Re-Embodying the Past: A Trio of Biofictions Prompts Some Questions
WRITTEN BY LUCINDA BYATT
Where are the overlaps between history, biography and biofiction? The late Natalie Zemon Davis wrote with regard to the film The Return of Martin Guerre (1982/83): “What I offer you here is in part my invention, but held tightly in check by the voices of the past”.¹ Yet her reconstruction of the life of this sixteenth-century French peasant led to accusations of “an excess of invention”.² Similarly, the differences between biographers and novelists were noted by Dame Hermione Lee, founder of the Oxford Centre for Life Writing: “Biographers (if they have any decency)”, she wrote, “don’t freely paraphrase their subject’s writings, or quote from their letters without footnotes. But novelists are allowed to make free.”³ That liberty provides the makings of a good story, a point also emphasised by another historian, Lisa Jardine: “Sometimes it takes something other than perfect fidelity to sharpen our senses […]Thank goodness for the creative imagination of fiction writers, who can reconnect us with the historical feelings, as well as the facts.”4
With its own constraints, and a history that some trace back to classical and medieval models of famous lives (fictionalised by definition), the popularity of biofiction shows no sign of fading. From a wide range of authors whose work would have fit the bill – the protagonist of the novel must be an actual historical figure – I am grateful to Louisa Treger, Jessica Mills and Elizabeth Fremantle for agreeing to answer my questions.
By re-embodying real people, biofiction allows authors to fictionalise their innermost and generally unrecorded emotions. Louisa Treger sets out the parameters clearly: “The lives of the women I write about provide me with a framework of facts on which to hang my story, so I know there’s something interesting to say. At the same time, the fictional form gives me licence to gain access to my characters’ emotional lives, and this is what interests me as a writer. I can imagine myself into their private thoughts and invent conversations and details which draw out themes I find interesting. The outline of the plot is already there; within that framework, I am able to create my own image of real people.”
Treger’s previous protagonists include Dorothy Richardson, “Ginie” Courtauld and Nellie Bly, so I ask: what led her to these real-life women? “I seem to stumble on them by chance! But the more novels I write, the more it becomes apparent that a pattern is emerging. I am drawn to writing about strong women who refused to conform and struggled to find their place in the world; women who were ground breakers and pioneers.”
Jessica Mills also chose a pioneer as the subject of her novel reimagining the life of the famous scientist, Rosalind Franklin. Mills sees Rosalind (Legend Press, 2024) as “an allegory for women’s experiences in the modern workplace. It was the centenary of Rosalind’s birth in 2020, and I wanted people to ask how much has really changed for women since the 1950s.” This is another facet of biofiction: a life reimagined in the past poses questions for the present.
Disobedient (Michael Joseph/Pegasus, 2023) by Elizabeth Fremantle is widely praised for its insightful and forceful re-imagining of Artemisia Gentileschi, now reputed one of the most talented artists of her generation in Italy. Unlike with other biofictions, Fremantle narrows the focus of the book to the time of the notorious rape and subsequent trial. “The primary source for her life in the years 1611 and 1612, which is the entire scope of my novel, are the court transcripts from the trial of Agostino Tassi,” she writes. “These offer an abundance of detail, and the different testimonies on both sides of the case offer greatly divergent points of view of the circumstances of that formative year. The variations in these testimonies in some ways describes the difficulty of arriving at a definitive ‘truth’ about that year of her life but were fertile ground to me, as a writer of fiction, to bring into being the Artemisia of my novel.”
I ask about the raft of new research on Gentileschi, the recent discovery of other paintings by her, not to mention major exhibitions. “In the case of Artemisia Gentileschi,” Fremantle replies, “the recent focus on her life and work can only be seen as something to celebrate as it sheds light on a woman who, I believe, should be as much a household name as Caravaggio.” Fremantle adds: “Her work and the boldness of her subject choices were for me the most immediate and vivid sources of inspiration into the woman she was. Though theories about when, where and for whom these works were painted can change and restoration can reveal details previously overlooked, their faces are immutable. The letters between Artemisia and her lover, Francesco Maringhi, which emerged in 2011, were greatly important to me in respect of her biography as a mature, successful woman. As examples of her own unique voice, they were most revealing and helpful for building her character as the seventeen-year-old she is in Disobedient.”
Fremantle’s “Author’s Note” reveals how she, too, is a survivor of violent rape, a fact that gives the retelling of this episode in Artemisia’s life a particularly sharp edge. She notes how “Gentileschi has become, in some ways, a figure onto whom people project ideas about feminism, female rage and survivor-hood, meaning that each fictional Artemisia holds a different significance. Mine is very personal, in that I identify with her as a survivor of violent rape, so I chose to interpret her story through that lens. In some ways it is my own story told through her. This is what fiction allows us to do, but I am always mindful of the fact that I am writing about a real, flesh and blood person and take very seriously the responsibilities inherent in that.”
Writing in the first person might seem the obvious choice for authors of biofiction. Mills tells me how she wrote her first draft “from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, seeking to retell the DNA story from Rosalind Franklin’s perspective, a woman’s voice. However, I have always loved first-person novels with strong female characters and voices, such as Anna Burns’ Milkman.” But the voice felt too distant, so she “sought to rectify that by switching to the first-person narrative voice. I immediately preferred it, as it allowed me to delve deeper into who she was as a person, although it had challenges, not least being a harder pitch as it blurred the boundary further between fiction and non-fiction.”
Treger used different narrators in The Dragon Lady (2019), and a third person narrator in Madwoman (2022), and when asked about the boundary between her voice as the writer and her subject’s voice and inner thoughts, she says: “I try to dissolve that boundary, and to inhabit the subject’s voice and thoughts as fully as I can. This happens by immersing myself in research until the character comes alive in my imagination, and then I run with it.”
Fremantle stresses how she spends “a good deal of time feeling my way into a novel and tend to write long experimental passages in different modes to find my way in. Usually, a particular voice will emerge as the right one. In the case of Disobedient, I chose to tell the story through three distinct perspectives, each one in a close third-person. I see this as an intermediate narrative space between the limiting and particular first-person and a fully omniscient narrator, a mode I find somewhat impersonal for my style of writing. In this case the close third-person, a kind of view over the shoulder of a character, allowed me scope to move between experiencing some events through the eyes of the character and yet be able to pan out to a wider perspective for certain scenes. Each of the narrators, Artemisia, Orazio and Zita, were holding secrets from the others, so this facilitated the way I could deliver information to the reader and create dramatic irony.” This method of trial and error has its downsides, Fremantle continues: “I imagine my work in a cinematic way, moving between the general and the specific, and the close third person enables me to best achieve this. This is why I return to it so often, though I did once write an entire novel in first-person, only to rewrite it in third. I don’t recommend this. Happily, I learnt from that experience to nail down the perspective and tense that best serves the story before launching in.”
Mills expresses the hope “that readers will connect with and be inspired by Rosalind Franklin’s life and work, particularly her sparkling mind and lifelong passion for science, as well as her dedication to the subject. I hope they will also appreciate the injustices she faced and be challenged to ask what can and needs to change. By making her successes visible, it shows what women can do, and in acknowledging women’s value in the workplace and giving credit where it is deserved, perhaps it will make the path easier for the next generation of women who are excited and passionate about what their careers might hold.”
Treger’s forthcoming novel is also biofiction, “about another strong woman who refused to live by the rules: Dora Maar, Picasso’s lover and muse. Most people know her as his ‘Weeping Woman,’ as though tears were the only interesting thing about her, but she was a gifted artist and photographer in her own right. And so, I decided to draw her out of his long dark shadow. It’s called The Paris Muse and will be published on 4th July 2024.”
Returning to the question of boundaries, I ask Treger whether history, biography and biofiction remain completely distinct? “I see them as complementary”, she replies. “In other words, engaging imaginatively with the past creates an interlacing of fact and fiction; a space in which the feelings behind the ideas are brought to life.” Biofiction looks set to remain a rewarding genre in this respect.
References:
1. Natalie Zemon-Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), viii-ix, 5.
2. Robert Finlay, “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre”, American Historical Review, vol. 93 (1988), p. 570.
3. Hermione Lee reviews Colm Toibin’s The Master, The Guardian, 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/mar/20/featuresreviews.guardianreview17
4. My thanks to Louisa Treger for citing Lisa Jardine’s “A Point of View”, September 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29060077
About the contributor: Lucinda Byatt is Features Editor of HNR, as well as a historian and translator. https://textline.wordpress.com/
Published in Historical Novels Review | Issue 107 (February 2024)
