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Bottom Line : don't read historical novels. Make the effort and read something less artificial.
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War and Peace
Black Rain (
Ibuse)
Narcissus and Goldmund
The Confessions of Nat Turner
I mean damn we could rattle off books all day. The past is half of everything and it is everything that’s ever happened. Reading straight history is great but historical fiction can also open your mind up to what it may have been.
Also, all history is in the ether. As soon as the moment passes the mythologizing begins. Our understanding will always morph and be blurred by presentism. By reading the classics of historical fiction you’re lending your mind to the dream that is history as we understand it.
We’re talking about the experiences of every person that ever lived. I’m not saying it’s not crucially important to differentiate how we process writings about history but it’s all fiction to some degree. It’s our personal responsibility to be critical but also open because truthfully we don’t know what the **** happened.