I hated history at school. All I remember of my last year is that the teacher's name was Sheldrake, so his nickname was Bombduck. I had started going to pubs at sixteen and history was first thing on a Monday morning so the class was an excuse to sleep off the weekend. I still made pass grades. All you had to do was memorise the dates and some names and I could do that with a bit of cramming the night before the examination.
So if someone had told me back then that I was going to become an historical novelist I think I would jumped under a train. I couldn't have imagined anything worse. I wanted to play for Manchester United.
The one lesson I loved was English, which is surprising, because we were reading Shakespeare and most sixteen year olds find Shakespeare hard work. Not us. Our English teacher, with the more normal-sounding name of Mr. Briggs, didn't just make us read Hamlet; he described the stage for us (this was long before Sam Wannamaker rebuilt The Globe); he explained about the hawkers moving through the crowd selling pies and nuts while the play was still going on; he gossiped about Marlowe getting murdered; he told us that Shakespeare was bald, had an affair with a woman in Oxford, and built a fancy house in Stratford on the proceeds of his career. In other words, he made Shakespeare sound like a human being. I didn't realize that what Mister Briggs was doing was teaching us history as well as Hamlet.
Still, when I started my career as a novelist I was not moved to write history. I wrote thrillers and then did a couple of crime novels that did reasonably well. But it was when I wrote Harem that my London agent rang me out of the blue and said: you have to do this. I sold around 180,000 copies of that novel in Germany alone.
Harem was the book that taught me how to research; for instance, if you are going to write about eunuchs you better know about castration, and all the different ways it can be done, no matter how excruciating it is. I also had to learn about the Ottoman system of government, which was worse than one of Bombduck's history lessons. But as a novelist it is essential that you know these things and then slip them into the narrative when it's needed in a very unBombducklike manner.
But most of all I never forgot what Mr Briggs taught us; the play's the thing. History is the background; the story is the star. And more than any other genre I believe historical fiction has the canvas to paint big, beautiful story. It always has, from literature long past (War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, Ivanhoe) until more recent times (Shogun, Doctor Zhivago.) The movies I love are Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, Gladiator. These are the kinds of stories that I want to write, and there are not enough of them out there for me as a reader
When I came to write SILK ROAD I started with three voices contending with each other in my head. (Yes, and I have made an appointment at the clinic; it's next Wednesday at two o'clock.) I imagined these three very different characters hating and loving each other on the greatest canvas I could find, the legendary Silk Road of the medieval period. This spiderweb of trade routes stretched from the Crusader castles of Palestine, through Persia, over the Hindu Kush , across the dreaded Taklimakan desert and right through Cathay to Khubilai Khan's capital of Shang-tu (the legendary Xanadu).
I loved writing this book; I loved travelling much of the Silk Road, even though at the time it was a complete nightmare. I loved writing a story that brought back to life a world now long past. I loved being able to say, through my characters, a little of what I feel about life and our place in it. Most of all I loved the thought that I might be able to take someone with me on such an epic journey and perhaps make them miss their train stop or get growled at by their husband for leaving the light on all night reading.
So in the end, Mister Sheldrake, I have to admit that I love history. That sixteen year old never knew what he was missing. But still - at least he remembered the dates.
So if someone had told me back then that I was going to become an historical novelist I think I would jumped under a train. I couldn't have imagined anything worse. I wanted to play for Manchester United.
The one lesson I loved was English, which is surprising, because we were reading Shakespeare and most sixteen year olds find Shakespeare hard work. Not us. Our English teacher, with the more normal-sounding name of Mr. Briggs, didn't just make us read Hamlet; he described the stage for us (this was long before Sam Wannamaker rebuilt The Globe); he explained about the hawkers moving through the crowd selling pies and nuts while the play was still going on; he gossiped about Marlowe getting murdered; he told us that Shakespeare was bald, had an affair with a woman in Oxford, and built a fancy house in Stratford on the proceeds of his career. In other words, he made Shakespeare sound like a human being. I didn't realize that what Mister Briggs was doing was teaching us history as well as Hamlet.
Still, when I started my career as a novelist I was not moved to write history. I wrote thrillers and then did a couple of crime novels that did reasonably well. But it was when I wrote Harem that my London agent rang me out of the blue and said: you have to do this. I sold around 180,000 copies of that novel in Germany alone.
Harem was the book that taught me how to research; for instance, if you are going to write about eunuchs you better know about castration, and all the different ways it can be done, no matter how excruciating it is. I also had to learn about the Ottoman system of government, which was worse than one of Bombduck's history lessons. But as a novelist it is essential that you know these things and then slip them into the narrative when it's needed in a very unBombducklike manner.
But most of all I never forgot what Mr Briggs taught us; the play's the thing. History is the background; the story is the star. And more than any other genre I believe historical fiction has the canvas to paint big, beautiful story. It always has, from literature long past (War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, Ivanhoe) until more recent times (Shogun, Doctor Zhivago.) The movies I love are Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, Gladiator. These are the kinds of stories that I want to write, and there are not enough of them out there for me as a reader
When I came to write SILK ROAD I started with three voices contending with each other in my head. (Yes, and I have made an appointment at the clinic; it's next Wednesday at two o'clock.) I imagined these three very different characters hating and loving each other on the greatest canvas I could find, the legendary Silk Road of the medieval period. This spiderweb of trade routes stretched from the Crusader castles of Palestine, through Persia, over the Hindu Kush , across the dreaded Taklimakan desert and right through Cathay to Khubilai Khan's capital of Shang-tu (the legendary Xanadu). I loved writing this book; I loved travelling much of the Silk Road, even though at the time it was a complete nightmare. I loved writing a story that brought back to life a world now long past. I loved being able to say, through my characters, a little of what I feel about life and our place in it. Most of all I loved the thought that I might be able to take someone with me on such an epic journey and perhaps make them miss their train stop or get growled at by their husband for leaving the light on all night reading.
So in the end, Mister Sheldrake, I have to admit that I love history. That sixteen year old never knew what he was missing. But still - at least he remembered the dates.
Colin Falconer has been published widely in the UK, US and Europe and his books have been translated into seventeen languages. He is the author of SILK ROAD, published by Corvus Atlantic. For more information click here.
He invites you to join him at http://www.colinfalconer.net/ and his brand new blog http://colin-falconer.blogspot.com/
He invites you to join him at http://www.colinfalconer.net/ and his brand new blog http://colin-falconer.blogspot.com/
