Perry Anderson on the Historical Novel

I don't always agree with him, but very interesting article by Perry Anderson:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n15/perry-anderson/from-progress-to-catastrophe

Gore Vidal

‘As every dullard knows, the historical novel is neither history nor a novel. History means footnotes and careful citations from others tenured in the field, while the “serious” novel is about the daily lives of those who teach school and commit adultery.’

Gore Vidal

Nostalgia and the historical novel

I have just finished Alexandre Dumas' swashbuckling Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (serialized 1847-50) which flags a bit at the end (and is the beginning of a trilogy ending in The Man in the Iron Mask). It has an atmosphere of nostalgia and sadness ageing (particularly d'Artagnan's recognition that he is increasingly irrelevant despite his bodily verve). The novel is also suffused with a sense of nostalgia, Dumas's desire for a time when things were simpler and more noble (as opposed to the perceived venality of his own times). I rarely think about this idea - that the historical novel often renders the past as somewhere idealised and more perfect, indeed a place of lost ideals: 'such friends, indeed, that none are now left like them', Le Vicomte, ed. Coward (OUP, 1998), p. 619. This is a fetishisation of the past that needs more exploration, the sense that the historical novel can allow a consideration of a better time.