or the that lie buried in ‘finding’, ‘identifying’, ‘uncovering’ ‘stories’ chronicles; and that the difference between and in ‘history’ ‘fiction’ resides the fact that the historian his stories, whereas the fiction writer ‘finds’ This conception of the the ‘invents’ his. historian’s task, however, obscures extent to which also plays a part in the operations. ‘invention’ historian’s (1973: 342) To which one might add that such a conception of the fiction also obscures writer’s task the extent to which plays a part in the fiction I was ‘finding’ writer’s operations. That able to invent a narrative using material from my archive is due to a series of ‘finds’ extraneous to the archive that begins with my stumbling upon an educational documentary about RA Fisher. But while this discovery of a theme allowed me to eliminate a great deal of material from consideration, it also introduced me to what White of the too much and not I had elsewhere calls ‘“the problem” enough’ (2005: 150). belatedly arrived at a solution to the problem of the but I had also acquired a ‘too much’, surer sense of the My novel, it seemed, could only emerge through the ‘not enough’. accumulation of yet more material (additional research into eugenics and the war, for instance) which resulted in yet more productive discoveries. Principal among these was the concept of the from the social ‘worthless men’ (Oram 1998): private soldiers considered by their commanding officers to be lacking in the precious gifts of ‘residuum’ health, courage and patriotism. Crucial too was an observation in The Geoff Dyer’s (1994) that young men queuing up to enlist in 1914 have the Missing of the Somme ‘the look of ghosts. They are queuing up to be slaughtered: they are already 6). dead’ (1994:
‘finding’, ‘identifying’, or ‘uncovering’ the ‘stories’ that lie buried in chronicles; and that the difference between ‘history’ and ‘fiction’ resides in the fact that the historian ‘finds’ his stories, whereas the fiction writer ‘invents’ his. This conception of the historian’s task, however, obscures the extent to which ‘invention’ also plays a part in the historian’s operations. (1973: 342) To which one might add that such a conception of the fiction writer’s task also obscures the extent to which ‘finding’ plays a part in the fiction writer’s operations. That I was able to invent a narrative using material from my archive is due to a series of ‘finds’ extraneous to the archive that begins with my stumbling upon an educational documentary about RA Fisher. But while this discovery of a theme allowed me to eliminate a great deal of material from consideration, it also introduced me to what White elsewhere calls ‘“the problem” of the too much and not enough’ (2005: 150). I had belatedly arrived at a solution to the problem of the ‘too much’, but I had also acquired a surer sense of the ‘not enough’. My novel, it seemed, could only emerge through the accumulation of yet more material (additional research into eugenics and the war, for instance) which resulted in yet more productive discoveries. Principal among these was the concept of the ‘worthless men’ (Oram 1998): private soldiers from the social ‘residuum’ considered by their commanding officers to be lacking in the precious gifts of health, courage and patriotism. Crucial too was an observation in Geoff Dyer’s The Missing of the Somme (1994) that ‘the young men queuing up to enlist in 1914 have the look of ghosts. They are queuing up to be slaughtered: they are already dead’ (1994: 6).
history_FINAL.docx