Gillian Polack's Blog, page 221
November 24, 2011
SF Criticism Masterclass, 2012
I do wish I could go again to the SF Criticism Masterclass, but next year is the year I get this PhD as out of the way as possible, so travel to the other side of the world is not likely. It's an entirely different line-up of teachers, and looks entirely terrific. What I need now are friends who will go and take notes for me... SF, London, June - how much better does it get?
gillpolack @ 2011-11-24T11:45:00
Once upon a time in my vicinity, people admitted that they hadn't read books by a particular writer and then raced out to fill the gap in their reading life. More and more often, I come across people who are rather proud to admit that they haven't read this book or that writer. I have any number of clever replies, but they all contain sadness. There is no glory in wilful ignorance.
And now I go to fill some blanks in my own reading background. Also to catch up on Aurealis reading. Four new books this week!
And now I go to fill some blanks in my own reading background. Also to catch up on Aurealis reading. Four new books this week!
November 23, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-11-23T21:31:00
Today the IHR conference looks at historians who are also novelists. I am doing much biting of tongue, but that's only from the introduction. Things are going to get more sophisticated. I'm certain of it.
This is where I admit that I do not believe desperately in the modern invention of the novel. Culture is not so sudden. Nor is genre. It's creeping and complicated and dynamic.
At any rate, at 11 am UK time Ian Mortimer is going to tell me why historians should write fiction. I shall listen very attentively. Although I did think we (those of us who want to, at least) were already writing fiction. There must be a subtitle I'm missing.
Yesterday's pieces (which I slept though and taught through) include an opinion piece by Peter Robinson talking about where writers and historians work together. It's a very short opinion piece and represents a perfect and straightforward world. I wish he had been given 3,000 words and the opportunity to explore the relationship more fully. I would love to hear him give a regular academic paper on the subject. Then I'd love to analyse it and contrast his experience with my own.
What I suspect is that each interaction between fiction writer and historian is unique and that each time a writer researches history for the fiction, their reaction with the past and even with the researching historian is a key element in the shape and feel of the novel. I've explored a bunch of the related issues with writers for my research project a few years ago* and was rather looking forward to hearing what another historian who works with fiction writers had done. Maybe another time.
I haven't had time to listen to more podcasts yet, and the podcasts seem to be where the really interesting stuff is. Roll on the weekend and more time!
*which made it into a couple of published thingies and a couple of conference papers, but I really need to ask more writers my questions and to expand the whole thing - this is the conclusion I've come to in the past few weeks, now I have more contexts - it would make a great postdoc project, I suspect
This is where I admit that I do not believe desperately in the modern invention of the novel. Culture is not so sudden. Nor is genre. It's creeping and complicated and dynamic.
At any rate, at 11 am UK time Ian Mortimer is going to tell me why historians should write fiction. I shall listen very attentively. Although I did think we (those of us who want to, at least) were already writing fiction. There must be a subtitle I'm missing.
Yesterday's pieces (which I slept though and taught through) include an opinion piece by Peter Robinson talking about where writers and historians work together. It's a very short opinion piece and represents a perfect and straightforward world. I wish he had been given 3,000 words and the opportunity to explore the relationship more fully. I would love to hear him give a regular academic paper on the subject. Then I'd love to analyse it and contrast his experience with my own.
What I suspect is that each interaction between fiction writer and historian is unique and that each time a writer researches history for the fiction, their reaction with the past and even with the researching historian is a key element in the shape and feel of the novel. I've explored a bunch of the related issues with writers for my research project a few years ago* and was rather looking forward to hearing what another historian who works with fiction writers had done. Maybe another time.
I haven't had time to listen to more podcasts yet, and the podcasts seem to be where the really interesting stuff is. Roll on the weekend and more time!
*which made it into a couple of published thingies and a couple of conference papers, but I really need to ask more writers my questions and to expand the whole thing - this is the conclusion I've come to in the past few weeks, now I have more contexts - it would make a great postdoc project, I suspect
gillpolack @ 2011-11-23T20:11:00
Today I saw Captain Thunderbolt's pistol. It was class excursion day to Goulburn and thankfully, not a difficult one, because I was operating through a migraine. Tonight I have to work (slowly, because energy levels are low) so it's a long, long day. But at least I saw Captain Thunderbolt's gun.
PS My word for the day is gewohnheitsrecht. I need to find ways of using it!
PS My word for the day is gewohnheitsrecht. I need to find ways of using it!
November 22, 2011
History and fiction
I've just been listening to Alison Weir's speech at the IHR conference on history and fiction. Weir speaks from a position of supreme confidence and feels she's right on every front. For me, this perfection undermined the really good stuff she said in the first ten minutes concerning such things as the need for writers to do their homework for historical fiction. It especially undermined it when it became apparent that 'good history' was history that matched her emotional interpretation of a place and time and her own research. Her personal insights, it appears, are universal insights.
I didn't expect this. I should have. Now I've heard her articulate it, her writing (fiction and non-fiction) proclaims it very loudly.
It's odd. It takes her further away in terms of historiography in fiction than writers such as Hilary Mantel and Sharon Penman*. Weir admitted appreciation of Wolf Hall, but Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell was wrong and hers was right. Apart from Mantel (who was named with those caveats) she didn't name any of her peer group (writers who have popular acclaim who use similar subject matter) as good writers who use history well.
I find it fascinating that she assumes only one interpretation of any historical person or event and that she asssumes that she has more capacity to furnish that single interpretation than anyone else. This is a very odd view of modern historical writings. It makes sense for the passion that one needs to communicate a character in a novel, but it takes it beyond the pages of the novel and it assumes a universal reliability for her (Weir's) opinion, one that doesn't apply to other writers, who do not have her deep knowledge of history.
I've seen this sense of self in other places. Some of the telling marks in Weir's speech were the assumptions that her views were special, that no-one before her did this particular thing, that her judgements were always right, that what she had done to get to her particular place of eminence was especially onerous. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong (except that I can demonstrate that she's incorrect about the shortage of historical novelists prior to herself, and that she really ought to choose between claiming to be an historian and choosing only one true factual path that she happens to know), just that I've seen it packaged before by other people who have achieved public success. It's an odd mixture of pain, privilege and perfection.
I wish I had more time now, to explore some of the other talks and reviews that are part of the conference. Tonight, maybe.
if you want to make your own judgement on Weir (since my judgement is not the one true judgement, but only my personal thoughts on the matter), you can find her on the IHR conference page: http://ihrconference.wordpress.com/
*I was going to say Elizabeth Chadwick, which would also be true, but it was Elizabeth Chadwick who alerted me to the conference page, so she gets mentioned in this footnote instead.
I didn't expect this. I should have. Now I've heard her articulate it, her writing (fiction and non-fiction) proclaims it very loudly.
It's odd. It takes her further away in terms of historiography in fiction than writers such as Hilary Mantel and Sharon Penman*. Weir admitted appreciation of Wolf Hall, but Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell was wrong and hers was right. Apart from Mantel (who was named with those caveats) she didn't name any of her peer group (writers who have popular acclaim who use similar subject matter) as good writers who use history well.
I find it fascinating that she assumes only one interpretation of any historical person or event and that she asssumes that she has more capacity to furnish that single interpretation than anyone else. This is a very odd view of modern historical writings. It makes sense for the passion that one needs to communicate a character in a novel, but it takes it beyond the pages of the novel and it assumes a universal reliability for her (Weir's) opinion, one that doesn't apply to other writers, who do not have her deep knowledge of history.
I've seen this sense of self in other places. Some of the telling marks in Weir's speech were the assumptions that her views were special, that no-one before her did this particular thing, that her judgements were always right, that what she had done to get to her particular place of eminence was especially onerous. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong (except that I can demonstrate that she's incorrect about the shortage of historical novelists prior to herself, and that she really ought to choose between claiming to be an historian and choosing only one true factual path that she happens to know), just that I've seen it packaged before by other people who have achieved public success. It's an odd mixture of pain, privilege and perfection.
I wish I had more time now, to explore some of the other talks and reviews that are part of the conference. Tonight, maybe.
if you want to make your own judgement on Weir (since my judgement is not the one true judgement, but only my personal thoughts on the matter), you can find her on the IHR conference page: http://ihrconference.wordpress.com/
*I was going to say Elizabeth Chadwick, which would also be true, but it was Elizabeth Chadwick who alerted me to the conference page, so she gets mentioned in this footnote instead.
November 21, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-11-21T22:38:00
Nothing to report today. Not even boring stuff. I so want to apologise for this, but it's not my fault. Nothing-days cause themselves and do not require provocation.
November 20, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-11-20T23:17:00
Work has been interrupted by The Mikado. I have forgotten too many words (though I remember the alto part in a surprising number of chorus) and it's incumbent upon me to have a refresher course. At this moment, Poo Bah has just sung "Long life to you til then." Katisha comes!
gillpolack @ 2011-11-20T12:24:00
My day is entirely full, so of course I sit here and drink spiced tea and wonder what my next excuse for not working will be. The problem is, of course, that if I don't work then books will multiply ten times faster than I can work my way through them (rather than a less daunting three times faster).
It's not that I don't want to work. It's just that the only uninteresting work facing me today is housework and choosing between all kinds of things I love doing means I do something for three minutes and then find myself doing something else, and I never advance with any of them. This is why, from 2 pm until dinnertime, I shall focus on editing. Just editing. And my evening can be reading, perhaps. And right now I'm beta-reading. Or will be, when I finish my cuppa.
It's not that I don't want to work. It's just that the only uninteresting work facing me today is housework and choosing between all kinds of things I love doing means I do something for three minutes and then find myself doing something else, and I never advance with any of them. This is why, from 2 pm until dinnertime, I shall focus on editing. Just editing. And my evening can be reading, perhaps. And right now I'm beta-reading. Or will be, when I finish my cuppa.
November 19, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-11-19T11:31:00
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow I shall be working at full pelt. Today is slow.
In a little while I'm to do a bunch of shopping, with the help of Donna and Matthew. This will stock me up on unperishables and on frozen goods and prepare me for the next eight weeks. Part of this is Chanukah, of course, and part is in case I get ill, but an important aspect of stocking my larder is that I won't have to go shopping very often at all between now and the time when the Christmas musak is entirely past. I'm a much nicer and kinder and gentler soul when my ears and eyes are not confronted every day by seasonal tack.
On Tuesday I'm hopefully shopping with Kaaron. This is mostly to spend quality time together, but I shall also by perishables and visit the Lebanese grocery, all going well.
And, on a somewhat related note, this week three people in my viicnity hae strongly defended the pagan-ness of Halloween. I would listen to them with more understanding if they had given me any evidence to help me accept what they were saying but, for these three people, the ancient pagan nature of Halloween is a matter of faith. Since I lack that faith, I choose to disbelieve them. I'm quite happy to believe, however, that my own religious calendar has pagan origins. My evidence? The names of the months.
At any rate, Halloween is past, and I have measures in place to limit my Scrooge-ness this year. And I have decided that there will be eight days of presents from me for my online friends (one for each day, of course, with names drawn out of a hat, or something). I haven't decided on what will be in it, but I discovered I had two copies of Sartor Resartus today and, though they be different editions, they used the same innards. I know exactly who is going to get that second copy, too. So it probably won't be making an appearance on the Chanukah list...
In a little while I'm to do a bunch of shopping, with the help of Donna and Matthew. This will stock me up on unperishables and on frozen goods and prepare me for the next eight weeks. Part of this is Chanukah, of course, and part is in case I get ill, but an important aspect of stocking my larder is that I won't have to go shopping very often at all between now and the time when the Christmas musak is entirely past. I'm a much nicer and kinder and gentler soul when my ears and eyes are not confronted every day by seasonal tack.
On Tuesday I'm hopefully shopping with Kaaron. This is mostly to spend quality time together, but I shall also by perishables and visit the Lebanese grocery, all going well.
And, on a somewhat related note, this week three people in my viicnity hae strongly defended the pagan-ness of Halloween. I would listen to them with more understanding if they had given me any evidence to help me accept what they were saying but, for these three people, the ancient pagan nature of Halloween is a matter of faith. Since I lack that faith, I choose to disbelieve them. I'm quite happy to believe, however, that my own religious calendar has pagan origins. My evidence? The names of the months.
At any rate, Halloween is past, and I have measures in place to limit my Scrooge-ness this year. And I have decided that there will be eight days of presents from me for my online friends (one for each day, of course, with names drawn out of a hat, or something). I haven't decided on what will be in it, but I discovered I had two copies of Sartor Resartus today and, though they be different editions, they used the same innards. I know exactly who is going to get that second copy, too. So it probably won't be making an appearance on the Chanukah list...
November 18, 2011
gillpolack @ 2011-11-18T16:20:00
Mum and I have a Friday afternoon discussion, quite regularly. One of us has an ingredient and a goal and wants suggestions. Today the ingredient was a bottle of good passata and the goal was a milchig soup. Our conclusion was to roast some vegies (sweet potato, zucchini, whatever else roastable might be in Mum's vegie drawer) with a good olive oil and then to blend them with the passata and to serve with the choice of yoghourt and/or sweet paprika garnish.
My shopping list has now expanded to include the same ingredients. It stuck me as an excellent lunch for this time of year, and I could make a big pot and have a bowl each day. It can be hot on cool days and cold on hot days, ie the vagaries of the weather become redundant. And it might be rather nice with the young goat's cheese I have hiding in my fridge.
My shopping list has now expanded to include the same ingredients. It stuck me as an excellent lunch for this time of year, and I could make a big pot and have a bowl each day. It can be hot on cool days and cold on hot days, ie the vagaries of the weather become redundant. And it might be rather nice with the young goat's cheese I have hiding in my fridge.
