marie Antoinette, for goodness sake. She should know better.
ReplyDeleteBut aren't readers like you and me the only people reading historical fiction anyway? Who else reads it if they're not interested in history? Which, if they are, will drive them batty if there are inaccuracies - or they will discover the inaccuracies later when they turn to non-fiction for the real story.
I think there has to be a little bit of modernization to the story in a certain sense, otherwise it is too far away and the reader as nothing to grab onto. Then again, what is interesting too is just how many people defied the mores of their time and acted in strangely modern ways. These are usually the people you want to read about anyway.
It's always a risk with historical fiction. Sometimes it pans out (Sharon Kay Penman, Judith Merkle Riley), sometimes it doesn't. Maybe I should just stick to writers with 3 names - that seems to be a winning combination. But I will still keep on trying, and ranting because I always want to expand my circle of historical fiction authors.
Cessna apparently didn't like the book any more than I did! Or she was just annoyed that I was disturbing her nap on her favourite chair with my intrusive photo-taking. The paparazzi's everywhere!