The Big Idea: Nicola Griffith
Posted on November 14, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 27 Comments
What do we think of when we think of history? For author Nicola Griffith, it’s a pertinent question, particularly for her latest novel Hild, which features a protagonist of no little historical import — but also no great historical record…
NICOLA GRIFFITH:
Just before I started work on Hild, I wrote “You’ve been warned,” a blog post in which I vowed that with my next novel I would run my software on your hardware. “I will control what you think and feel, put you right there, right then…give you a life you’ve never had, change the one you live. For a while, when you’re lost in my book, you will be somewhere, somewhen, someone else.”
It was my dagger in the table, a public challenge—to myself. You see, I’d been aiming for Hild for a long time, and I was terrified.
*
In my early twenties I was living in Hull, the rather grim city in north east England where my novel Slow River is set. One weekend I managed to get away for a few days and head north up the coast, to Whitby.
I’d read Dracula, which is set partly in Whitby, so I was expecting the 199 steps up the cliff. I was expecting the great ruined abbey against the skyline. But I didn’t expect what happened next.
When I stepped over the threshold of that ruin it felt as though history fisted up through the turf, and through me. It turned me inside out like a sock. It was like sticking your head in what looks like a perfectly ordinary wardrobe only to find yourself in Narnia. My world changed.
History, I realized, was real. Built by real people with their own dreams, disappointments, and dailyness. I could see it. I could feel it. (I probably stood there with my mouth hanging open.)
After that epiphany I went back every year, sometimes twice year. I walked the coastline. I roamed the moors. I spent hours at the abbey, sitting on the tumbled stones, reading the tourist brochures, imagining how it might have been. Even after I moved to the US I came back as often as I could. Bit by bit I learnt that the abbey was founded by a woman called Hild in the mid-seventh century. That 1350 years ago, in 664 CE, she hosted and facilitated a meeting, the Synod of Whitby, which was a major turning point in English history. She’s now revered as St. Hilda of Whitby.
But when I went looking I couldn’t find any solid information. No scholarly monograph. No saintly Life Of. Not even a novel. The only reason we know Hild existed is a mention in the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. He tell us Hild’s mother dreamt of her in the womb–she would be the light of the world. Her father was murdered in exile. She was baptised at age 13 and when she was 33 and visiting her older sister in East Anglia, she was recruited to the church. She went on to found Whitby Abbey and hosted the Synod in which so-called Celtic Christianity was ousted in favour of the Roman kind. Oh, and she trained five bishops, was a counsellor to kings, and was instrumental in the creation of the first piece of English literature, Cædmon’s Hymn.
We don’t know what she looked like, whether she married or had children, or even where she was born. But she must have been extraordinary. Think about it. This was the time that used to be called the Dark Ages. In a heroic, occcasionally brutal and certainly illiterate culture (cue music for Xena: Warrior Princess), Hild begins life as the second daughter of a widow, homeless and hunted, yet ends as a powerful advisor to more than one king, leader of a famous centre of learning, and midwife to English literature.
So how did she do that? We don’t know. I wrote this book to find out. I decided to use the same world-building I’d used in science fiction to figure out how. I’d build the seventh century and grow Hild inside.
So I researched. I read everything I could lay my hands on about the late sixth and early seventh century: ethnography, archaeology, poetry, numismatics, jewellery, textile production, languages, food, weapons, trade patterns, even the weather. I read scholarly monographs, narrative histories, blog posts, and strange screeds. Late in the process I stumbled over a new factoid: by one estimate, Anglo-Saxon women spent 65% of their time in the production of textiles. Sixty-five percent. That’s a greater proportion of her day than sleeping, child care, and food preparation combined. Textile production was life-or-death technology for the whole community. I kept returning to it; it fascinated me.
But I didn’t want to write that kind of book. I didn’t want to write about the restrictions of gender. Domesticity makes me claustrophobic. Hearth and home are all very well, but I love an epic canvas: gold and glory, politics and plotting, people wacking each other’s heads off with swords. To avoid feeling trapped I was tempted to make Hild so singular that the restrictions didn’t apply to her. At one point I even had her learn and use a sword, although in reality any woman of that era who picked one up would most likely have been killed out of hand and tossed face-down in a ditch.
I couldn’t make it work. Remember that realisation at Whitby Abbey? History is made by real people; the rules always apply. I despaired.
But there was my dagger, quivering in the table.
In the end I did what any good Anglo-Saxon would: I got drunk, laughed in the face of fear, and charged…
…And discovered what poets have known for millennia, that constraint is freeing. I had nothing to lose, so I committed. And the words came. It felt like magic. It was Hild’s voice…
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Hild: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell’s
Read an excerpt. Visit the author’s blog. Follow her on Twitter.
This looks absolutely fascinating – I’m sure there’s a rich vein to be tapped in the lives of the saints of the Dark Ages (or the Early Historic, as I think we’re supposed to call it now).
I know what Ms. Griffith means about Whitby – for all its tourist trappings, it’s a place where the sheer antiquity grabs you by the throat.
Wow. First time one of these Big Idea authors has actually turned me a bit. Looks like fun, Ms Griffith. Commitment can be contagious.
I had read about this somewhere else and put it on hold at the library. This post just upgraded it to “order one.”
I really like quality historical fiction that is well researched. I will definitely pick up this book.
Fascinating. I will be reading this.
There’s also a very nice review on npr.com this morning, but I can’t post links properly, so hopefully someone else can?
Here’s the NPR link:http://www.npr.org/2013/11/14/240301047/with-nuanced-beauty-hild-destroys-myths-of-medieval-womanhood
I’m very curious. I think this would have been much tougher to research than most historical fiction due to the absolute sparseness of hard info compared to post Norman conquest. It’s almost archeological fiction instead of historical fiction.
forgot to ask. is the coif in the cover pic in the book or is that misleading artistic impression? You comment about lack of sword fighting leads me to think the latter.
Oh, my goodness, Hilda of Whitby! I have got to read this.
I have been waiting for this book a YEAR AND A HALF.
Exostantial, I actually found myself reading a lot of archaeological reports–and consulting academics who are doing the latest research. Though I did this informally, via blogs, rather than by phone or in person.
That’s a coif. Not what I would have chosen (and I would have hung her seax sideways, parallel to her belt) but I just fell in love with the image and said: Don’t change anything!
John K Fulton: On nomenclature, the last time I checked it was Late Antiquity up to 800 or so; then Dark Ages from 850 to 1050, then 12th century Renaissance or just plain Middle Ages/Medieval. But I am sure the goal posts have waltzed a number of times since then.
This book looks so freakin’ good. Adding it to my reading list immediately.
I don’t know why there is so little historical focus on the Dark Ages. It was a fascinating time, and the queens back then? Them bitches were *fierce*.
I want to buy this just based on the cover art. It looks just like my 12 year old daughter –just add freckles…and geeky black-rimmed glasses. :D
Donna, the art is by twin sisters from Italy, Anna and Elena Balbusso. People keep telling me their Hild looks like me. I think they’re on crack :) But you must be very proud of your daughter…
It’s available for my Kobo reader, which I love, but it’s tough forgoing that cover!
Are you the same Griffith who wrote Slow River? That book had a formative impact on my early writing, particularly the way I develop characters, so thank you if that was you. This sounds very different. I like artists (authors, musicians, illustrators) who regularly do something totally new an unexpected. I’ve never understood why fans abandon artists that don’t do things the same way again and again.
I’m excited by historical fiction that fills in the unknowns between the lines of recoded history, mostly because so few authors attempt it. Most historical fictioneers seem to either invent things out of whole cloth and plop them in situ, or write an alternate history.
“Well, they didn’t call them the Dark Ages because it was dark.” ~ Daniel Jackson
@PrivateIron
Geography is also a factor. The Dark Ages are usually considered to have begun and ended during different periods in Eastern, Western and sometimes even Central Europe.
I don’t know much about the era, but this piece is so fascinating that I really need this book.
@Gulliver: Yes, this is the same Nicola Griffith who wrote the amazing SLOW RIVER.
Picked your book up from Barnes and Noble yesterday. Saw it in the front area on one of the desks. This does look very good. I think you are the first non-SF&F author I have seen post here.
I am so happy that Ms Griffith has a new book coming out. I love all of her work–if you haven’t read her other novels, I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Gulliver: This is the same Nicola Griffith, yes. Slow River is one of my favorite novels of all time, as well.
@gulliver, it’s different in other countries indeed. In Germany, Late Antiquity usually lasts until the baptism of Chlodwig in ~ AD 500, followed by the Early Middle Ages. No Dark Ages here at all. :-)
So far, I have read only part of the sample, but I’m blown away by the writing. Can’t wait to read the whole book. And thanks to recommendations here, I will look into Nicola Griffith’s earlier work too.
To be honest, I thought people had stopped talking about the Dark Ages in the Dark Ages. These days it seems to Late Antiquity until somewhere around 600, then (in England) Early Middle Ages until roughly Emma of Normandy. Must buy this.
Nicola Griffith fan here, I’ve got Slow River and Ammonite on my shelf (and Amazon just informed me about her noir/detective series). THANK YOU for this essay. I went and got my copy of Hild from my local independent bookstore this week and I’m a couple chapters in already. Got a copy of Allie Brosch’s new Hyperbole and a Half book, too, because, well, ALLIE!
That has some very pleasant cover art. (Also, I do enjoy novels about minor historical figures.)