When I started this class, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew it would be hard, mainly cause Mitchell was teaching it but I also knew it would be rewarding. At the beginning of this course, we discussed how author's morph history into their narratives and how they make it make sense and interesting. I feel like some books we've read throughout the semester did this really well while others just totally confused the reader.
Libra was the one book that I didn't like. The history embedded into it was hard to keep up with and took copious amounts of rereading to figure out who was who. There were some people who had codes name (Leon) which messed with my brain and understanding of the book. Obviously we haven't finished it so maybe towards the end, the book comes together as a whole. If it didn't, Libra would be the most annoying and distracting book I've ever read. The amount of stuff the author crams into a single page is crazy and definitely took some getting used to.
Kindred was undoubtedly the best book of the semester and was beautifully coherent. The author did an amazing job of connecting history with real life while adding an element of science fiction. It was heavy and dense with material, but was easy to understand what was going on. Unlike Libra, Kindred was straight forward and comprehensible. What I liked most about it was the fact that it wasn't just historical fiction. The time traveling was a really neat detail that added a whole other layer on top the heavy plot. It constantly had you thinking and contemplating what next was going to happen. The historical aspect of the book wasn't a famous event so you didn't know what was next. The anticipation made the book more enticing to read and more engaging in class.
The semester project was the culmination of this class, all condensed into a couple weeks. The books we read in class gave me a nice understanding of how to write historical fiction, which was definitely helpful. While my semester project still needs lots of work, I feel as if the entire semester set me up for writing a 16 page story which I hope to expand on later after school. While comparing my project with the books we read, I realized how hard it is to write a coherent and understandable story while incorporating actual history. The hardest part was making the historical aspect as precise as possible, since you have to think about weather, the food they ate, smells, etc. However, it was also the most fun part of the project since you got to learn all the history along with making up your own story.
Overall, this class definitely made me appreciate historical fiction more than I used to. While it was a hard and demanding class, I feel completely rewarded.
Libra was the one book that I didn't like. The history embedded into it was hard to keep up with and took copious amounts of rereading to figure out who was who. There were some people who had codes name (Leon) which messed with my brain and understanding of the book. Obviously we haven't finished it so maybe towards the end, the book comes together as a whole. If it didn't, Libra would be the most annoying and distracting book I've ever read. The amount of stuff the author crams into a single page is crazy and definitely took some getting used to.
Kindred was undoubtedly the best book of the semester and was beautifully coherent. The author did an amazing job of connecting history with real life while adding an element of science fiction. It was heavy and dense with material, but was easy to understand what was going on. Unlike Libra, Kindred was straight forward and comprehensible. What I liked most about it was the fact that it wasn't just historical fiction. The time traveling was a really neat detail that added a whole other layer on top the heavy plot. It constantly had you thinking and contemplating what next was going to happen. The historical aspect of the book wasn't a famous event so you didn't know what was next. The anticipation made the book more enticing to read and more engaging in class.
The semester project was the culmination of this class, all condensed into a couple weeks. The books we read in class gave me a nice understanding of how to write historical fiction, which was definitely helpful. While my semester project still needs lots of work, I feel as if the entire semester set me up for writing a 16 page story which I hope to expand on later after school. While comparing my project with the books we read, I realized how hard it is to write a coherent and understandable story while incorporating actual history. The hardest part was making the historical aspect as precise as possible, since you have to think about weather, the food they ate, smells, etc. However, it was also the most fun part of the project since you got to learn all the history along with making up your own story.
Overall, this class definitely made me appreciate historical fiction more than I used to. While it was a hard and demanding class, I feel completely rewarded.
It seems like we had a pretty similar take on the class - especially with hating libra and loving Kindred! I also had the same experience with comparing my final project to the books we had read and realizing how damn hard it is to write metafiction. But I also think that I at least partially succeeded, and as you said, it was so rewarding. I feel like my writing skills improved so much writing that final essay (even though Vicente said all my characters sounded like robots. I'll work on that.)
ReplyDeleteI agree, this was one of the most rewarding classes I've ever taken. It completely flipped around my perspective regarding both history AND fiction (wow!). But genuinely, it altered the way I look at political discourse today, the way information is retrieved and narrative is formed. I'm better able to understand various perspectives because I realize that ultimately everyone's information is bullshit.
ReplyDeleteNice post. History as fiction was definitely an awesome class which was not only enjoyable but really showed me the interesting topic of postmodernism. I, and it seems many other people judging by posts and comments, agree with you about Kindred- it was a very intriguing and stimulating novel that I had a great time reading and discussing about.
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