It's not the general work environment, or the people who work there, or the noise level. It's nothing anyone else would notice, but in going inside four different public libraries in the past week I've realized that I can't stand the lack of academic history books in the general collection. I wanted another book on the history of Persia, and all I found were coffee table, New York Times best seller list, highly readable but heavily slanted quasi history books about why the middle east is the way it is and the history of modern Iran. I didn't want modern Iran, I wanted classical Iran!
And this lead me back to a subject that we talked a lot about in Post-Colonial Literature, about the created nature of history. The powerful always decide how to slant a story, what words to use to make them appear in a favorable light. I didn't have to read the books on the shelf to know what values the librarians at these libraries were holding up -- it was the absence of books about other subjects, like Arabic poetry or the history of the medieval middle east, that told me a lot about what these people consider valuable. Never mind that there was a whole bookcase of volumes on the medieval European world. Apparently nothing west of the Caucus mattered until the Europeans got there and 'discovered' it.
My friend and co-conspirator on MechKnight, Simon, had an interesting request for me several weeks ago, one that ties very much in with this 'created history' subject. He was beginning a new story in the MechKnight canon and wanted a saint to be a filler character that the main narrator, Monica, could write letters to:
Initially, I was going to pick a saint pretty much at random - I fancied using the name "Catherine" and having Monica not really remember WHICH Catherine. Or, maybe Saint Monica herself - but that might have been confusing. And then I had a very cool idea.Saint Audemande of Vinceaux.The impression I got from Jane's words was that she was a woman who might appeal to a young girl as a suitable role model [ed-- I included Aude as a random self-referential bit in This Blessed Plot]
The questions (finally!) I had were;i) Is she the sort of person who would be canonized by the Church? That is, is her life an example of holiness? She doesn't have to be perfect or an uber example of it in Song of a Peacebringer - because that story is the REAL tale and, as both you and I know, the pious traditions and the actual truth of the lives of Saints are often at odds. But is she a good woman trying to do good things and be holy?
I told him, of course, that Aude doesn't turn out to be a very holy person, or at least the sort of person that the church is in the habit of canonizing (getting married to Muslim, forsaking her faith and all that) but I brought this created history bit into the story. Depending on who's telling her story she can be different things to different people -- One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
"What will we be remembered as, do you think? As great lovers? Lalya and Majun come again?" Aude proposed, wondering aloud.Aude and Nasir, being the historians and storytellers that they are, realize and recognize the created nature of history, and also recognize that their story will be different from the actual events regardless of who's telling it."No...though we will have been so," her husband promised in a mischievous, promissory tone. Aude decided then and there she loved that tone. "History seldom stops to take such details down. I have written much of history -- nothing was ever exactly as I wrote it. You... you will be remembered as a great beauty -- which you were, of course,” he added. Aude chuckled. “And I will be remembered as a poet, a historian, a leader of men. But our stories will never be told together exactly as they were. Among your people yours will be a tragic, cautionary tale, a beautiful maiden stolen away by a vicious Saracen lord to be his concubine. Captured in battle, perhaps -- a spoil of war until your death.”
“Of grief, of course,” she added. “When I was too young to die.”
"Of course. And my people...” Nasir considered this closely. “To the Muslims you will be a wicked enchantress, who used her magic to ensnare me, and unman the great leader of armies. You will steal me away from my duties in stories, lead me astray...and then perhaps poison me in my sleep. Or stab me in the heart after I attempt to rebel; the authors are still deciding," he said with a smile. Aude gave him a playful jab in the ribs, smiling herself.
I hadn't written this last part when Simon asked me this question, so, theoretically, Aude could be the saint Monica wants to write to. She could be the martyred Christian maiden carried off by the vicious and lacivious Arabs that makes such a great Church story.
I guess it all depends on what book you're reading. And clearly, my library doesn't have a copy of the text that reads the story the opposite way.
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I taught a class on the origins of the Bible (I am surprisingly erudite for a man who writes fanfic!) and I made a great deal of this. I pointed out there were three layers to what we know FACTS, HISTORY and TRUTH.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction between the first two is made clear by Indiana Jones; he says archaeology is the search for FACTS (if you want TRUTH, the philosophy class was down the hall). Auden's poem "Archaeology" touches wonderfully on this - we know civilizations grave their dead, but what do they believe?
A friend of mine Rupert "Wade" Pryce studdied history at undergraduate level. He always said history was pretty little stories we made up about things that happened.
So, what is the point of this? I am not sure - but I do understand and very much appreciate your distinction between what really happened and the history we are told.
I would caution, however (ironically enough, this is at least partially the subject of the piece I am working on now for my own blog), that there is such a thing as too much research and too much accuracy. And, irony upon irony, it was Mrs. Gray's little girl who last taught me that ....