Internet Perfidity (Fiction and history in M&D)

[Peter Giordano]

I want to add something else to what Andrew said about fiction and history:

There is a body of literature which gives us a feel of a time and a moment
and even the soul of an era - The novel THE KILLER ANGELS (or perhaps the
new book COLD MOUNTAIN) or the non-fiction of Bruce Catton does this very
well because they weave the FACTS together and leave the mythmaking to the
reader

There is a body of literature (history) which holds old facts up to the
light and draws a new and different conclusion, uncovers new facts, or
presents all the facts possible in great detail - That person who is
writing the day-by-day history of the Battle of Gettysburg would be an
example of that sort of historian - He might be prepared to argue that
Pickett had his shoe laces undone and that's why the charge failed but the
author had better be prepared to back up the claim

Then there are the writers like Pynchon who, recognizing that we are our
own histories, uses our stories as a mirror to show us both where we've
been and where we're going, and perhaps to argue that indeed we are merely
standing still - The moral we draw from M&D is not based on what happened
in the 18th century, nor on a silly parade of facts, but on the
recongnition of a part of ourselves etched in time - If the values driving
the characters in M&D can reach out to us today they must be powerful indeed

Peter Giordano
Williams College
Williamstown, MA