This year's publication of Merivel, the sequel to Restoration, will only strengthen the adhesive on the historical label. This late in my career, there is nothing I can do about it. But it is interesting to note that the novel that won the prize, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, a non-contemporary piece, set during and after the second world war, never bequeathed the term "historical novelist" to Ishiguro, whereas (and despite publishing four contemporary novels since then) it has followed me around ever since. I knew that behind the escapades of my distinctly unheroic hero, Robert Merivel, there was a serious story going on about a man who trades honour for material reward, and this, I think, was understood by the Booker judges that year, who shortlisted the book. This belief had, perhaps, begun to fracture in 1988, when Peter Carey published the magisterial, Booker-winning Oscar and Lucinda, set in 19th-century England and New South Wales, but my novel, provokingly located at the rambunctious court of King Charles II (a favourite location for the futile bodice-ripper), was reviewed in an affectionate but mocking vein, nicely exemplified by the Daily Mail headline, "Knickerbocker glory!". W hen I published Restoration in 1989, most literary novelists and critics of the literary genre were inclined to view the historical novel as a vain sideshow, an essentially unserious endeavour, unworthy of careful attention.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |