Mary Renault's novels, along with the genre as a whole, suffer from a groundless presumption that it is both cosy and irrelevant
Still present … Alexander the Great statue on the Thessaloniki waterfront. Photograph: Alamy
A few days after choosing Mary Renault as the subject of this month's Reading group, I was listening to a few podcast interviews of Penelope Lively talking about her novel Moon Tiger. In one, Lively briefly got on to the subject of historical fiction, and noted: "I used to think that it was a debased genre."
There's no need for outrage from fans of the genre – Lively has clearly changed her mind. Although isn't it interesting that she once had such a negative impression? It's one that plenty of people must once have shared, if all the recent articles about the genre's resurgence are anything to go by. Since Hilary Mantel first won the Booker I've read dozens of articles about the apparently improving status of historical fiction. One of the best was by Hilary Mantel herself, in which she neatly sums up the opposition to "historical fiction":
There's no need for outrage from fans of the genre – Lively has clearly changed her mind. Although isn't it interesting that she once had such a negative impression? It's one that plenty of people must once have shared, if all the recent articles about the genre's resurgence are anything to go by. Since Hilary Mantel first won the Booker I've read dozens of articles about the apparently improving status of historical fiction. One of the best was by Hilary Mantel herself, in which she neatly sums up the opposition to "historical fiction":"The term is beginning to look like an accusation, a stick to beat writers with: you're historical, you weaselly good-for-nothing, you luxury, you parasite. The accusation is that authors are ducking the tough issues in favour of writing about frocks. There is a certain strand of historical fiction of which this is certainly true; it is chick-lit with wimples."More
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