Amanda Craig recently rebuked her fellow novelists for evading the contemporary scene and setting their novels in the past. We should be more like the Victorians, she said, and have the courage to write about our own times. If the novel is to be relevant to readers, it should address today’s issues. Why, she asked, is Hilary Mantel publishing a novel about Henry VIII’s henchman, Thomas Cromwell, rather than . . . Well, I don’t recall if she actually suggested an alternative subject, but her point is clear. Writing historical novels is an evasion of the novelist’s duty.
Of course Hilary Mantel has written novels set in the here and now, and very good ones. If she chooses to diversify and write one set in the 16th century, that’s her business, and I should be surprised if her readers don’t approve. Nevertheless Amanda Craig’s charge is worth considering, even if her assertion seemed just a bit sweeping.
Comic novels, one should say, are almost always contemporary, because the foibles of one’s own time are matter for the comic spirit.
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