A2 Literature!

[Kitty88]

I need to start reading widely, does anybody have any good suggestions for a historical based novel?

Also, does everyhing we read have a historical aspect to it, or is it classified as one specific genre only?

[wessexgirl]

I need to start reading widely, does anybody have any good suggestions for a historical based novel?

Also, does everyhing we read have a historical aspect to it, or is it classified as one specific genre only?

It's a specific genre. However, I suppose a lot of the classics could be described as historical novels, as they were written in the past, although often set contemporaneously. Are you looking for any particular era Kitty, have you been recommended any specific books etc? I read a lot of historical novels and classics, but can you be more precise? For instance, do you want thick, serious works, or some lighter matter? Do you want "popular" or "literary", serious and heavy-going, or light and fluffy? Some books cross genres, as I used to read a lot of historical crime novels. Let us know a bit more what you need. :)

[JBI]

Historical novelist, or Historiographic Metaphiction? The difference is approach - do you want the book to know itself as a novel or not.

For historical fiction, try Victor Hugo's work - for the other, try Alias Grace by Margret Atwood for starters.

[Josef K]

Historical fiction: I'd go for Les Misérables or War and Peace

[Qaphqa]

I enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities.

[JBI]

Or Zola's Work, of which I would start with Nana.

[Kitty88]

wow! thanks for the responses guys! i was just interested in historical novels generally, whether they are "light" or "heavy", because i have not really read anything heavily historially based. Thanks for the suggestions! What i was getting confused about is how far can a novel be represented as historical ? As writers like Hardy and Bronte, depict an aspect of 18th/19th century life, not neccessarily associating plots with historical events, but historical manners.

[JBI]

Those aren't historical novels, they are simply old novels. For old novels, the list is longer - a historical novel however, takes place in a time not contemporary to the novelist's own, thereby set in history originally. Bronte and Hardy were writing about their own times, well, at least Hardy was, Bronte is far more ambiguous.

Edit: was talking about Charlotte, Emily Bronte's novel takes place in 1750, which could be called an historical novel.

[The Comedian]

I'm a comics junkie, so I'll suggest a couple in case your visually inclined:

Maus by Art Spiegelman. It deals with pre-war Poland and the holocaust.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It deals with an Iranian family in the late 1970s/80s.

[Whifflingpin]

"Those aren't historical novels, they are simply old novels. "

The game becomes even more confusing when you get old historical novels, for example those of Walter Scott. They may tell something of the the time he was writing about, (as a secondary source.) Read differently, a novel by Scott may say as much (as a primary source) about the attitudes/beliefs/prejuduces of his own time as do, for instance, the novels of his near contemporary Austen.

Having mentioned Scott, I'd say Kitty that you cannot claim to be widely read in Eng Lit until you've read at least one of his. Which one? Everyone has different tastes, but I prefer those he set in his own Border Country - Guy Mannering, or The Bride of Lammermuir, for instance.

"Those aren't historical novels, they are simply old novels. "
Maybe that's true of Bronte, but Hardy's novels are generally set in a generation or so before his own time, and are intended to capture a time that was past or passing, so they are historical in the same way that novels written today about events in the 1940s or even 1960s would be historical.

"Also, does everyhing we read have a historical aspect to it, or is it classified as one specific genre only?"
So, I'd say Yes and Yes.
There is a genre of historical novels, that is a novel written by a novelist about a time in his past.
But every novel says something about the time in which it was written. For example Scott's novel the Talisman is set in the Crusades, as is Alfred Duggan's Count Bohemond and Russell Hoban's Pilgermann. If you read all three you will realise that they could not all have been written in the same age, and you will learn from that something about the early C19th, mid C20th & late C20th, as well as C11th or 12th.


" 'Why are you weeping?' said Bembel Rudzuk.
'I am suffering from an attack of history,' I said.
'It will pass,' said Bembel Rudzuk."
- from Pilgermann

[Pecksie]

For classic historical novels, I'd say Victor Hugo's (which have already been mentioned).

For a recent work, I'd recommend Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain", a haunting and beautifully written novel.