This sounds a significant book set in the distant past. I was thinking that the three favourite historical novels I’ve read were Golding’s The Spire, Eco’s The Name of the Rose and Zola’s Germinal- all great writing as literature.
Readers want different things from historical fiction, but I’m quite clear about what I want.
Pontificating recently at Whispering Gums, I stated that I have grown out of what are…
…basically relationship novels dressed up in historical finery and these days I want more from HistFic than *yawn* power, gender and class. We are awash with novels about power, gender and class and very rarely, it seems to me, is there anything different about them except their settings. So many of them are starring *amazing*, *feisty* women determined to rise above their oppression that it’s a cliché.
Continuing on my soap box, I went on to clarify why HistFic can be great reading. (Links are to my reviews).
HistFic can be a brilliant story of character, as in Wolf Hall. It can shine a light on as aspect of life that we rarely consider, as in A Terrible…
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