A problem with writing historical fiction

 Toni Morrison, speaking at a big conference, was asked how she would teach her novel Beloved.

A teacher was asking. The teacher pointed out that there were no Cliff Notes.

Morrison replied that maybe she’d ask her classes to make some.

The teacher smiled wanly, as if her question hadn’t been answered, and Morrison went on, wondering about the teacher.

But months later Morrison received a package from the teacher. Three of her classes had taken on the project of producing critical notes.

Morrison said those notes helped her see her own writing in a new light, which is what one hopes for in criticism. All three classes, in criticizing the book, found the frankness of the sex portrayed in the book disturbing.

No one said anything about being disturbed by the horrors of slavery.

The moral of the story: You can question smaller things, but you can’t question the history itself.

That insight is true of other systems of thought. You can question countless problems in mathematics and logic, but you can’t really question the axioms at the base of any of mathematical or logical systems. You have to accept something to be able to proceed.

That observation is one the best things I’ve read on the difficulty of writing historical fiction. I wish I’d read it before I tried my hand at it.

• Source: Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches and Meditations; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. The anecdote is from the title essay.