I was contacted by a reviewer this past weekend. She quite liked MV, confessing to pulling an all-nighter to finish it. Which is very cheering, despite my bizarre yet compelling need to apologize for keeping her awake.
She also had some questions. A couple were easy – what’s the title of the sequel, and are we going to see Pietro and Cesco in it? (Answers: it keeps changing, and definitely). But one question gave me pause, as no one else had asked it. Then I mentioned it to my father, and he said, "You know, I had the same question." In fact, he had the gall to pull out a quote and throw it at me!
The question was this: Why do I have my characters speak in a modern idiom? The tone, cadence, and expressions are much more 21st century American English than 14th century Northern Italian. Why did I make this choice?
I wrote her back at length, giving the best answer I had. I have since been able to refine it even further, deputizing Dante as well as Shakespeare to come to my aid. So I thought I would share that answer, and also the response I gave my father on the phone this morning.
As with everything else in this novel, I can point to its origins in Shakespeare. More specifically (and bizarrely), out of the dress code for Shakespeare’s theatre company.
When I started to write this story, I began with the battle of Vicenza from Mariotto’s point of view. In that false start, I attempted to create a style of speech that was more in keeping with the period. And I hated it. I felt distanced from my characters because I was forcing words into their mouths that they were having trouble swallowing. I was a poseur, a fraud. I don’t think in those terms, they’re not my patterns of speech. It felt forced and unnatural.
I was in the middle of an extended run of Shakespeare shows (it lasted something like three years of not doing anything but the Bard). And I got to thinking about Shakespeare’s goal as a playwright – to convey the story to his audience. His audience, the people of his own time.
The best example is in the dress code for the King’s Men. Say they were performing Julius Caesar. They wouldn’t bother wearing togas and the like, but rather they would put on their own street clothes. Shakespeare was a believer in economy, yes, but also in creating as few barriers between his audience and the story as possible. And he invented one out of every ten words he used – he wasn’t trying to harken back to the linguistics of a past time, he was interested in propelling the tale, whenever it was set, into the "now". Then I realized that Dante had done the same thing. Even though he used classical people and mythological characters, his Commedia was written in Italian, not Latin. He was writing it for the common man, not the literati. His audience was the common man.
So, as I started again, I gave myself permission to stop forcing these characters into speech patterns more in keeping with their age. But I also didn’t want to make the similar mistake of imitating Shakespeare’s own style, which is the equivilant to musical theatre today – people breaking into big speeches at the drop of a hat. As I sat down to start over, I realized I wasn’t writing for a past audience, but a modern one, and so I adopted a modern style. Like Shakespeare and Dante, I want no barrier between the reader and the characters.
This is not to say I don’t love and respect authors who can create such a world. Patrick O’Brian is a genius, and Dorothy Dunnett is my idol. But I can’t imagine Lymond existing today, or Aubrey and Maturin out of their times. Shakespeare was interested in making Brutus not a Republican Roman, but a modern man, relevent to the people of today. Which, I believe, is why his plays are timeless. He was commenting on the continuing flaws and virtues of man, which are unchanging, no matter the gloss of the times.
I’m no Shakespeare, nor am I a Dunnett or an O’Brian. All of this is only a justification for letting the characters in my head speak in the words they wanted to use from the start.
On the other hand, my characters do use some of the period expressions, only in a modern context. Medieval Italians didn’t give someone the finger – they gave the ‘fig’ (thumb sticking up between middle and ring fingers). Things like that. So when it reads, "Pietro gave him the fig," it is both historically accurate, and immediately clear to the modern reader what the underlying meaning is. That’s the balance I’ve been striving for.
Now, on to my father’s quote. In Chapter One of MV, Dante is complaining about "these blasted carriages." Pater said that this jumped up and smacked him as a very modern phrase. Which it is, to be sure.
But it’s roots are in Shakespeare – specifically, Macbeth. Having played the part, I can think of two instances where Mac makes references to "blast": 1) When he first meets the witches, they disappear into the air and Mac cries after them, "Tell us…why upon this blasted heath you stop our way with such prophectic greeting!" 2) When he’s imagining the deed, in the famous "If’t were done" speech, he talks about how Duncan doesn’t deserve to die, saying the Heaven would abhor the act – "And Pity, like a naked newborn babe striding the blast…shall blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears shall drown the wind."
I figure that Dante, writing about Hell, would pepper his speech with a certain liberatily of variations on damned. And, in this context, blasted means damned, or Damned. The heath has been ruined by battle. Striding the blast can mean a battlefield, or Hell. Take your pick.
So, there are my thoughts on idioms. I’m sure this won’t be the last I hear of this. But, so far, it hasn’t taken away from anyone’s enjoyment. In fact, the review wondered if I wasn’t starting a trend (which I don’t think I am, since there are any number of other historicals that read much the same way. It’s all a matter of context and balance).
Well, back to work. The research I’m doing for the third book is immensely enjoyable – The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. I hadn’t realized it took place in 1327, a year after book three begins. As often is the case, reading a fictional version of history is better than the history itself. As long as the research is good. In this case, it’s superb. And it’s almost tempting to make mention of Adso, since Cesco too will be spending some time at the court of Ludwig the Bavarian…
Cheers,
DB
