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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Fictional/Real Settings for Novels

07:34 / 04.07.02

This thread was sparked by a discussion we were having recently (in the "Is there a right time to read" thread) about how we imagine the physicality of characters or locations in novels, compared with the descriptions given by the author. It made me think about whether the reader really cares about the painstaking effort the author may or may not have taken in (re)creating a time and place.

So: do you think a novel reads better if it's set entirely in a real and recognizable place, or does your imagination work better if the setting is unrecognizable (whether that be because of fictional place/street/shop names, or because they are simply omitted)? Or do you prefer a mixture of both? for example- set in London with reference to specific localities, but street names or shop/pub names or descriptions are fictional?

Moreover, for those of you whoe write, do you find it easier or more necessary to the effect to write in one way or the other?

For myself, as mentioned in the other thred, I'm not particularly interested in correlations with physical reality so when I read I tend to ignore most references to time and place, and by extension, when I write I don't bother creating a historical reality. I refer only to what takes place which is usually inside character's houses or simply in a certain part of town, without need for a historian's accuracy.

08:09 / 04.07.02

The concept of a historian's accuracy is deeply flawed anyway...

I remember seeing something that Diana Wynne Jones (sorry to bring her up yet again, but it is relevant) said, which was that when she writes she finds that if she can picture the scene properly she doesn't have to describe the physical surroundings in detail - the relevant parts just come out making sense.

I suppose also it must depend on the type of fiction... but I tend to read descriptions of location as pointers about the text (telling me about what the book is trying to do), rather than as something telling what a place looks like (does that make sense?) - so sometimes I find it hard to think about the 'map' of a novel (only really a problem in detective novels and books where plot turns on location).

So actually I don't think it matters whether location is real or not to me - e.g. in Gaudy Night, most of the Oxford locations are easy for me to visualise because, well, I've been there... but the addition of an extra college which doesn't exist in this-world Oxford doesn't make the book any less enjoyable or successful. And the locations in Ulysses might just as well have been fantastical - I've never been to Dublin, so what difference would I know?

I think what I'm trying to say is that a book is a world in itself... lovely truisms...

08:42 / 04.07.02

This is a topic that interests me greatly. I certainly think it's true that short stories and novels often develop from a very strong sense of place and milieu - and one that frequently does seem to bear some semblance to the real. Think of the verisimilitude in regard to place/times in Joyce's Dubliners, for example, or the evocation of the Deep South in short stories by Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, and in the novellas and novels of Carson McCullers and William Faulkner; or the sense of 19th century London we find in the novels of Dickens. I could go on.

Perhaps I should make clear, too, that by 'develop', I do mean develop in a structural sense. Frequently images of place are repeated with a difference, augmented as they recur, and tied closely to a story's characterization and developing themes.

I do enjoy reading historical novels which have been well researched, but I prefer that they wear that research lightly (e.g. the 18th century London depicted in Nicholas Griffin's The House of Sight and Shadow). But in some genres, a fictional place can work equally well (e.g. the location of Margaret Atwood's futuristic novel, The Handmaid's Tale.

09:06 / 04.07.02

KCC - I tend to read descriptions of location as pointers about the text (telling me about what the book is trying to do), rather than as something telling what a place looks like (does that make sense?)

Yep. That's a good point. The skill of the writer should be such that the effect they are attempting to create will be manifested by the way they deport their facts, real or otherwise. Also, as Cavatina says, it's important that a book "wears its research lightly". There's nothing worse than when a novelist can't resist putting in historical detail for the sake of it- "Look how much I know about the style of knitting in seventeenth century Cornwall!"

Which returns me to my hastily knocked-up (and indeed, deeply flawed) opposition between literature and history. If I want an accurate, or at least, accurate-sounding description of life in a given time and place, I'll reach for a history book. But if I want to read a novel (which should be able to be described without reference to its setting), then I'll reach for licherachoor. Although I suppose if you want a good picture of times past then a novelized version of history is probably better than a "history book" which may be just as fictionlalized without the realism. Dunno much about history writing.

But I do get the shits when a novel is praised by referring to its depiction of a certain locale. What about the frickin writing? It's like when you ask someone about a movie and they tell you about the special effects.

11:21 / 04.07.02

Academic history tends to leave out yer actual descriptions - you're much better off trying popular history or decent historical novels for them (the distinction between academic and popular history seems to be becoming increasingly blurred, but in this as with so much else in life, by their covers shall ye know them...). This is because most academic history focuses on people (in the particular or in the mass) rather than locations. Ancient history probably differs from this becasue of the nature of the records...

One exception is Simon Schama, who (in The Embarrassment of Riches, an academic work which crosses over into the popular by virtue of having a lot of illustrations in the text) goes into immense detail when he recreates C17 Dutch life - but it is a bloody pain to wade through when you're reading for an essay.

15:41 / 04.07.02

If you go with the book-as-consciousness theory, it's this "consciousness" that you want to replicate as a writer (or have replicated as a reader). Therefore, you do not want to replicate "place" so much as "consciousness-of-place." Which is not a street name accurate version of things.