Paksenarrion’s fictional world has its roots in a World History class I took one summer in junior high (opening space to take Latin the following year). Until then, I thought of history (“Social Studies” in our school) as a mass of facts to be memorized for a test. The classes were boring, mostly spent reading […] [...more]
Paksenarrion’s fictional world has its roots in a World History class I took one summer in junior high (opening space to take Latin the following year). Until then, I thought of history (“Social Studies” in our school) as a mass of facts to be memorized for a test. The classes were boring, mostly spent reading aloud, one paragraph per student, the day’s reading assignment, or doing homework–the questions at the end of each chapter. Aside from my mother’s historical novels (by Daphne du Maurier, Samuel Shellabarger, Kenneth Roberts) that I plowed through during vacation for something to read, I had no great opinion of history.
Our summer school teacher was the curriculum director for the district, newly hired, and he presented hist history in a very different way–more like a college class. He expected us to read our assignments independently (the tests caught those who hadn’t) and spent the class periods in lecture and discussion. Suddenly history had multiple dimensions–the stick figures of the “memorize facts” versions became real people, with real problems and real ideas and real emotions. Colors, sounds, smells, movement…and obvious relevance to the people around us, the world in the daily news, the results of all that history still alive and scheming/loving/fighting every day.
Still, I was fixated on science in those days, until it became necessary for me to “reconsider [my] educational objectives” as the notice telling me my grades the first year of college were below acceptable. I had done reasonably well in only two courses, English and History. I chose to major in History instead of Physics (sigh…) and spent the rest of that college degree under the guidance of two excellent professors with somewhat different emphasis.
Katherine F. Drew, then chair of the history department at Rice, was a medievalist who had translated several legal codes (if you can find her Lombard Laws and The Burgundian Code, you’ll find familiar bits in the Code of Gird) and she insisted on the importance of everything–including economics. I had studied some military history on my own (thanks to that Latin class and Caesar’s Gallic Wars) and thought economics both impenetrable and dull until she nudged us into making the connection between the finances and the strategy, the political structure and the ways goods and services were exchanged.
Floyd S. Lear, then professor emeritus, led us into the background of the politics on the philosophical side (he taught both history classes and humanities classes) in both ancient and medieval history. I have, and used in the Paks world books, his Treason in Roman and Germanic Law, a book that underlies my conception of gnome and dwarf societies in this fictional universe. Both these professors demonstrated–and demanded–a high level of scholarship. To put it bluntly, we learned to distinguish good sources from bad, one of the most valuable lessons anyone can learn.
As I was graduating from Rice, Dr. Drew said something that affected my life–she commented one day that when visiting the homes of former students, she was saddened when a bookcase held the college texts and no new evidence of continued learning. I don’t know how the others took it, but my response was to set up a long-term course of study–less demanding than college itself, since I’d have a day job, but intellectually challenging at the same level. One subject to review, one new one, one new practical skill.
It’s been a lot of fun for the past forty years. I’m still reading history books (and re-reading them), most recently Braudel’s big fat books on economics & history in the Renaissance. But not just history–many other areas of nonfiction as well. And as a background for writing fiction–especially fantasy–all this reading in history, cultural anthropology, and so on has proven invaluable. So also the practical skills–hiking, camping, basic cooking, basic sewing, riding and caring for horses, work with cattle, butchering, building, emergency medical care, rural health care, gardening, using historical tools like scythe and sickle–and so on. All of it makes possible the kind of textured fiction I hope to write. (It can also result in large lumps of “I did all this research and you’re going to read it or else!” I do try not to let my enthusiasm for the details to overwhelm the book. )
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