Monday 23 October, 2006

Empathy

Jane Sullivan had an interesting article on the writing of fiction and history in the Age on the weekend. (I'm quoted in it and I wasn't happy about the quote - but then, I never am - because it suggested I moved from history to fiction in my second novel simply to make my character 'nice' which wasn't what I meant.) Sullivan considers Inga Clendinnen latest Quarterly Essay, 'The History Question: Who Owns the Past?' in which Clendinnen takes issue with Kate Grenville's The Secret River and 'questions Grenville's use of that time-honoured tool, the novelist's empathy.'

I think that Clendinnen is right to call novelists to account in their use of history - it is something that writers need to give careful consideration. As a friend of mine, Peter Mews said, in relation to his second novel (not first, as the article states), Bright Planet, 'I wanted to record an early Victoria that was plausible and had verisimilitude, but patently wasn't the real thing,' he says. 'Once I made it clear - hopefully - that the novel wasn't a real history, I was free to make up whatever version I wanted to.' That is, he clearly signalled that he was writing fiction, not history.

But I do disagree with Clendinnen that empathy is a weak tool. I think it is a very powerful one. I think it is possible for a good writer to imagine themselves into other cultures and times - even ones at extraordinary remove from our contemporary world - something that Clendinnen states is not possible. I think of writing as a kind of method acting. You learn everything you can about your characters and attempt to enter their world. Sometimes the result will be a brilliant performance (think James Gandolfino) and other times you can never escape the feeling that you are watching the actor, not a fictional character (think Jack Nicholson). But that is the failing of some writers, not of the tool itself.

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