6. What is the relationship between fiction and historical fact in Cloudsplitter? Is "historical fiction" a deceptive distortion of history, or does it add to our understanding of history? Of the present?

[Jen]

6. In his Author's Note, Russell Banks makes it clear that Cloudsplitter is a work of fiction, and not a version or interpretation of history. Nevertheless, the novel contains much historical information. What is the relationship between fiction and historical fact in Cloudsplitter? Is "historical fiction" a deceptive distortion of history, or does it add to our understanding of history? Of the present?

[Zombie]

I think more than an account of history, the book draws you into the world by using historical figures and events but using a fictional context to humanize them and to talk about other topics.

[Eadie]

In the case of Cloudsplitter, the fictional account of John Brown's family and the interrelationships of blacks and whites and fathers and sons allows us to understand more about John Brown's intentions and his historical fixation against slavery.

[[deleted user]]

For me with no idea of the real history or indeed any of the events before reading this book it was a great way to introduce them. The fact that it is fiction meant it has inspired me to find other factual books about the same event.

In terms of the question this adds to my understanding of history as I would probably never have picked up a non fiction book on the same subject without having read this first.

[Diane]

I like Zombie's answer, I was drawn into the relationships. I also like Book's answer, I am inspired to learn more of John Brown from reading this book.

[Kristel]

There was enough facts and real people in the book to make it so believable. But when he talks about the sister of Hawthorne's wife on the boat, I looked that up and there never was such a person though his wife did have a sister, it wasn't that sister. That was entirely fiction.

[Pip]

I, too, was unaware of the real history of the events of John Brown's life. I knew the song, but I actually imagined that John Brown was a black slave! So while reading I was unable to sort out fact and fiction. Interesting that Owen fought in the civil war and died much earlier than the book suggests, thanks for that tidbit, John. What the novel does very well, I thought, is put the reader into the life of John Brown's family, so that the day-to-day life of a settler was quite vividly described. In the end, John Brown was a terrorist, but his journey to that point, using the Bible to justify himself at every turn, was vividly described. True or not, Owen's account led one to be relieved that one had not been brought up as a child of so obsessed a character.

[John]

"John Brown's zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him. The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery."

Frederick Douglass