Thesis Historiographic Fiction

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Writing About Risky Relatives and What might Have Been

The Craft of Historiographic Metafiction

PhD Thesis - Volume 1

Exegesis

Tim Milfull

Creative Writing and Cultural Studies Discipline

Creative Industries Faculty

Queensland University of Technology

Submitted in full requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012



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Keywords

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Abstract

This practice-based research project consists of a 33,000-word novella, “Folly”, and a

50,000-word exegesis that examines the principles of historiographic metafiction (HMF), the

recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and other narratological concepts that

inform my creative practice. As an emerging sub-genre of historical fiction, HMF is one

aspect of a national and international discourse about historical fiction in the fields of

literature, history, and politics. Leading theorists discussed below include Linda Hutcheon

and Ansgar Nünning, along with the recent critically-acclaimed work of contemporary

Australian writers, Richard Flanagan, Kate Grenville, and Louis Nowra. “Folly” traces a

number of periods in the lives of fictional versions of the researcher and his eighteenth-

century Irish relative, and experiments with concepts of historiographic metafiction, the

recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and the act of narratorial manipulation,

specifically focalisation, voice, and point of view. The key findings of this research include:

identifying the principles and ideas that support writing work of historiographic metafiction;

a determination as to the value of recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and

narratorial manipulation, in the writing of historiographic metafiction; an account of the

challenges facing an emerging writer of historiographic metafiction, and their resulting

solutions (where these could be established); and, finally, some possible directions for future

research.



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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Keywords """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" #

Abstract """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $

Statement of Authorship """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" %

Acknowledgements """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" &

Chapter 1: Introduction """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" '

Research Questions ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @A

Research Outputs ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @@

Chapter 2: Research Framework & Methodology """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ##

Chapter 3: Literature Review """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $(

Section 1: The Knowing of History in Fiction ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? BB

Section 2: Writing about Real People ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? BC

Section 3: Finding the Right Voice ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? D@

Chapter 4: Textual Analysis """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" %#

Section 1: Does Historiographic Metafiction just Deal with the Big Issues? ???????????????????? EB

Section 2: Recontextualising Reality and Its Characters ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? FC

Section 3: Telling Stories in Character ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @AC

Chapter 5: Reflexive Practice """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (#'

Section 1: The Three Faces of Thomas Whaley ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @GC

Section 2: The Unpredictable Nature of Archival Research ????????????????????????????????????????????????? @BC

Section 3: The Reflexive Practitioner ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @HG

Section 4: The Creative Practitioner as Scholar ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @HI

Chapter 6: Conclusions """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ()$

Appendix A – Images related to the story of Thomas Whaley """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (%*

Appendix B – Edward Sullivan’s Preface to Tom Whaley’s Memoirs """"""""""""""""""""""""""" (%#

Bibliography """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (&+



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Figure 1 – Locations of Thomas Whaley's houses in southern France ??????????????????????????????????????????? GI

Figure 2 – Narrative Structures in “Folly” ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @BD

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Figure 6 – Whaley's mansion as a hotel after his death in 1850 ????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @EA

Figure 7 – Fort Anne Hotel, built as a replica of the original mansion ???????????????????????????????????????? @EA

Figure 8 – Whaley's Ancestral Home - No. 86, Stephen's Green, Dublin ?????????????????????????????????? @E@

Figure 9 – Mrs Courtney Whaley (died 1797/99) ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? @E@



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Statement of Authorship

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Acknowledgements

This research could not have been completed without the kind support of the following:

Kiki Fung, my Supervisors – Dr Susan Carson & Dr Kari Gislason, my Final Seminar Panel

Chair, and panel members, Dr Lesley Hawkes & Dr Clare Archer-Lean, Professor BradHaseman, Professor Greg Hearn, Jenny Mayes, Kate Simmonds, Julie Gallant, Jessica Hicks,

Britta Froehling, Adjunct Professor Helen Yeates, Professor Sharyn Pearce, Dr Vivienne

Muller, Dr Jean Burgess, Dr Donna Hancox, Dr Jaz Choi, Eli Koger, the management, staff,

and clientele of Dancing Bean Kelvin Grove, Carmen Keates, my colleagues in L221 and

L222 and all of my peers at QUT, Toni Bartlett and Ross Watson, Richard Flanagan, Sal

Battaglia and Carolyn Stubbin, Claire-Louise and Doug Perrers, my parents, Kathy Webb,Geoff Gibbon, Laurie Scott, and Jack Bauer.



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Whatever I have seen and observed I shall faithfully detail, without presuming orattempting to misguide the reader; claiming, as a reward of my sincerity, thatindulgence which candour and impartiality are always sure to obtain.

Should but one young man learn from these sheets some useful lesson, and stop in

the career of folly and dissipation; or one of my indulgent friends be induced to

believe that my extraordinary levities proceeded, not from a corrupted heart, but

an eccentric and exalted imagination and ridiculous pretensions to notoriety, I

shall think myself amply repaid for having attempted this publication.

Thomas Whaley, Buck Whaley’s Memoirs



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Chapter 1: Introduction

My discovery a few years ago of the memoirs of eighteenth-century Irish dandy,

Thomas Whaley, offered some interesting possibilities in terms of writing a historical novel.

This hard-cover 360-page version was edited and published by Edward Sullivan in 1906 after

he stumbled across the volume in an auction:

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(Whaley 1906, v)

Sullivan’s edited version of the memoirs is now available online, while the folio-

sized, leather-bound originals were stolen from the Library of London sometime before 2006.

The memoirs revealed that Whaley was immensely wealthy and incorrigibly daring. He

travelled throughout Europe and the Middle East, mixed with the rich, the famous, and the

notorious, and continuously sought thrills in dangerous situations and exotic climes. Little is

known publicly of his exploits, and the further I explored his life, the more enticing mysteries

and tantalising gaps I found in the historical record. Even in the final days of my research I

was discovering dramatic new truths about Whaley that had me reconsidering the directions

of my writing.

Here was a perfect life to be written about, but with a further complicating factor: he

and I are related—two branches on the same family tree. As I explored Whaley’s life, I began

to see some parallels between our lives, and noticed that we dealt in different ways with the

challenges that we encountered. After initially considering an exploration of these parallels

and differences in fictional form, I realised that conventional historical fiction could never



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quite achieve what I was aiming for, in that the genre tends to prioritise exposition and

mimesis. While the latter play an important role in historical fiction, I wanted to use my

writing to explore the motivation and character of the historical protagonist and several

historical inconsistencies and ambiguities apparent in Sullivan’s edited version of the

memoirs.

In the genre of historiographic metafiction —a term first coined by Linda Hutcheon

(1988, 112-123)—I found an alternate narratological framework to shape my novel, a

narrative form that has evolved from historical fiction, and can offer a self-reflexive, and in

some ways, unpredictable medium. Historiographic metafiction is not so much about

historical characters and events, as it is about recontextualising the past from the perspective

of the present. As Ansgar Nünning (2004, 353) defines the term, historiographic metafiction

can range from the explicit —where an overt form of metafiction challenges the “hegemonic

discourse of history”—to the implicit —where the text offers multiple voices and points of

view, and exploits the “partiality, contradictoriness, unreliability, and questionable

authenticity of historical sources and documents”. Such exploitation, in relation to the

accountability of authors of fiction, has been discussed in the following ways: Richard Walsh

(2003, 111) argues that fictionality is not simply “the negative foil for nonfictional narrative’s

claim to referential authority […]; it is a concept that articulates the positive cultural role

nonfiction must renounce in making such referential claims, and which fiction plays by virtue

of its fictional status.” Further, Walsh (ibid.) notes that rather than continuing to regard

fiction as narrative that unfolds through the abeyance of certain rules of reference,

nonfictional narrative should be seen to act under constraints that connote elements like

historicity and objectivity in order to maintain a rhetoric of veracity.

Research Questions



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This thesis explores the following key research question and sub-questions in seeking

a methodology for writing historiographic metafiction:

Historiographic metafiction as a sub-genre in the Australian literary landscapeis increasingly discussed. Until now, the discourses have been within either a

creative or scholarly context, but not both. In a research model that involves

creative, scholarly, and theoretical perspectives, what principles and ideas

support historiographic metafiction?

a. At an authorial level, how does recontextualisation of historical figures

and scenarios impact upon the process of writing historiographicmetafiction?

b. What aspects of narratorial manipulation are most effective in writing

historiographic metafiction?

This thesis seeks to answer these questions by exploring the theoretical backgrounds

of these concepts, conducting close textual analysis of critically acclaimed Australian

examples of historiographic metafiction, and applying the outcomes of this research in an

experimental application of the historiographic metafiction process inspired by my

genealogical relationship with Thomas Whaley.

Research Outputs

In his 2007 Southerly article, Australian Literature-International Contexts, Robert

Dixon discusses perceptions of Australian literature at home and abroad, and how its authors

react to the way their work is managed and consumed:

Contemporary writers like David Malouf, Peter Carey, Les A. Murray and Robert

Dessaix have major reputations overseas, where they are often read very differently

from the way they are read here. Australian writers and Australian literature have

never been confined to the boundaries of the nation. Literary influences and

intellectual formations, and the business of editing, publishing, translation, reception

and reputation-making, take place both within and beyond the nation. Understanding

this uses the infrastructure that has been developed over the generations of Australian

literary scholarship, but it takes some new turns and trajectories.

(2007, 20)



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Alongside, and perhaps because of, a debate between the academic community or

historians and historiographers, and the literary community of writers of historical fiction,

these and other Australian authors have become wary of the ways their writing is perceived,

and recognise that they need to engage in ever more innovative experiments into the genre.

Writers also need to heed the current political and academic environment as they write and

promote their work, and continue to be sensitive to what Tony Ballantyne (2005, 23) has

identified as “[t]he complex interplays between different layers of analysis: the local, the

regional, the inter-regional, the national, the continental, and the global,” in terms of

negotiating cross-cultural engagement.

Several writers have conducted such experiments in form and content by writing

historiographic metafiction, a relatively new sub-genre of historical fiction. To date, while I

have identified examples of the sub-genre, I have not found any Australian writers actively

using the theoretical underpinnings of historiographic metafiction to inform their practice. I

seek to make a contribution to knowledge by applying my research into this sub-genre and

two of its contributing techniques in a practical experiment in creative writing. My analysis

of work by contemporary Australian authors identifies the techniques these authors use to

recontextualise historical figures and scenarios, with a view to comparing and contrasting

these techniques with those that I use in writing my own genealogically-inspired

historiographic metafiction. Despite Nünning’s detailed categorisation of HMF, I have

established that its use in a genealogical context has not yet been identified or analysed—my

analysis of Kate Grenville’s own experiences writing a genealogically-inspired work of HMF

serves to inform and influence my own creative practice. My contribution to knowledge is the

application of historiographic metafiction to creative practice in order to investigate new

ideas within a critical and creative space in Australian writing. In researching and

documenting the process of writing a work of historiographic metafiction, my scholarly,



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creative, and theoretical outcomes expand the discussion of contemporary Australian fiction,

and contribute to knowledge about the process of creative writing. By rewriting, or

recontextualising what may or may not have happened in the lives of my historical

protagonist and myself, my writing searches for the personal through the historical. This

intimate search for Thomas Whaley becomes a work of implicit historiographic metafiction; I

am avoiding the grand hegemonic narratives of history to focus on personal narratives. As

Cora Kaplan (2007, 66) notes in her analysis of David Lodge’s Author, Author and Colm

Tóibín’s The Master , in writing biographical fiction, like historical fiction—and by extension

to my own research into historiographic metafiction—it is difficult, if not impossible to avoid

what Henry James described as the ‘single false note’ in seeking a verisimilitude with the

historical record. Kaplan argues that contemporary novelists and writers of biographical

fiction are “much less invested in a strict adherence to social or psychological realism”. My

aim in writing a work of historiographic metafiction is not to achieve the kind of

verisimilitude with the historical record of Thomas Whaley’s life that might be approached in

a historical biography; rather, I am using this sub-genre of historical fiction to examine the

gaps in Whaley’s historical narrative in the hopes of gaining a closer personal connection to

my relative.

In Nünning’s model of HMF, “Folly” sits somewhere towards the implicit end of the

spectrum, in that its narratives eschew these “grand hegemonic narratives, in favour of

offering multiple perspectives and texts” and draw “attention to the distorting effects of

selecting sources”, to the historiographer’s problems of flimsy sources, and the partiality,

contradictoriness, unreliability, and questionable authenticity of historical sources and

documents” (Nünning 2004, 365). My novel can never be seen just as an act of historical

mimesis; rather, this act of “subjective, retrospective construction” explores and hypothesises

about the life of another. In the context of this project, the outcome delivers an assessment of



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the problems and solutions involved in writing a work of historiographic metafiction. The key

findings of this research include: identifying the principles and ideas that support writing a

work of historiographic metafiction; a determination as to the value of recontextualisation of

historical figures and scenarios, and narratorial manipulation in the writing of historiographic

metafiction; an account of the challenges facing an emerging writer of historiographic

metafiction, and their resulting solutions (where these could be established), and finally, a

reflection on the impact of my creative practice upon my understanding of its supporting

theories.

*

The methodology for this project uses a qualitative research framework and an

interpretivist ideology, which aims to understand the world through interpretation. I am

searching through interpretation and a creative response for some understanding of the

actions and motivation of my protagonist. My interpretive paradigm also involves the

concepts of tacit knowledge and material thinking , where the practice is influenced by the

materials involved, which in turn influence the practitioner’s understanding and

comprehension of their process. This project uses a number of methods, including extensive

archival research, textual analysis, and reflexive practice. The first step of my creative

practice is to conduct extensive archival research to examine the lives of my historical

protagonist and his contemporaries. I then use textual analysis to break down the memoirs of

my historical protagonist in order to determine the most appropriate scenarios for use in my

novel. I continue this analysis while examining the work of contemporary Australian writers

of historiographic metafiction to identify the choices and techniques used by these writers to

construct their narratives. Finally, I compare and contrast their writing choices with those I



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have made in my own creative practice, and reflect on the influence of this practice on its

supporting theoretical positions.

My Literature Review examines the origins of the concepts and techniques associated

with historiographic metafiction, the recontextualisation of historical and contemporary

nonfiction characters, and selected aspects of narratorial manipulation —in particular:

focalisation, point of view, and voice. The latter techniques associated with my research sub-

questions have a direct, combined impact upon the creation of historiographic metafiction. In

the context of using various narrative techniques to construct narrative, the crucial

combination of recontextualising historical figures or scenarios with narratorial manipulation

will produce historical fiction. Unless the author is using the implicit intertextuality of wider

cultural discourses to question historical fact—see my analysis of Kate Grenville’s work

below—historiographic metafiction will only result after the introduction of an overt

metafictive component.

My rationale for my theoretical and practical research is outlined below. Throughout

the Literature Review, I refer to the implications of these concepts and techniques upon my

creative practice. In the context of contemporary Australian historiographic metafiction, I

have selected a number of critically acclaimed novels for analysis in order to situate myself

as an emerging writer of this genre in order to provide a checkpoint for my experimentation.

In Chapter 4, I analyse these novels by three critically-acclaimed Australian authors who

have engaged in the practice of writing historiographic metafiction, and have offered

feedback on their creative process—Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2006), Richard

Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish (2002) and Wanting (2008), and Louis Nowra’s Ice (2009).

I contrast these works with analysis of my own creative practice, to understand contemporary

patterns of historiographic metafiction, and to place myself as a writer of this sub-genre in an



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Australian context. I then discuss my creative practice, and conclude with a summary of my

research outcomes.

My investigation of the sub-genre of historiographic metafiction, focuses on the

relationship between the writing of history— historiography —the writing of historical fiction,

and its evolution or postmodern transition into HMF. My novel began as an exploration of

intergenerational mores, and metamorphosed into a search for understanding of my self

through the exploration the self in the context of the role of a creative writer. Starting with a

flawed secondary source that had been tainted by Victorian manners—the primary source of

Whaley’s original memoirs has disappeared—and drawing from a sparsely documented and

sometimes unreliable historical record, I conjure a number of interpretations of Whaley’s

motives. The resulting intertwining narratives forming my novel could never be regarded as a

work of historiography; in fact, they only thinly resemble a work of historical fiction in that

my novel’s action, whether historical or contemporary, is filtered through several narrative

viewpoints that render their action closer to informed speculation or conjecture than historical

fiction. By using elements of my own journey as an author through the use of the metafictive

techniques of historiographic metafiction, I add a contemporary context to the memoirs and

historical elements of Thomas Whaley’s life. These include gathering and synthesising the

detailed historical research undertaken, charting the life of my protagonist, and crafting a

contemporary protagonist who gains insight into the motivations and behaviour of a historical

protagonist. Like Kate Grenville and Richard Flanagan, I push and provoke conventional

historical fiction into the realm of historiographic metafiction by using the self-conscious

manipulation of the historical record to explore my protagonists’ sense of self, rather than

simply offering a representation of the past. In his analysis of Henry James as a fictional

character in the works of contemporary authors, J.R. Perkins (2010, 118) asks whether a

novelist should be constrained by the historical record, and at what point “the ‘imaginative



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exploration’ reaches a point that is ethically illegitimate such that the work no longer resides

within the bounds of historical fiction. Like the authors of biographical fiction that Kaplan

(2007, 66) has identified as “much less invested” in historical, social, or psychological

realism, I have realised that as an author of historiographic metafiction rather than strict

biography, I am accountable not to my family—in my capacity as a relative of Thomas

Whaley—or to Whaley, but to those readers prepared to explore a fictional narrative that is

unbound by the constraints of nonfiction.

In Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafiction Paradox, Linda Hutcheon asserts that

society will only ever understand history through “its traces, its relics”; historical reference in

fiction can only be negotiated on the understanding that “ fact is discourse-defined, while an

event is not” (1996, 119). Through historiographic metafiction, writers can negotiate and

recontextualise a new vision of a former discourse or a series of events. In exploring the

potential of historiographic metafiction as a narratological framework, I play “on the truth

and lies of the historical record” (ibid., 114); by blurring the ontological boundaries of

history, I seek to challenge the readers’ perception of received history.

If the four published novels under analysis were placed within a spectrum that ran

from Nünning’s implicit to explicit historiographic metafiction, Grenville’s The Secret River

would sit comfortably at the explicit end of the scale, with its overt message of searching for

contemporary understanding of a national issue by trying to establish an empathic position

through her protagonist, William Thornhill, Grenville’s thinly disguised ancestor. While she

does not use overt metafictive techniques in her writing, the implicit intertextuality of the

themes that Grenville addresses in The Secret River represent a metafictive contribution to a

wider national discourse about colonisation. Richard Flanagan’s Wanting and Gould’s Book

of Fish, while addressing similar social issues, takes a more covert approach in constructing

their characters and manipulating them in a narrative context. As such, both novels could be



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placed at the opposite, implicit end of the spectrum to Grenville’s novel. While his colleagues

sit at either end of the scale, in his novel, Ice, Louis Nowra hovers somewhere in the middle

of the spectrum, with his subjective manipulation of character and plot neither overt nor

covert in its classification as historiographic metafiction. My novel, with its personal and

intimate examination of the motivations and actions of the historical and contemporary

protagonists would sit somewhere between those of Nowra and Flanagan.

The first research sub-question addresses a subjective issue, in that my personal

position influences the use of nonfictional characters and scenarios within a work of

historiographic metafiction. To portray these elements in what I perceive as a responsible and

narratively effective manner, I have to establish and abide by a set of guidelines. Therefore,

in these sections of the Literature Review (Writing about Real People) and in Chapter 4,

Textual Analyses ( Recontextualising Reality and Its Characters), I focus on the technique of

recontextualising historical figures and scenarios, and the ways I address the challenges

faced when incorporating these characters and their situations into the historical and

contemporary narratives of my novel. I examine the process of choosing and

recontextualising these characters, and other entirely fictional characters and situations that

compel the narratives forward. I also investigate the evolution of autobiographical and

memoir writing and use these findings to inform the writing of my own fictional life story,

and my recontextualisation of Whaley’s life and memoirs. In my analyses, I draw on the

work of a number of contemporary Australian authors, specifically addressing their position

in the Australian “history wars” fought between historians and authors in the 2010s.

In The Secret River —and the reflexive memoir based upon the writing of this novel,

Searching for the Secret River —Kate Grenville seeks to connect with her ancestor, and then

fictionalises his life in order to explore the personal and societal implications of colonisation.

Unlike Grenville’s exploration of postcolonial Australian socio-political conditions through



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her ancestor, my research emerges out of the influence of my genealogical relationship and

remains focused upon this relationship, rather than move into exploration at a societal level.

Like Grenville’s recontextualisation of history, Richard Flanagan plays with historical fact in

his novel, Gould’s Book of Fish, to tell a layered, multi-textual story that explores

contemporary connections and relationships with historically traumatic events. The novel

approaches historical fact at a number of levels, using “facts” from traditional Western

historiographic sources, and blending them in “great, circular” fictional narratives (Pons

2005, 69) that resemble Indigenous aural storytelling, and searches for an understanding of

his (and our) place in history. Flanagan takes a similar approach in Wanting , intertwining

nineteenth-century narratives featuring nonfictional characters, and speculating on the

background behind and long-term implications of their life-changing decisions. Finally, in

Ice, Nowra recontextualises the life of a historical nineteenth-century industrialist by filtering

his life through the imagination of a fictional, flawed, amateur biographer who allows a very

specific contemporary agenda to influence his research and writing. I analyse these works to

identify the techniques the authors use to recontextualise historical figures and scenarios, and

to compare and contrast these techniques with those that I use in writing my novella.

The final analytical component of my exegesis charts the evolution of specific

concepts used in the narrative theory school of narratology: focalisation; point of view; and

voice. These are important concepts in almost all narratives, but I focus on these concepts

here because they play an integral role in the narratorial manipulation involved in creating

metafictive narratives. I then apply these concepts in my analysis of the work of Grenville,

Flanagan, Nowra, and then my own writing. The aim of this process is to refine ideas that aid

effective narratorial manipulation, in which the use of multiple voices and points of view

result can result in complex narrative patterns. The challenges and rewards of finding and



20

implementing effective narratorial manipulation result in the most appropriate voices,

registers, and modes of narration necessary to move the narrative forward.

In Chapter 5, I examine my reflexive practice, drawing on the various influences,

actions and reactions involved in engaging in the creative practice of writing a work of

historiographic metafiction. I begin by examining the current landscape of reflexive practice

theory, and the concept of the author as a researcher, with a view to defending the nexus

between the critical and creative aspects of my research. I then use this information to

examine significant turning points—in my archival research, my creative practice, and my

scholarly research —to qualify my reflexive practice in a scholarly context.

Finally, in Chapter 6, I outline the conclusions of my research, and explain the

outcomes and contributions this research makes to the field of creative writing. Within the

context of work by contemporary Australian writers, this thesis examines a number of

techniques that are useful in creating a work of historiographic metafiction that has

genealogical inspiration. I therefore contribute to knowledge about the process of creative

writing, and also to the expansion of the discussion of contemporary Australian fiction.

While my writing incorporates significant historical events, my novella examines the

personal through the historical, and in certain instances rewriting, or recontextualising what

may or may not have happened in the life of my historical protagonist. Thus my novella

becomes a work of what Nünning (2004, 362) terms implicit historiographic metafiction,

eschewing the grand, hegemonic narratives of history, and focusing on the more intimate

forces influencing personal narratives. To paraphrase Nünning, my novella can never be seen

as only an act of mimesis of history; rather, I have engaged in an act of “subjective,

retrospective construction” (Nünning 2004, 368) by examining and hypothesising about the

life of another.

*



21

In the preceding chapter, I introduced the scope of this thesis, my research questions

and sub-questions, and outlined the outputs of this research. I discussed the differences

between historiography and historiographic metafiction in the context of using archival and

other forms of research to create a work of creative writing. I outlined my rationale for the

focus of my literature review on the evolution of historical fiction’s sub-genre of

historiographic metafiction, the recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and

the key role that narratorial manipulation —including the techniques of focalisation, point of

view and voice —plays in creating historiographic metafiction. Finally, I have discussed my

rationale for analysing the novels of Kate Grenville, Richard Flanagan, and Louis Nowra, and

to inform my own creative practice through analysis of their work.

This thesis examines the role that historiographic metafiction plays in writing a

creative work that incorporates historical and contemporary protagonists with a genealogical

relationship. I identify two key processes— recontextualisation of historical figures and

scenarios and narratorial manipulation —that are vital in writing such a creative work. In the

next chapter, I discuss the Research Framework and Methodology that guide and inform my

research, and illustrate these aspects of my research using examples from my theoretical,

scholarly, and creative practice.



22

Chapter 2: Research Framework & Methodology

My thesis—a 33,000-word novella and a 50,000-word exegesis—uses a qualitative

research framework and an interpretivist ideology. As Thomas Schwandt (2001) explains in

his Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry, this methodology sees researchers aiming to understand

the world through interpretation. Also, in the sense of the concept of praxis as defined by

Brown (1993, 2321)—as “the practice of a technical subject or art [...] arising out of the

theory of it”—I am searching through interpretation and literary analysis for some

understanding of the actions and motivation my protagonist. My interpretive paradigm also

incorporates findings from Barbara Bolt’s article, The Magic is in the Handling (2007, 29-34)

and ideas from Paul Carter’s book, Material Thinking (2004). Bolt and Carter advocate that

creative practice employs a specific form of tacit knowledge (personal knowledge that is not

easily shared), and the process of material thinking (the first-hand accounts of turning ideas

into artworks, and how this thinking can produce new knowledge about ourselves and

society). In their models, creative practice is influenced by the tacit knowledge of the creative

practitioner, and the materials involved in their practice; in turn, both of these concepts

influence the practitioner’s understanding and comprehension of their process. In my case, a

literal example of tacit knowledge is my ability to write creatively—while we can be taught

the tools of language, including vocabulary and grammar, the process of creative writing can

only be honed through practice. A more esoteric example—especially in the instance of

writing the novella “Folly”—is the tacit knowledge I have of my own personality and my

knowledge of lived experience. This is as opposed to my explicit knowledge of the life and

motivations of Thomas Whaley, which has been gained from personal memoirs and other

archival sources.



23

Perhaps another way to frame this style of research is to paraphrase some of Paul

Carter’s findings in his book Ground Truthing: Explorations in a Creative Region (2010),

where he examines the work of Australian artists and poets who have a strong relationship to

a particular landscape. Carter describes one artist’s talent for eliciting eidetic associations as

indicative of a “logic of mere coincidences” that in the context of my own literary research

might transpose into “a creative attitude that allows the [author] to escape the dry appearance

of things to see the sea within them” (ibid., 150). In the most literal sense of “grounded

research”, Carter speaks of artists working from the ground up to find a “way in which it

could provide the ‘tirille’ or hollow of being, in which the content of what has happened and

will happen can be differently configured” (ibid., 151). My own immersion in the “dry” facts

of the historical records could expose a sea of possibilities that exist around Thomas

Whaley’s life.

In the scope of this research my explicit knowledge of my historical protagonist can

only be acquired by becoming a “passionate participant” searching for understanding through

reconstruction (Denzin 2000, 194). I have access to what amounts to a primary source in

Whaley’s writing, flawed though it may be in its unreliable narration by Whaley, and in its

Victorian editing by the similarly unreliable Edward Sullivan (1906, xliv), who censored the

original document in the name of propriety:

R, #%63 &(&3 '(#3# =.3&3 O.()31N# )(,/8(/3 "# #%63=.($ $%% %8$#0%T3,- R .(<3

",9"'($39 %6"##"%,# +&%6 $.3 %&"/",() ;1 (#$3&"#T#?

An example of this occurs in Sullivan’s use of asterisks to replace an aspect of

Whaley’s story that he considered inappropriate:

X%$="$.#$(,9",/ $.3 34'3##"<3 .3($ %+ $.3 (0(&$63,$- ( P8&T =")) (68#3 ."6#3)+

;1 #"$$",/ .3&3 +%& (, .%8& ($ ( $"63- $")) 3<3&1 0%&3 "# %03,? !3 $.3, '())# ", ."#

#)(<3#- =.% ()$3&,($3)1 &8; ."6 ="$. $.3"& .(,9# (,9 08)) ."# Y%",$# $")) .3 $.",T#$.36 #8++"'"3,$)1 #800)3V =.3,- (+$3& 03&+86",/ ."# ;3(&9 ="$. $.3 6%#$ '%#$)1

3##3,'3#- .3 &3$"&3# ",$% ."# !"#"$ $% +","#. $.3 9(1 Z Z Z Z 2";"9?- FA7



24

I break down this memoir into smaller individual segments in an effort to find the

most effective scenes to be adapted into a fictional form, identify the more attractive or

intriguing elisions made by Whaley and Edward Sullivan (the twentieth-century editor of his

memoirs), and then search for some understanding of Whaley and his lifestyle through

creating a fictional version of him. In this way, I can explore the potential of where and how

these scenes may fit into my final creative work. This methodology allows me to adopt a

strategic and disciplined approach to the topic.

In The Sage Dictionary of Qualitative Inquiry, Thomas Schwandt (2007, 244) defines

praxis as the realisation or comprehension that occurs within a vulnerable relationship that

one is seeking to understand. When a practitioner surrenders to a continually risk-laden

scenario, praxis involves situated reflection to obtain comprehension of their situation. This

research project involves more than creative practice, particularly in uncovering the past of

my historical protagonist and in my search for enlightenment about his motivations and

actions, and in appropriating elements of my own lived experience. Thus, the praxis of this

research project involved a number of unknowns and other risks that could only be addressed

using certain methods, and in the context of certain theoretical concepts. In fact, in the

process of researching these theoretical concepts, analysing their application in the work of

contemporary authors, and then using these findings in researching and writing my own

creative practice, I have come to a more comprehensive understanding of historiographic

metafiction and the potential it has for exciting and innovative storytelling.

Jack Whitehead and Jean McNiff (2006), in their “Living Theory” approach to action

research, argue that practitioners are in a constant process of asking whether their work can

be improved. By maintaining reflection cycles, implementing an action plan, and constantly

modifying my project in reaction to evaluation, I am able to refine diverse subject matter.



25

This practice of double-loop learning —first identified by Chris Argylis and Donald Schon in

Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness (1974)—sees reflexive practice

reinforced and complemented with feedback and critique.

In my research and writing, I apply the essence of Brad Haseman’s concept of

redactive creativity (in Hartley 2005, 165), seeking to take information from a diverse range

of sources and synthesise them into a particular form. The methods of sourcing and using this

material have included geographical and temporal mapping (see Appendix), a process

involving identification, vetting and selection of appropriate anecdotes and narrative gaps in

the memoir, textual analysis, archival research, reflexive practice, and industry mentoring.

The final creative work amounts to multi-layered, spatiotemporal maps overlaid on a number

of intertwined narratives influenced by historical memoir and lived experience.

At a more detailed level, I have found that the smallest ideas and influences are vital

in terms of contributing to the creative process. In the now familiar rhizome analogy used in

their book, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze and Felix

Guattari (1987, 21) suggest that rather than a system taking on hierarchical forms or pre-

destined paths, the formation of an artwork is the result of an “a centred, non-hierarchical,

nonsignifying system … without an organizing memory”. This kind of system is evident in

the process of creative writing, where, while ideas can spring from one to the next with no

logical inter-connection with others, they can generate further ideas that often demonstrate

intertextuality. This random and often extremely frustrating rhizomic structure—the result of

a coalescence of a wide variety of research into the diverse areas of historical record, archival

material and theories of narratology—most accurately represents my plotting of ideas,

narrative structure, dialogue and problem-solving involved in my writing. This ever-

expanding stimulus for examination and introspection is crucial to Paul Carter’s writing in

Ground Truthing , where he notes that the region under examination only “grows larger, the



26

more intently you examine its interstitial spaces” (2010, 167), and further opens the

possibilities for creative growth and opportunity; in the case of “Folly”, the more I explored

the life of Thomas Whaley, the more intriguing elisions and ambiguity emerged, particularly

when instances like his imprisonment in Bridewell Gaol or the outcome of a dramatic duel

become overwhelmed with some of the more quotidian aspects of his life. This process

significantly influenced my creative practice, as occasions frequently arose where I was

challenged to reassess my understanding of my historical protagonist, and redefine my

perceptions of the potential for the techniques involved in writing historiographic metafiction

to contribute to exciting and engaging narratives.

A small example of situating a character in their space involved my experimentation

with the first introduction of my historical protagonist. In the first draft, I used a detached,

impersonal narrative voice and what I considered reasonable reactions on the protagonist’s

part to his recent relocation to a new region in Europe:

The buck pauses in his tour of the parade and walks to the wall overlooking the

valley. Granted, he is taking some liberty referring to himself as “the buck”–fully two

years will pass before he can call on his birthright and claim his place at the table inthe Dublin Hellfire Club. But the events of the past few months surely have earned

him the title, at least in the eyes of the Captain, who has remarked more than once that

the buck’s adventures compare well with his own, even at half his age. A trickle of

sweat runs down the inside of his thigh, breaking his thoughts. He wonders whether

he will ever become comfortable with the lunacy of French fashion, even as he admits

that he does look quite fine in breeches, blouses, brocades, and the remarkable

discomfort of these buckled contraptions masquerading as shoes.

(Milfull 2010)

After a process of reflexive practice involving further research, I completed a final

draft of the paragraph:

Tom leaned against the stone wall and looked out over the valley. The gentlest of

breezes took the edge off the midsummer sun. On the horizon, the Pyrenees clawed at

the sky, even in this heat managing to guard their snow-capped peaks. Beyond the

mountains in the north was the town of Auch; behind him in the distance, another

small village: Tarbes. A little further up the hill to his right was the small chateau

owned by his host, the Count: Henri. By Monday, Tom’s houses at Cauteret,

Bagnères, and Tarbes would be stocked, staffed, and ready for play. Until then, he



27

was at the disposal of Henri; for better or worse. A trickle of sweat ran down the

inside of his thigh, and Tom squirmed ever so slightly.

(“Folly” 2011, 39)

Three issues were considered in the transition from the first to final drafts: voice;

point of view; and historical anachronism. An example of the wide variety of research

required can be seen later in the chapter introduced by the paragraph above, where I tell the

story of the first meeting between my historical protagonist and his first love. From Whaley’s

memoirs, I knew the names and locations of the towns where he maintained his three houses

in southern France (Figure 1), but I needed to have a more concrete idea of distances between

these towns, and how the town of Tarbes might have looked in the late eighteenth-century.

Consulting historical and contemporary records, I was able to identify certain surviving

features of the town, and then incorporate them into my story.

Figure 1 – Locations of Thomas Whaley's houses in southern France

I speak in more detail below the implications of elastic truth in Whaley’s version of

his life, but in the context of discussing my research methods, there are a number of



28

methodological issues that I considered while adapting his memoirs to historiographic

metafiction. Ultimately, I chose “scenes” from Whaley’s memoirs for their potential to drive

the overall narrative of the novella forward. In some cases I extrapolated events as described

by Whaley; in others, I indulged in straight conjecture to construct my own version of these

events. The important aspect to acknowledge in the historical narrative is that my fictional

version of Tom offers my impressions of the man, rather than the man as described in his

own memoirs. Given Whaley’s story is two centuries distant, and accepting that these

memoirs are questionable in their authenticity, it could be argued that appropriating him as a

character into a work of historiographic metafiction is relatively free of ethical

considerations. I argue that Whaley himself might not have objected to his

recontextualisation, and that surviving ancestors aside from myself have little claim to

privacy on his behalf. Other characters in the historical narrative are either significant

historical figures that fall under the same category as Whaley, or entirely fictional constructs

created to contribute to the narrative. In the contemporary narrative, however, there are other

issues to be considered, especially in light of the fact that the safety buffer of a few centuries

of history is not available. The contemporary people I appropriate as characters are still alive,

and in some cases, too close for comfort. Other writers choose not to take this into account,

but my ethical beliefs dictate that I consider the implications of appropriating the lives of

friends, family, acquaintances, and others into my creative work, particularly in terms of

establishing and maintaining a creative and critical distance from these people. How do I

address these concerns in a contemporary, fictional, autobiographical narrative strand,

particularly since certain people in my life have had a significant effect upon me? In the

context of the contemporary narrative, rather than bringing to fictional life a long list of

characters based upon my real-life friends and acquaintances, I decided to merge elements

and characteristics of several key people into one important character who would act as a



29

consigliore of sorts. In other instances, I have used real people as inspiration for fleeting

references to characters. And again, I have chosen key events from my life to inform the

narrative, and to mesh with the elements of Tom’s narrative. While any novelist can draw on

these influences, I also have the inspiration of a genealogical relationship with my historical

protagonist. This research has allowed me to realise that at a personal level, my genealogical

relationship with Thomas Whaley ultimately had no extraordinarily significant influence on

me as a writer, other than to increase the levels of enthusiasm to explore a relative through

the gaps in his historical narrative. While there was an initial urge to seek some kind of one-

directional psychological or emotional connection with my relative, ultimately Whaley

represented a muse like any other that might be used by novelists. I acknowledge that our

relationship offered a certain form of novelty, and I retain a fond affection for him, but once

the processes of research and writing were underway, Whaley held the same level of

importance as any other inspiration for a writer.

My methodology incorporates a reflexive creative practice that occurs concurrent with

and is influenced by my theoretical research into the background of the narratological

concepts relevant to my practice. My praxis applies archival research, textual analysis and

elements of creative writing practice in a final creative work. This often unpredictable praxis

went through a long period of marshalling different moments in time and space before the

final intertwining of narratives. Finally, the already convoluted act of using

recontextualisation to introduce historical figures and scenarios while writing historiographic

metafiction is enhanced by the fact that this project has a genealogical inspiration.

*

In the next chapter, my Literature Review examines contemporary thinking about the

key terms and concepts that inform my research—including, recontextualisation of historical



30

figures and events, and narratorial manipulation (key aspects of which include focalisation,

point of view and voice)— with a view to addressing a gap in knowledge around the

confluence of creative and critical approaches to historiographic metafiction.



31

Chapter 3: Literature Review

In writing a work of fiction, any number of tools can influence stylistic choices,

narrative movement, perspective, voice, pacing, and other tropes that influence the contract

undertaken when a reader constructs the virtual universe suggested by an author. In three

separate sections, this Literature Review examines the published popular and scholarly works

that have contributed to the concepts of historiographic metafiction (Section 1: The Knowing

of History in Fiction), recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios (Section 2:

Writing about Real People), and narratorial manipulation (Section 3: Finding the Right

Voice), and contextualises their impact upon my creative praxis.

My creative project involves writing a contemporary literary work of historiographic

metafiction in the context of a genealogical relationship between two protagonists. In the

process of researching and writing this novella, I wanted to engage in the field of Australian

historiographic metafiction by examining the work of well-known critical and creative

writers. Section 1— The Knowing of History in Fiction —examines the evolution of the

concept, historiographic metafiction (or HMF) beginning with Michel de Certeau’s definition

of the concept of historiography (or the writing of history), and moving to the circumstances

and definition of HMF by Linda Hutcheon. The section finishes with Ansgar Nünning’s

refinement of HMF into a spectrum that runs from implicit (covert) HMF to explicit (overt)

HMF.

My ethical position dictated that I consider the implications of recontextualising the

lives of others. Section 2— Writing about Real People —unpacks life writing in the context of

writing one’s own life story and appropriating the lives of others to do so, along with an

examination of some of the ethical implications of this process. I begin by examining the

concept of truth in fiction, because the recontextualisation of reality requires some



32

manipulation of the concept of truth. I then move to the work of Philippe Lejeune, which

examines the autobiographical pact between an author and a reader, in order to understand

what expectations are established between the two, particularly regarding verisimilitude or

mimesis in reproducing one’s life. This research is supplemented by addressing the works of

Jean Starobinski and Caroline Barros on the subject of life writing. Finally, I explore the

ethical implications of recontextualising historical and contemporary figures by reviewing the

research into life writing conducted by Claudia Mills, Paul Eakin, David Gooblar, and

Richard Freadman respectively, with particular emphasis on Gooblar’s analysis of Philip

Roth’s fictional life writing.

Part of the process of writing this work of historiographic metafiction has been to

identify and craft the most effective voices in relating the various narratives in my story. This

technique, which I for the purposes of this research I have termed as narratorial

manipulation, requires an understanding of the ways in which authors “tell” their stories, that

is, how does an author choose and then manipulate the narrator’s voice in their work? Section

3— Finding the Right Voice —uses a school of narrative theory called narratology to examine

the evolution and current thinking about various aspects of narratorial voice, including point

of view, narration, and focalisation. I begin by reviewing the scope of classical and

postclassical narratology, and then move to examine the research of Seymour Chatman,

Wayne Booth, and Gerard Genette, all of whom have made significant contributions to the

field of narratology. I address the debate between Mieke Bal and Genette about the concerns

of the former over the shortcomings perceived in the work of the latter, and I conclude by

examining Genette’s comprehensive typology of narrative spatio-temporal determination. In

particular, I address the context of narratorial manipulation in finding firm vocal positions for

the various characters within the narrative, and also in contributing to the overall metafictive

authorial voice throughout the novella.



33

Finally, I shall demonstrate below that in the creative practice of writing “Folly”, I

have found the following important implications in the practical application of concepts of

implicit historiographic metafiction: an increased flexibility in the process of character

formation; lessened ethical considerations where a personal connection exists between the

narrator and protagonist, particularly when a significant temporal buffer exists between the

two; recognition that a wide variety of choices of historical ambiguities and elisions can have

a significant effect on the outcome of a work of historiographic metafiction; that second-

person voice, in particular, can be a useful tool in moderating the dissonance that might occur

in having a contemporary narrator telling a story about a historical character; and that the

narratological taxonomy developed by Gerard Genette and others is particularly effective in

classifying, understanding, and applying narration and voice.

Section 1: The Knowing of History in Fiction

This section of the Literature Review outlines the work of Patricia Waugh in

classifying the term, metafiction, before reviewing the “writing of history” identified by

Michel de Certeau as historiography. I then examine Linda Hutcheon’s conflation of the two

terms into the sub-genre of historiographic metafiction, before considering Ansgar Nünning’s

most recent refinement of the concept into a spectrum that runs from implicit (covert) HMF

to explicit (overt) HMF. Throughout this section I refer to the impact of these terms upon my

own creative praxis.

*

Metafiction has been accepted as an arrow in the writer’s quiver since the late-1970s.

In Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, Patricia Waugh (1993, 2)

identifies the emerging phenomenon of metafiction in the work of postmodern writers



34

including John Fowles and Jorge Luis Borges, and moves on to define the term as the

practice of exploring “a theory of fiction through the practice of writing.” Suzanne Keen

(2003a, 40) employs a much simpler definition in her essay Levels: Realms of Existence,

suggesting metafiction simply draws attention to the fictionality of narrative, while Linda

Hutcheon in Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox, argues that metafiction

requires the reader to “accept responsibility for the act of decoding, the act of reading”

(1991a, 37). Extending this argument in A Theory of Parody, Hutcheon (1991b, 73) suggests

that metafictive texts, in their less-structured forms reflect a lack of confidence in, or

insecurity with life, that these postmodern techniques encourage the reader to adopt an active,

creative role in the process of reading, and thereby offering a level of empowerment. For

Hutcheon, metafiction as a technique represents one manifestation of postmodernism,

allowing the reader to open a door into the mechanics of literature and the intricacies or

mysteries of its production. As I show below, metafiction offers an effective tool for creative

writers—particularly of historical fiction—who wish to actively engaging the reader in

debates about the reliability of the historical record.

In his succinct definition of historiography, Michel de Certeau (1988, 100) allows for

the intricacies of metafiction and porous historical narratives, along with the idiosyncrasies of

historians , suggesting in The Writing of History that the concept “represents the dead along a

narrative itinerary.” The combination of these ideas means that the art of writing history

involves a certain elasticity, especially in terms of the very personal imprint historians leave

upon their work. In fact, de Certeau (ibid., 9) concedes that history by its very nature

becomes a form of fiction:

In historiography, fiction can be found at the end of the process, in the product ofthe manipulation and the analysis. Its story is given as a staging of the past, and

not as the circumscribed area in which is affected an operation characterised by its

gap in respect to power. The past is the fiction of the present. The same holds true

for all veritable historiographical labours. The explication of the past endlessly



35

marks distinctions between the analytical apparatus, which is present, and the

materials analysed, the documents concerning the curiosities about the dead.

Here, de Certeau blurs the line between writers of historiography and (historical)

fiction, identifying the personal “imprint” left by historiographers in their analysis and

synthesis of historical artefacts; however, in Chapter 5, I explore the implications of the

analysis and synthesis of historical artefacts by creative writers of historical fiction, and their

subsequent criticism at the hands of historians, who accused the writers of dangerously

subverting the historical record. I have found in my own creative practice that the sometimes

elastic nature of the historical record means that exploring and experimenting with alternative

historical narratives can be unavoidable.

Hutcheon (1991a, 40) and others argue that metafiction as a form of fiction refutes the

concept of “mirroring reality or telling any truth about it.” In itself, fiction cannot achieve

these results, as the concept is mimetic/diegetic as a form. It cannot reproduce or even mirror

reality. Historiographic metafiction is nothing more than a discourse through which we seek

an understanding of a version of reality, and “incorporat[e] a theoretical self-awareness of

history and fiction as human constructs” (Hutcheon 1996, 5). Supplementing Umberto Eco’s

(1984, 74-76) assertion that there traditionally have been three ways to narrate the past—the

romance, the swashbuckling tale, and the historical novel—Hutcheon (1996, 482) argues that

historiographic metafiction is the fourth option to narrate the past. She asserts that “we can

only know [our past] through its traces, its relics” (ibid., 119). Therefore, our understanding

of historical reference in fiction can only be negotiated. According to Hutcheon, “ fact is

discourse-defined; an event is not” (ibid.). Whereas de Certeau and Hutcheon might be

aligned with different conceptual literary frameworks, they both offer interesting commentary

that helps to unpick the complexities of the processes of writing history.

Through historiographic metafiction, therefore, it is possible to negotiate and

recontextualise a new vision of a former discourse or series of events, and then use



36

metafiction to argue the merits and pitfalls of these re-imaginings within the text. As I

explore the potential of historiographic metafiction as a narratological technique, I play “on

the truth and lies of the historical record” (Hutcheon 1996, 114); by blurring the ontological

boundaries of history, I seek to challenge the reader’s perception of received history. I argue

that in the context of writing fiction using various narrative techniques, historical fiction is

the crucial combination of recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and the

practice of narratorial manipulation. The imposition of a metafictive context onto a work of

historical fiction then transforms this work into historiographic metafiction by requiring the

reader to recognise that certain aspects of history are being called into question. This process

allows both the author and the reader freedom to question the historical record. At the same

time, unlike the constraints on nonfictional narratives identified by Walsh (2003, 111)—

including the connotation of historicity and objectivity—only the author and the reader of

historiographic metafiction are accountable for the questions asked of the text, and the

implications drawn from whatever answers might be gained.

In Where Historiographic Metafiction and Narratology Meet: Towards an Applied

Cultural Narratology, Ansgar Nünning (2004, 353) further develops Hutcheon’s concept of

historiographic metafiction to advance his argument that there is more than one

“narratology”. In a detailed examination, he offers a typology and poetics of historical fiction

based on five sets of narratological parameters (ibid., 361):

1.

The structure of thematic selections;

2.

The various levels of narrative communication;

3. The narratological categories describing the time structure;

4. The relationship(s) between the fictive and “official” historical worlds;

5. The different kinds of available historical fiction, defined on the basis of the

question of whether and to what degree the fictional illusion is maintained and

fostered or undermined and destroyed, and on the basis of the various functions

that different variants of historical fiction typically fulfil.



37

This typology and poetics aid in categorising and classifying various elements of

historical fiction, but Nünning (ibid., 362) digs further into the genre, establishing a useful set

of typological rubrics for the historical novel, including documentary, realist, revisionist, and

metahistorical.

The final two rubrics are particularly relevant to my research:

Metahistorical – explore, revise, and transform the formal conventions of the

traditionally historical novel; focus on the continuity of the past in the present, on the

interplay between different time levels, on forms of historical consciousness, and on

the recuperation of history: the self-reflexive historical novel relates a series of events

that have taken place in the past, but focuses on the ways in which these events are

grasped and explained in retrospect.

Historiographic Metafiction (implicit and explicit) – address problems related to the

writing of history using explicit metafictional comments; thematizes and underminesthe border between historiography and fiction, enquiring into the epistemological

status of history and historiography.

While explicit historiographic metafiction can be quickly identified through its direct

challenges to the “hegemonic discourse of historiography” and clear discussion of

“epistemological and methodological problems of reconstructing the past” (ibid., 366),

implicit historiographic metafiction offers multiple perspectives and texts from different

genres, and “draw[s] attention to the distorting effects of selecting sources”, to the

historiographer’s problems of flimsy sources, and the “partiality, contradictoriness,

unreliability, and questionable authenticity of historical sources and documents” (ibid., 365).

Here it is worth remembering de Certeau’s comments about the subjective nature of

historiography, and the subsequent effect such skewing might have upon writers of

historiographic metafiction. By adopting a framework of historiographic metafiction, I can

devise a process to work with the historical record. While my creative work, “Folly” does not

challenge hegemonic discourses of the historical record, the novella seeks to challenge the

reader to consider the more intimate, personal contradictions that sometimes arise when



38

examining the life of an individual, rather than at a level of community, society, or

civilisation. In this way, my perceptions of implicit historiographic metafiction as a narrative

device have been endorsed through the creative process of writing into this sub-genre. In fact,

in conjunction with my experiments with recontextualisation of historical figures and

scenarios, and narratorial manipulation, I have found that Nünning’s definition of implicit

historiographic metafiction offers an effective entry to be accurate and effective in examining

the motivations and actions of a historical protagonist.

“Folly” illustrates these processes involved in using historiographic metafiction as a

tool in the writing of historical fiction. Prefacing his edited version of Whaley’s memoirs

(See Appendix), Edward Sullivan (in Whaley 1906, xxviii) discusses the historical record of

Whaley’s death in 1800, observing the commonly-held belief that he had died of

complications from cirrhosis of the liver while on a trip from Liverpool to London. But

Sullivan also uncovered contradictory evidence suggesting instead that Whaley may have

been murdered by a jealous lover on the same trip. And in the final days of writing this thesis,

I obtained evidence (Tattersall 2011) that further threw doubt on the circumstances of

Whaley’s last days—could the fact that Whaley authorised a final draft of his Last Will and

Testament only seven days before his death mean he felt his life was in danger, or even that

he planned to fake his own death? Which is the truth? While further research may or may not

uncover the truth of the matter, for the purposes of my novella—and in a nod to my second

cousin’s memory (and reputation as a raconteur), for I wonder which ending he might have

viewed as more ignominious—I chose the latter ending involving the jealous lover for his

narrative. Once this decision was made, I then had to fill what is effectively a gap in the

historical record—what were the circumstances behind Whaley’s death? The act of filling in

this gap represents the setting of fictional work in a specific historical period; the argument



39

between my contemporary characters about the validity of that decision represents the

practice of historiographic metafiction.

Thus far, this literature review has examined the evolution of historiographic

metafiction as a sub-genre of historical fiction. The next section examines a key tool used in

writing historical fiction: the recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios. I begin

by examining the concept of truth in fiction, before moving on to the considerations of

autobiographical writing made by Philippe Lejeune and Carolyn Barros respectively, before

concluding with a summary of research into the fictional autobiographical work of Philip

Roth.

Section 2: Writing about Real People

My historical protagonist was prone to exaggerating and manipulating the truth to his

own end. As my novella is a blend of fictionalised autobiography and fictional memoir, there

will be examples where I have appropriated or recontextualised nonfictional scenarios;

sometimes there will be instances of bending the truth, and other times, I will manufacture

realities. All of these acts can be regarded as typical in the writing of historical fiction. But

when a metafictive context for these recontextualisations is provided through narratorial

manipulation, the prose becomes historiographic metafiction. Before I examine the process of

recontextualising fact into fiction below, I address the concept of truth in fiction because as a

creative writer inspired by a genealogical text, I am drawn to not only the authority of the

historical record and the tensions surrounding my relationship with those figures involved in

that record.

One of the first modern discussions of this issue involved Henry James, who in the

midst of a public debate with another writer, Walter Besant, argued in The Art of Fiction (in

Sool 2003, 246) against any truth-related restrictions or constraints:



40

...the good health of an art [fiction] which so undertakes to reproduce life must

demand that it be perfectly free. It lives upon exercise, and the very meaning of

exercise is freedom.

Later, in The Craft of Fiction (1921), Percy Lubbock wrote that debates about

representations of truth in novels, or the authentication of such were irrelevant, arguing that

such representations simply needed to “look” true. And in the mid-twentieth century, Norman

Friedman used his book, Point of View in Fiction (1955, 1160-1184) to untangle the threads

of authorial presence in fiction, and offer concepts that help authors manage the

predispositions and prejudices that become apparent to the reader after travelling from author

through the narrator and into the narrative.

In the 1980s, Lubomir Dole!el brought a philosophical lens to narratology in Truth

and Authenticity in Narrative (1980, 23), suggesting truth in fiction involved “conclusions of

authentication” that took into account the construction of the fictional world concerned, that

truth in fiction became a question of narrative context. Over the past few decades, however,

narratologists including Richard Walsh have further delineated fiction and nonfiction. In his

article, Fictionality and Mimesis: Between Narrativity and Fictional Worlds (2003, 110-121),

Walsh writes:

Fiction is no longer seen as narrative with certain rules […] in abeyance; rather,

nonfictional narrative is seen as narrative under certain supplementary constraints […]

that serve to establish a rhetoric of veracity.

I have already hinted at the implications of elastic truth in Tom’s version of his life.

Ultimately, I have chosen “scenes” from Tom’s memoirs for their potential to drive the

overall narrative of the novella forward. In some cases I am extrapolating events as described

by Tom; in others, I am indulging in straight conjecture to construct my own version of these

events. The important aspect to acknowledge in the historical narrative is that the version of

Tom on offer is my impression of the man, rather than the man as self-described. In this

fictional world, as posited by Dole!el (1980, 23), the rules and parameters are dictated by the



41

author—myself—and the “authentication” of truth becomes a function of this fictional world.

I address the act and implications of the process of appropriating a real-life figure into a

fictional narrative in the textual analyses below.

*

Philippe Lejeune (1989, 23), in his 1973 book, The Autobiographical Pact , defined

the parameters of autobiography, biography and life fiction. Two decades later, in a new

edition of the book, Lejeune (ibid., 123) acknowledged that his initial typology was

somewhat inflexible. In defining the positions of the author, narrator, and reader, he realised

the perils of delineating reality and fiction, and sought to identify the terms under which the

author and reader could reach a “pact” that took into account the elasticity of memory, and

the effect that a personal, subjective perspective can have upon impressions of the kind of

truth that I discuss below. If the author can offer the reader a “contract” that acknowledges

the compromises that have been made in good faith in the search for a greater “truth”, then

acts of stretching, compressing and conflation might be forgiven.

While Lejeune offers a flexible, narratological taxonomy for autobiography in The

Autobiographical Pact , in Autobiography: Narrative of Transformation, Caroline Barros

(1998, 12-49) takes a more thematic approach to the genre, asking us to consider elements in

the narrative that examine the person ( persona), their transformation throughout life ( figura),

and the forces behind that transformation (dynamis). This has become a key model framing

the writing and analysis of my intertwining narratives, chiefly because one of the primary

aims of this entire process is to explore the transformation of Tom through examination of his

motivations and actions; in fact, I see the process of writing the entire novella an act of

transformation; through practical application of the theoretical concept of historiographic

metafiction to seek answers about changes in and development of Tom’s character and



42

motivations through historiographic metafiction, I have discovered an increased flexibility in

the process of character formation. Rather than Whaley’s often intriguing proximity to

significant historical events, my interest in his character and motivation derives from his

idiosyncrasies and his frequent decision to favour the obvious grand historical narrative over

the less obvious gaps in his own personal narrative. In Montaigne in Motion, Starobinski

(1985, 33-34) suggests that each instance of public self-portrayal precedes a loss of part of

“the self” to others:

The life of an individual does not become fully determinate until it exhibits itself; but

as we come under the scrutiny of others, we pay for the support we derive from them

by undergoing, even in our own lifetime, the ordeal of death, or negativity; and it is by way of this ordeal that we acquire our full personal identity. Indeed, by showing

ourselves we lose a part of what we are, we expose ourselves to risk, we entrustourselves to the safekeeping of others, we “mortgage” our lives ... To write is to

behold oneself in a second body created by deliberate alienation of the self; it is to

produce a verbal tissue—the text—offered to the comprehension of the virtual reader.

The text is that strange object that draws its life from the disappearance of the

craftsman who made it. The written work, a vicarious form of life, a likeness destined

to survive its original, externalizes life and internalizes death.

Qualifying examples of externalising life and internalising death in “Folly” is not a

simple task. Historically, Whaley aimed to write a record of his life that would quickly be

made public, yet the resulting account was suppressed for decades, only to disappear until

being discovered and edited for publication by Sullivan more than a century later. In the

contemporary context of “Folly”, Tim and Sar co-opt Whaley’s “verbal tissue” and test its

veracity and ambiguity. Throughout the novella, Tim and Sar surrender or “mortgage” certain

aspects of their existence to each other, albeit in unbalanced proportions; this act requires a

significant investment of trust, and their relationship is complicated in that they have

confided personal information to each other on the understanding that they, at the very least,

respects each other’s privacy by protecting this information. Perhaps the most literal sense of

disappearance occurs late in “Folly”, when Tim commits suicide in a dream; while this is in a

dream, and not in reality, it is important to concede that this represents a metaphorical death,



43

at least in the un/subconscious. Finally, at a metafictive level, “Folly” represents a fictional

autobiography, where the fictional Tim and I lose ourselves as authors, and become exposed

to risk as we entrust elements of ourselves to the safekeeping of others (ibid.).

Given Tom’s story is two centuries distant, and accepting that his memoirs are

questionable in their authenticity, it could be argued that appropriating Tom as a character

into a work of historiographic metafiction is free of ethical considerations. I argue that Tom

himself might not have objected to his recontextualisation, and surviving ancestors aside

from myself have little claim to privacy on his behalf. Other characters in the historical

narrative are either significant historical figures who fall under the same category as Tom—

including England’s Prince George or George Brummell—or entirely fictional constructs. In

the contemporary narrative, however, there are other issues to be considered, especially in

light of the fact that the safety buffer of a few centuries of history is not available. While

other writers of historical fiction or HMF choose not to consider the implications of writing

about historical and contemporary figures and scenarios, my ethical beliefs require that I

think carefully before incorporating the lives of others in my creative work. Philip Roth

addresses the issue as follows:

While writing, when I began to feel squeamish about confessing intimate affairs of

mine to everybody, I went back and changed the real names of some of those with

whom I’d been involved, as well as a few identifying details. This was not because I

believed that the rerendering would furnish complete anonymity (it couldn’t make

those people anonymous to their friends and mine) but because it might afford at least

a little protection from their being pawed over by perfect strangers.(in Gooblar 2009, 39)

In his article, The Truth Hurts: The Ethics of Philip Roth’s “Autobiographical”

Books, David Gooblar (2009, 33-53) offers a close reading of the novels Philip Roth used to

frame various undisguised versions of himself. I shall return to Gooblar’s discussion of the

implications in Roth’s writing for ethics in the genre of life writing shortly, but first I

examine some other recent positions on the matter.



44

Claudia Mills (2004, 120) highlights the imperative many people feel to tell and be

told stories about the lives of others; in arguing that “truth does make us free”, she suggests

that real life characters—be they family, friends, or bad people—always can be fictionalised

and forgiven through the thin veil of an alias. The flaw in this line of argument lies in

offering only a passing mention of the challenges of writing about ex-partners/lovers or even

immediate family members; while Mills is prepared to “share” the stories passed on to her by

friends, and in some cases recontextualise impressions of her own familial experiences, she

openly admits that the idea of writing her own memoirs is too fraught with personal danger.

What should the life writer do when she wishes to tell the raw stories of relationships that

barely withstood or in some cases fallen prey to the tests of time, patience, and other peril?

Mills’s opinion (ibid., 118) of familial memoirs is interesting in this context:

This is not to say we shouldn’t write about our parents [or ex-partners/lovers]—as I

said earlier, the best stories most of us have to tell are the stories of our childhoods.

But we probably shouldn’t tell these until time has given us some perspective and

healing distance, and some ability to forgive.

Each case needs to be evaluated upon its own merits; the life writer has to determine

whether enough time has elapsed, whether wounds have sufficiently healed, and whether

adequate perspective or distance gained in order to be able to tell their story, if ever.

In “The Unseemly Profession”: Privacy, Inviolate Personality, and the Ethics of Life

Writing , Paul John Eakin (1999, 142-186) examines the power or lack thereof that

forgiveness has in empowering or emasculating life writers and their characters, and contrasts

two controversial cases of life writing: Kathryn Harrison’s incest memoir, The Kiss; and

Phyllis Rose’s magazine column, A Portrait of an Unlikely Monk . Eakin says that Harrison’s

writing could be defended in light of legitimate public interest in her painful experiences

instigated by her father, while Rose was widely castigated for revealing intimate details about

her brother-in-law, who had expressly denied her permission to document his decision to turn

away from a wealthy family and adopt the ascetic lifestyle of a monk. After unpacking the



45

various modes of privacy in the context of life writing— normative privacy involves physical

space, while descriptive privacy constitutes “forms of respect that we owe to each other as

members of a common community”—Eakin tentatively concludes, “life writing that

constitutes a violation of privacy has the potential to harm the very self of the other” (ibid.,

168). Given Lejeune’s contention (1986, 55) that “private life is almost always a co-

property”, and Eakin’s assertion (1999, 172) that any life writing involves the

commodification of others, I argue that the risk of staging an unwelcome assault on the

“inviolate personality” of others can only be avoided or minimalised through careful

consideration of the possible personal implications of the writing. At the same time, the

writer of auto/biographical works needs to balance this careful consideration with the

implications that this “self-censorship” might have upon the text. While historiographic

metafiction offers no guarantees of avoiding or minimalising such assaults, the process does

open the story up to possible interpretations of the historical record that might help explain

the author’s choices and motivations in exploring a historical figure. The creative process

involved in writing “Folly” did reveal that the ethical considerations I have discussed above

involve a personal choice on behalf of the writer. While Mills (2004, 120) argues that “the

truth does set us free”, writing these truths can come at a significant cost in personal and

relational terms; other writers choose not to allow these considerations to influence their

representation of truth. In writing “Folly”, I have thought very carefully before incorporating

the identities of those living people in my contemporary characters; as I have discussed with

reference to Whaley and his peers, however, I feel that the buffer of more than two centuries

minimises the consideration I have given to their privacy. Where available, this kind of buffer

represents an important asset to those authors of historiographic metafiction who are

concerned with the ethical implications of their writing. Despite an effective temporal

dissonance between the contemporary and historical narratives—Tim and Sar are relating



46

alternate versions of stories about a Tom who more than two centuries distant—the latter are

narrated through a form of Stanzel’s r-character (1986, 141) in Tom himself. While both

historical narratives are offered mostly through the experience of Whaley rather than any

other historical figure, the choice and depth of focus for the historical narrative is in the hands

of the narrator: Tim has a vested interest in maintaining some level of integrity in telling his

ancestor’s story; while the motives of the ethically ambiguous Sar are less obvious. Tim’s

‘vested interest’ is somewhat misguided and idealistic, and almost an overreaction to the

recklessness of Sar, as he does not have the level of insight into the creative and academic

process of historiographic metafiction and the appropriation of historical characters that I

have gained as a researcher. Despite this, I feel that by the novel’s end, Tim has reached a

more flexible attitude towards the historical record, and the unreliable possibilities of

Whaley’s own impressions of himself.

Richard Freadman (2004, 121-146) adopted this process of close consideration in the

compilation of a memoir in which his late father played a major role. His ethical deliberations

in Decent and Indecent: Writing My Father’s Life, reveal the various levels of trust one may

face in writing about a loved one, from implicit trust provisions —the kind of “nonverbal

understandings [that might] extend beyond the boundary of death”(ibid., 129)—and

relativized trust —in relation to negotiations over specific issues—to blanket trust , which

requires an all-encompassing, non-negotiable trust that the trust will never be violated (ibid.,

131). In his reference to Bernard Williams’s discussion of non-egoistic micro-motivations

(ibid., 131), however, Freadman “establish[es] context-sensitive understandings of and

intuitions about the particular individual”. The consideration of these motivations in

Freadman’s admittedly subjective process of fictive modelling allows the writer to come

closer to understanding how the real-life version of their characters might regard their

recontextualisation (ibid., 144):



47

In fact, these Pauls [Freadman’s father and the subject of his memoir] are just two

among many down the years and through the spectrum of his moods. It seems that

what I have to do is sort out what his best self would have felt about my publishing

this book. The father I ask permission of, then, has the confidence and daring of

youth, the middle-aged man’s balanced perspective on his young son’s needs, and the

old (pre-Alzheimer’s) man’s wisdom of hindsight. In truth there was never such aman; yet the distillation I have fashioned here doesn’t seem wholly fictitious. Much of

what we “know” of others, be they alive or dead, is a distillation of something like

this.

I close this discussion of the process of recontextualising historical figures in fiction

by returning to the article I originally cited by David Gooblar (2009, 33-53): The Truth

Hurts: The Ethics of Philip Roth’s “Autobiographical” Books. In his research, Gooblar

obtained access to Philip Roth’s papers, which included extensive and detailed notes,

intermediary and discarded drafts, and comprehensive reflection by Roth on the praxis and

challenges of writing fictionalised autobiography. Over a period of five years, Roth wrote

four books that have been variously categorised as either “Roth novels” or “Nonfiction”, but

briefly considered by Roth himself as a collection:

Two-Faced: An Autobiography in Four Acts

1.

The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (1988)

2. Deception: A Novel (1990)

3. Patrimony: A True Story (1991)4.

Duality (1993)

a. Duality ultimately was published as Operation Shylock: A Confession

Gooblar (ibid., 34) reveals that many considered these particular works as evidence of

Roth’s interest in “probing the permeability of the borders between fact and fiction, exploring

the ways in which non-fiction may be just as unreliable a representation of reality as fiction,

and playing games with readers’ expectations of divulgence.” In his subsequent close

readings and analysis of the four titles, Gooblar cites three examples pertinent to my

discussion of ethics in this literature review.

The first—in Patrimony —sees Roth detail an excruciatingly uncomfortable incident

in which he had to help his ageing, ailing father after the elder had “beshat” himself. Key to



48

this episode is the father’s impassioned entreaty that Roth never reveal this story; yet that

night in his journal, Roth records his intent to incorporate the episode into what would

become Patrimony. Gooblar suggests that “making the incident part of a book, instead of

merely part of his life, allows Roth to grant it narrative meaning” (ibid., 38). But at what cost

to privacy? While it is impossible for the author to have foreknowledge of whether the reader

cares or not about this cost, Gooblar (ibid., 38) argues that Roth’s continual retrospection and

self-castigation point towards the author’s interest about the cost to privacy.

The second example—in The Facts —involves Roth’s fictionalisation of a former real-

life lover—“May Aldridge”—and the subsequent correspondence between Roth the

Character and one of his recurring fictional characters, Zuckerman. The fictionalisation of

“May” already runs the risk of being ethically hazardous, and Roth the Writer has Zuckerman

castigate Roth the Character for failing to include several unsavoury characteristics in his

fictionalisation of “May”. Here, Gooblar suggests that Roth is “dramatiz[ing] the ethical

conflict that arises when entering into life writing”, and argues that the two incarnations of

May articulated by Roth the Character and Zuckerman represent two warring voices in the

head of the writer: one voice fighting for “ethical consideration” of real-life figures regardless

of the truth; the other voice fighting for the true story of one’s life, and “damn the

consequences” (ibid., 41).

Finally—in Deception —Roth the Character has an extended and bitter exchange with

his wife about his lack of discretion in writing a fictionalised autobiographical account of a

recent affair. As well as the acrimony generated at home, the literary actions of Roth the

Character ultimately destroy the marriage of his mistress. Gooblar notes that these final

fictional conversations offer evidence that “concerns over exposure and betrayal are not

confined to books in which the names are left unchanged” (ibid., 43).



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The conclusion in Deception leaves the reader in no doubt about Roth’s unwavering

resolve that a writer should be able to write what he wants, despite exposing real people

without any control over their depiction in the public eye. But in an interesting revelation,

Gooblar states that earlier drafts of the novel had alternate, even more conflicted endings,

hinting at the difficulties faced in resolving the ethical ramifications of decisions on the part

of Roth the Writer and Roth the Character (ibid., 44).

At the close of his article, Gooblar (ibid., 51) reveals that in the final pages of

Operation Shylock , Roth speaks directly to the reader, revealing:

… that one of his early adopted “artistic conventions” was the belief that “nothingneed hide itself in fiction,” that literature is a realm apart from the moral and ethical

demands imposed by others. But as he drives down to New York […] Philip askshimself a question that haunts all four of the books of this period: “Nothing need hide

itself in fiction, but are there no limits where there’s no disguise.”

The meaning of Roth’s last statement here is debatable, but perhaps he is suggesting

that telling stories within the confines of what we feel we know as the truth entitles us to

write what we like; or that in taking control of a work of fiction, an author imposes their own

limits on exploiting the truth of a situation. Roth’s dilemmas—and those of writers and critics

already mentioned here—all suggest that life writers need to recognise that writing openly

about, or offering a fictional cloak for real-life characters, involves careful consideration of

each case on its own merits, variations of fictional modelling, and, sometimes, outright

disregard for the “inviolate privacy” of people. The relationship of this debate to my own

research is that the recontextualisation or appropriation of historical or contemporary

nonfictional characters is a key component in the writing of historiographic metafiction.

When writing about my historical protagonist, I often took inspiration directly from his

memoirs or from eighteenth-century public writing about him. When my version of his life

diverges from the events recounted in his memoirs, the merits and pitfalls of these conflicts

become part of the metafictive narrative argued between my contemporary protagonists. In



50

constructing the contemporary narrative, rather than bringing to fictional life a long list of

characters based upon my real-life friends and acquaintances, I decided to merge elements

and characteristics of several key people into one important character who would act as a

consigliore of sorts. In other instances, I have used real people as inspiration for fleeting

references to characters. And again, I have chosen key events from my own life to inform the

narrative, and to mesh in with the elements of Tom’s narrative. Thus the various narratives in

“Folly” originate in “real” life, only to be blended into or overtaken by the implications of

metafictive discourse. An author concerned with the impact of recontextualising historical

figures and scenarios may consider carefully these points of departure and their placement in

the narrative in order to “respect” privacy. I am less concerned here with respectfully

maintaining the bonds of genealogical relationships, or even the desire to create a new

narrative without completely destroying that of Whaley’s historical narrative. This is not

simply a case of taking the kind of ethical stand that many authors often choose to ignore, but

more of the type of internal, personal standard that some take in the hope that their own

circumstances might one day be treated with respect in the event that their lives be held up

for public analysis.

All writers of historical fiction and historiographic metafiction use variations of this

process to inform and compel their narratives. The significant contribution of this thesis and

its creative work is that I explore the mechanics of this process through the lens of a

genealogical relationship between my two protagonists, and then use a metafictive voice to

argue the merits of this process. In the next section of my literature review, I examine the

second of two key tools necessary in the writing of historiographic metafiction. My second

research sub-question examines the value of narratorial manipulation in crafting believable

voices and narration in the context of historiographic metafiction. In the context of the school



51

of narratology, I examine the identification and use of the concepts of focalisation, point of

view and voice.

Section 3: Finding the Right Voice

The second key component necessary when writing historiographic metafiction is

what I term narratorial manipulation. To be successful in transforming historical fiction into

historiographic metafiction, the author needs to establish either a covert but implicit

intertextual discourse that coincides with a contemporary cultural discourse, or an overt

metafictive discourse within the narrative that argues the case for the author’s historiographic

manipulation. In the process of writing my novella, I face a number of character-related

challenges. First, there are two competing and complementary narratives: the contemporary

and the historical. Next there are three distinct voices or points-of-view: my fictional self; my

fictional self’s narrated version of Whaley; and Sar’s narrated version of Whaley. As there

are a number of character positions taken throughout my novella, each point of view has to be

carefully chosen to fit alongside the other and within the context the two parallel narratives

using effective, but not necessarily comfortable transitions from one voice to the next; in fact,

stark disjunctures may aid in establishing conflict in the narrative and between characters.

Achieving this requires assistance from the narratological rules of narration. As a complex

tool within the field of narrative theory, narratology offers an effective vocabulary to

understand and articulate the blending together of these historical and contemporary

narratives and voices into engaging characterisation. This section of my Literature Review

examines those narratological concepts that are useful in manipulating the narration of a

story, from point of view and voice to focalisation.

In the hundred years or so since Henry James pondered the behaviour of his

characters and the structure of his narratives, an elaborate science of narratology has been



52

developed out by theorists including Percy Lubbock, Wayne Booth, Wolfgang Iser, Seymour

Chatman and Gerard Genette. Roland Barthes’s examination of the phenomenon of the

narrator in An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative (1975) sees the author as a

giver and the reader as a receiver . Within this deceptively simple model, the giver can be

perceived in one of three ways: as an identifiable person negotiating an exchange with the

reader; as an omniscient and all-encompassing narrator; or as a narrator limited in their

knowledge to what they can see, experience and know (Barthes 1975, 260-261).

Given the narrator is a construction of the author, what role is he expected to play? In

Narrative Discourse, Gerard Genette (1980, 255) suggests that the narrator is expected to

fulfil five functions in the narrative situation:

1.

Telling the story;

2. Offering stage directions between the characters and on the “set” of the novel;

3.

Maintaining a relationship with the narratee;

4. Testifying as to the veracity of information sources, precision of recall and the

evocation of emotion;

5.

Acting as an ideological barometer: offering justification for intervention or

didacticism.

In performing this role, the narrator may appear in a number of forms, the

identification of which has been disputed over the last fifty years. In what has been loosely

labelled by Nieragden in Focalisation and Narration: Theoretical and Terminological

Refinements as an “Anglo-American” model (2002, 696), theorists including Wayne Booth

and Seymour Chatman adopt a figurative and stylistic approach, employing terms such as

point of view and voice.

In Distance and Point of View, Wayne Booth (1996, 117-120) takes the puppet

master/stage director that is the implied author and adds the idea of dramatised and

undramatised narrators. The former offers a “complex mental experience” akin to the

reflector-character discussed by F.K. Stanzel in A Theory of Narrative (1986, 141); while the



53

latter maintains a more objective, camera-eye or sense-bound objectivity (Booth 1996, 120).

In fact, in an instance of my creative practice adapting my theoretical findings, a version of

the reflector–character may be recognisable in both the contemporary and historical narrative

strands of my work. While the former is narrated by a fictional, first-person version of

myself, the latter alternates between perceptions of Whaley’s experiences as narrated by

myself (in second-person) or by Sar (in third-person). The choice and depth of focus for the

historical narrative is in the hands of the narrator, but both versions of the historical narrative

are offered through the experience of Whaley, rather than any other historical figure.

In The Concept of Point of View, Mitchell Leaska (1996, 119-134) suggests that the

undramatised narrator takes what has traditionally been regarded as the third-person point of

view, adopting a “sense of detachment or impersonality”. In this mode of narration, direct

indication of the character’s inner state is only available through speculation. This lies in

stark contrast to Barthes’s (1975, 261) all-knowing, omniscient narrator, who can appropriate

at any time the point of view of other characters, and maintains an editorial or panoramic

view of the narrative. This privileged narrator is able to step in at any time and elucidate on

matters in a way that is not available to the characters in the story. Lying between the

omniscient narrator and the undramatised narrator is the observer-participant narrator, who

exists as a character within the story. In this point of view, the reader is “trapped in the

consciousness of the narrator” and reliant on the veracity of her interpretation of her

surroundings and the internal machinations of her fellow characters (Leaska 1996, 166).

The concept of the observer-participant narrator raises a further issue in terms of

reliability. A reliable narrator speaks or acts in accordance with the implied author’s norms,

while an unreliable narrator does not. This is not to say that the unreliable narrator is lying.

They might be mistaken or pretending to qualities denied to her by the author. The judicious

isolation of reliable or unreliable narrators can be used by the author to offer a sense of



54

validation (or lack thereof) of the events related (Booth 1996, 127). In Story and Discourse,

Chatman (1983, 149) adds to this by suggesting that unreliability in a narrator is directly

proportional to their overtness for reasons that may include psychological instability,

intellectual incapacity, infirmity or immaturity, obtuseness or limited information, or a

motivation to withhold or deceive.

As a narrative tool, an unreliable narrator can generate tension by irritating, amusing,

shocking, or provoking consideration in the reader. In a revision of his earlier theories,

Chatman informs us that two distinctions are necessary when discussing unreliability. Firstly,

unreliable narration actually presupposes that a “reliable” version of events is available. The

use of the phrase fallible filtration allows some leeway for characters (filters) that may not be

aware of their motivation, or other diegetic influences, and as such, are not so much

unreliable as fallible: they are prone to mistakes or errors. The word unreliable in this context

is too strong; whereas fallible is a little more forgiving of human foibles. As such, fallible

filtration involves an entirely different contractual arrangement between the narrator and the

narratee, rather than the implied author and the implied reader.

By its very definition, historiographic metafiction involves unreliability, discomfiting

the reader by calling into question the reliability of the historical “facts” laid out on the page.

There are varying levels of reliability and unreliability within my creative work. Readers are

required to come to their own conclusions about the veracity of accounts about the author’s

life in its portrayal as a character in the novella, and in the historical level, the possibility of

verisimilitude is diluted by the two separate narrators—fictional Tim and Sar—and their

interpretation of a “primary” source that not only was always suspect in terms of its original

author’s motive, but has been weakened by the Victorian moral stance of its editor, Edward

Sullivan:

I have taken as few liberties as possible with the original text Whaley’s manuscript,the changes introduced being mainly directed to the correction of faulty punctuation,



55

the cancellation of constantly recurring capital letters, and the occasional modernising

of the spelling. In some rare cases where Whaley’s language is somewhat too

outspoken, I have indicated omissions from the original text by asterisks.

(in Whaley 1906, xliii)

To add further complication, Sullivan’s note in the preface observing a “presumed

anonymity” (Whaley 1906, v) marked a further level of instability to the text, as it added

another layer of intervention between Whaley’s original writing and my fresh interpretation

of its stories. Sullivan’s research and corroboration of the events and personalities

documented in Whaley’s original memoirs—and a second set of handwritten memoirs that

have also disappeared since the editor compared both sets—is exhaustive and detailed, and

my own archival research has corroborated several details in the memoir. But as a descendent

of Whaley, I was more concerned with the details of his life than researching those of Edward

Sullivan. Given the wide range of choices opening up through my research into Whaley’s

life, and the obligation of limiting the findings of these choices in the eventual writing

process, I recognised the concept and implications of choice itself as a key facet in the

writing of historiographic metafiction.

The concept of aesthetic distance —particularly in a first person narrative—is another

valuable narrative tool available to authors wishing to manipulate a reader’s perception of the

characters. Booth (1996, 125) explains in Distance and Point of View that this is more than

just the distance between the observer/narrator agent and the author/reader; it may also

“describe the degree to which the reader may be asked to discard the artifice of the work and

lose themselves in the story.” Aesthetic distance may take a number of forms, from moral,

intellectual, and emotional, through to the most common form: temporal aesthetic distance. In

other words, with the passage of time between the action of the story and the narrator’s

discourse, the narrator may achieve a greater understanding of the events she is relating.

Historiographic metafiction offers interesting variations in the use of aesthetic distance:

implicit HMF invites the reader to lose themselves in the universe they themselves construct



56

on behalf of the author; while explicit HMF constantly manipulates aesthetic distance in an

effort to discomfit the reader with the presence of a metafictive voice.

In Narrative Form, Suzanne Keen (2003b, 36) expands on this notion, positing the

terms consonant (immediate) and dissonant (retrospective) narration. An author may use

modulation of consonance and dissonance to set the pace of the narrative and to suggest inner

growth or character development. Consonant narration places the narrator close in spatio-

temporal terms to the events described; dissonant narration places time and space between the

events and the narration, allowing the narrator to use hindsight, judgement and reflection to

influence and sometimes even rehabilitate their discourse.

Like Booth, Keen also advocates a figural, stylistic analysis of narrative. Drawing on

the work of Chatman, Keen suggests that the mediation existing between the author and the

reader—the narrative situation—is typified by the location of the narrator, the level of their

presence in the story, and their relationship with the characters. Preferring to use the

first/second/third-person terminology, Keen (2003b, 30-46) elaborates on each choice. A

first-person narrator refers to herself as “I”, and co-exists with the characters in the story

world. The third-person narrator, however, has more options. They may share the story space

with other characters or exist outside the story. They may provide an external view, or offer

access to the thoughts or feelings of others; and they can choose to maintain an overt

presence, referring directly to the reader, or a covert presence, revealing no personality at all.

A final variant is third-person limited , which restricts perception to the perspective of a single

character (not the narrator) that acts as a reflector or focalising presence for the story. While

second-person narrative has been rare in the past—and is popularly regarded as gimmickry—

this technique has been rising in popularity. From an academic point of view it poses some

challenges to traditional formal analysis of the narrative situation (ibid., 45). Involving a

conflation of the reader/narratee and the protagonist, this technique allows an interesting



57

relationship between the reader and the text, especially in terms of manipulating consonance

and dissonance through the fleshing out of the narratee. In the process of writing the second-

person narrative in “Folly”, I realised the practical implications and narratological benefits of

this voice, particularly in writing historiographic metafiction. The metaphorical act of

interrogating Whaley and his actions through a second-person voice, eventually allows the

initial dissonance traditionally experienced by the reader encountering this mode to cede to a

consonance as they realise that they are, in effect, a voyeur witnessing one person’s reflection

on the behaviour of another. In the wider context of a work of historiographic metafiction,

this realisation contributes to the perception and understanding of the metafictive discourse

about historical accuracy that is a critical component in this sub-genre of historical fiction.

Through the experimentation with this mode of voice in “Folly”, I have contributed to the

discourse about the legitimacy of second-person voice in historiographic metafiction and the

wider field of creative writing.

One of the key goals of the creative work is to investigate the value of manipulating

various voices has in contributing to the debates that underscore historiographic metafiction.

In this example of privileging form rather than content, “Folly” offers a number of different

examples of the preceding concepts, shifting the narrative focus from one character to

another—from chief protagonist to two versions of a supporting (focalised) character. The

chief protagonist of “Folly” is a fictional version of me. Tim tells his own story in close, past,

first-person, principally because this contemporary narrative/narration is an exploration of

self. The second narrative focus is still narrated by Tim, but in a present-tense, second-

person, with Whaley as the narratee. Tim is engaging in a monologue with his long-dead

relative, trying to ascertain Whaley’s motivations and behaviour. The third narrative focus is

narrated by Tim’s new best friend, Sar, in her close, past, third-person reading of Whaley.

She is offering her own interpretation of his life and actions. Sometimes she agrees with Tim



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at other times; other times, she disagrees. These key metafictive elements qualify “Folly” as a

work of historiographic metafiction, and call attention to the work’s fictive status. Sar’s

continual discourse with Tim regarding the motivation and behaviour of Whaley (and herself)

can be read on two levels: as it is presented, and on a deeper level as the metafictive

discourse I am presenting to the reader about my recontextualising of history in the context of

the role of a creative writer.

I have used the concept of point of view until now, as it can be applied in a

narratological context in most situations. But the concept sometimes has its failings, which

have been addressed by Seymour Chatman and Gerard Genette. Revisiting his earlier

examinations of the concept of point of view in Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative

in Fiction and Film, Chatman (1990, 140) argues that the term is limited in the sense that its

strict physical definition—the thing seen, the place from which it is seen, or the act of

seeing—discourages the metaphysical extension of the concept to include the mind’s eye.

This opens up a whole range of viewpoints that cover more than just perception or cognition.

Gerard Genette, in Narrative Discourse (1980, 241) extends Chatman’s work away from

point of view, arguing that an even more definitive approach to the concept would be to

introduce the term focalisation, with the following variants:

• non- or zero focalisation – narration from an unrestricted or omniscient point

of view,

•

internal focalisation – where the narration is restricted to the point of view ofa focalised character (includes fixed , variable, multiple and even collective

focalisation),

• external focalisation – restricted to the kind outside point of view offering

limited or no understanding of character motivations.

While focalisation has become an accepted term in narratological analysis, a number

of theorists suggest slight variations. Gerald Prince, in A Point of View on Focalization

(2001, 44), points out that narratologists sometimes fall into the trap of anthropomorphising



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narrators, when in some cases the narrator simply is not human—they are more like a camera

observing and transmitting events, rather than a person observing and reporting them. He

then suggests a restricted definition of Genette’s terminology, arguing,

... focalization would not merely cover cases of so-called (fixed, variable, or multiple)

internal point of view, cases of external point of view (in which the focalizer -

character, actor, or instrument - perceives only tangible elements or events), and casesin which the focalizer perceives no such elements or events; it would also cover cases

in which no perceptual restrictions whatsoever apply. [...] In practice, of course,

focalization conventionally entails various restrictions and limitations (e.g. [sic],

human focalizers can only guess the intentions of other characters; they do not know

what will happen; their perceptions are biased, partial, and inaccurate) and, besides, it

also often obeys more locally motivated rules (e.g. [sic], with the focalizer being

unable to read or unable to understand this language or that one).

(ibid., 48-49)

In her book, Focalization (1996, 116-119), Mieke Bal disputes the power of

focalisation as defined by Genette, arguing that zero and external focalisation can be folded

into one half of a binary position, with the other being internal focalisation. This has much to

do with Bal’s commitment to the original concept of point of view and narrative perspective,

and is reflected in her efforts to raise the profile of character-bound focalization (or Genette’s

internal focalisation), which can shift from one character to another. But Burkhard

Niederhoff, in Focalization (2001), offers some compromise in his summation of the

concepts of point of view and focalization, arguing that there is room for both concepts in

narratological analysis, because “each highlights different aspects of an elusive and complex

phenomenon” (ibid.). While the first offers an effective way of dealing with narratives that

offer a firm grip on instances of subjective narration, the latter can be effective where

subjectivity is not necessarily an important characteristic of narration, but where objective

elements of that narration might be important to compel the story onward.

Genette (1980, 215-228), in Narrative Discourse, argues that the narrative whole is so

complex that the only way to effectively apply critical analysis is to distinguish certain

aspects including protagonists, spatio-temporal determinations, and interlinking narrative



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situations. He further disputes the validity of the first/third person model because of the

inconsistency between the author/narrator relationship and the fictional potential of a first-

person narrator who is also a character.

In an effort to combat this and other discrepancies, Genette offers a detailed

categorisation of narrative levels, and temporal and discursive positions. In the context of the

analyses performed in this thesis, I am particularly interested in his four basic paradigms of

narrator status, which allow very fast and efficient categorisation of a narrator’s

spatiotemporal position in the context of the overall narrative:

1.

extradiegetic-heterodiegetic narrator outside the discourse and the story2. extradiegetic-homodiegetic narrator outside the discourse, but still a character

3. intradiegetic-heterodiegetic narrator inside the discourse, but not a character4.

intradiegetic-homodiegetic narrator inside the discourse and a character

While the preceding summaries of narration and narrative categorisation form part of

a complex, dry, and sometimes challenging taxonomy, I have found that assessing the various

elements of classical narratology has given me a productive basis for analysis of Australian

historiographic metafiction. I apply the implications of these readings to my own creative

practice, especially in terms of experimenting with narratorial manipulation to find the most

effective way of telling a story or bringing a character to life. An engagement with the

mechanics of narration is important for this project, especially in terms of creating believable

and compelling voices, but also in terms of moving my project from historical fiction to

historiographic metafiction, by enabling a clear metafictive voice to emerge from the

narrative. Again, as I have discussed above, the process of writing “Folly” with these

narratological concepts in mind has only cemented my appreciation of their usefulness in

crafting effective narrative voices, both in applying the concepts in my textual analysis of

contemporary historiographic metafiction, and in constructing and analysing my own creative

writing, particularly in terms of delineating what eventually became a complex series of



61

intertwined narratives. Despite accusations of ‘soulless’-ness of narratology and focalisation

by ‘stylistic’ Westerners, the taxonomy developed by Genette and others is an effective way

of classifying and understanding techniques of narrative, and, in particular, typologies of

narration and voice.

*

This Literature Review examined the origins of and current academic thought around

the key concepts and issues of this thesis. After identifying and applying the theoretical

origins and application of this sub-genre and two of its key techniques, my contribution to

knowledge emerges in qualifying their application in the creative practice of writing a work

of genealogically-inspired historiographic metafiction, and reflecting on the implications that

this creative practice have on my understanding of the theory. The first concept—

historiographic metafiction —forms the core aspect of the main research question of this

thesis, and offers a number of narrative structures that a creative writer can choose from to

build their work around. I then examined the process of recontextualising historical figures

and scenarios —particularly in the context of this thesis, the implications of using this process

in real and fictional auto/biographical writing—this process is a key tool in the writing of

historiographic metafiction, as are the three concepts of narratological manipulation —

focalisation, point of view, and voice.

In the following chapter, I analyse four critically acclaimed Australian works of

historiographic metafiction, identify use of the concepts I have outlined in this Literature

Review, and contrast my findings with examples from my creative work, “Folly”.



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Chapter 4: Textual Analysis

The following analyses explore the various technical and thematic challenges I have

faced throughout my creative practice, along with the solutions (and a number of failures and

dead-ends of a kind that novelists invariably confront in their writing) that I found through

reading a series of critically acclaimed works of fiction and creative nonfiction. I focus on

writers of Australian historiographic metafiction—including Kate Grenville, Richard

Flanagan, and Louis Nowra—and apply the knowledge I gained in my Literature Review in

my analyses to position myself as an emerging author in the Australian field, and contrast my

findings with comparisons to my own creative practice, the novella, “Folly”.

In Section 1— Does Historiographic Metafiction just deal with the big issues? —I

focus on the techniques involved in writing a work of historiographic metafiction. While my

writing incorporates historical events, my novella examines the personal through the

historical, and in certain instances rewrites, or recontextualises what may or may not have

happened in Thomas Whaley’s life. By adding a metafictive discourse that argues the merits

of this recontextualisation, my novella transforms from historical fiction into a work of what

Nünning (2004, 362) terms implicit historiographic metafiction, eschewing the grand,

hegemonic narratives of history, and focusing on the more intimate forces influencing

personal narratives. Again, the section involves a discussion about the choices I have made

within the context of what I have learned from other established authors.

In Section 2— Recontextualising Reality and Its Characters —I focus on the technique

of recontextualising historical figures and scenarios, and the ways in which I addressed the

problems of incorporating real-life characters and incidents in both the historical and

contemporary narratives of my novella. My aim was to find effective techniques to portray

real and fictional people from mine and Tom’s lives. I also examine the process of choosing



63

and recontextualising these characters, and creating entirely fictional characters and situations

that compel the narratives forward. This analysis draws on the work of contemporary

Australian authors, and contrasts the findings with my own creative work.

Finally, in Section 3— Telling Stories in Character —I examine the process of

narratorial manipulation, where the use of multiple voices and points of view allows

complex narrative patterning. I speak here of the challenges of choosing the most appropriate

voices, registers, and modes of narration I have found to move the narrative forward, and the

methods I devised to shape those voices and their narrative framework into an effective

multi-narrative storyline. Here too, I draw on lessons and warnings gained from the

experiences of other writers. This process, combined with the recontextualisation of historical

figures and scenarios in the context of a narrative discourse, results in historiographic

metafiction.

Section 1: Does Historiographic Metafiction just Deal with the Big Issues?

In Chapter 13 of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles steps away from his

omniscient, third-person narrative voice and, in a direct act of metafictive, authorial

intervention, steps back in as Wayne Booth’s (1996, 125) real author , asserting that he has

every right to manipulate his characters and his story however he chooses (even as he admits

that his characters eventually take on their own lives in a fictional version of free will).

My characters still exist, and in a reality no less, or no more, real than the one I have just broken. Fiction is woven into all, as a Greek observed some two and a half

thousand years ago. I find this new reality (or unreality) more valid; and I would haveyou share my own sense that I do not fully control these creatures of my mind, any

more than you control—however hard you try, [...]—your children, colleagues,

friends, or even yourself. But this is preposterous? A character is either 'real' or

'imaginary'? If you think that, hypocrite lecteur , I can only smile. You do not even

think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it,

tinker with it ... fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf—your book, your

romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the real reality. That is a basic

definition of Homo Sapiens.

(Fowles 1969, 99)



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By the close of the novel, Fowles has offered the reader a number of alternate

endings, and an authorial justification for each. Two decades later, after a discussion about

postmodern theories of architecture, Linda Hutcheon (1989, 4) wrote Historiographic

Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History, and labelled the type of narratological

manipulation in Fowles’s novel as historiographic metafiction (HMF), a genre that “works to

situate itself within historical discourse without surrendering its autonomy as fiction.”

Hutcheon (2010) revealed to me that her construction of the term originated in a joke about

“theory-speak” neologisms, where she paused in the middle of a public lecture before

suggesting that this kind of fiction could be called historiographic metafiction —later,

Hutcheson admits that given the terms origins as a joke, she was surprised to see the term

take hold. While I have not identified any Australian writers consciously implementing the

tenets of historiographic metafiction, on the evidence of Australian and international writing

in the genre, it is apparent that many writers recognise the flexibility and rewarding

challenges that HMF offers as a genre.

In this chapter, I examine the use of historiographic metafiction in the work of Kate

Grenville, Richard Flanagan and Louis Nowra, and contextualise these findings in terms of

my own creative practice. I begin with Grenville’s The Secret River , focusing on the novel’s

status as explicit historiographic metafiction as defined by Nünning (2004, 362) and; I then

move to Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish as an example of recontextualising historical fact

into an unreliable and fantastic narrative; finally, I discuss the HMF used by Nowra in Ice.

Throughout this section, I address the public debate surrounding Kate Grenville’s

involvement in the “history wars” between herself and a number of Australian historians

about the veracity of historical fiction, and the subsequent reaction of three Australian writers

of historical fiction (and historiographic metafiction) in distancing their writing from being



65

classified as such. Finally, throughout this chapter, I contrast my findings with examples of

my own work to demonstrate the ways I have incorporated HMF in “Folly”.

In Where Historiographic Metafiction and Narratology Meet: Towards an Applied

Cultural Narratology, Ansgar Nünning (2004, 362) offers a typology of various forms of

historical fiction. When unpacking historiographic metafiction, he further defines explicit and

implicit HMF; the former represents a form of historical fiction that:

... directly challenges the hegemonic discourses of historiography, [...] The self-

conscious exploration of the recording of history and the challenging of such

traditional historiographical assumptions as objectivity and the reliability of sources

are the central concern and hallmark of explicit historiographic metafiction.(ibid., 366)

Nünning (ibid., 365) argues that implicit historiographic metafiction addresses

concerns about subjectivity, reminding “the reader that history, while it exists as a continuous

collective process, is accessible to men and women only as a narrative produced by human

beings who remember and interpret events from their particular points of view.” This recalls

Michel de Certeau (1988, 57) in The Writing of History, in which he discusses the inevitable,

subjective nature of the writing of history (or historiography). In fact, de Certeau makes

several mentions of the historiographer’s use of the dead within the genre of historiography:

“[t]he dear departed find a haven in the text because they can neither speak nor do harm

anymore. These ghosts find access through writing on the condition that they remain forever

silent” (ibid., 2); and that historiography, “represents the dead along a narrative itinerary,”

arguing,

... writing can be specified under two rubrics. On the one hand, writing plays the role

of a burial site, in the ethnological and quasi-religious meaning of the term; it

exorcises death by inserting it into discourse. On the other hand, it possesses a

symbolizing function; it allows a society to situate itself by giving itself a past through

language, and it thus opens to the present a space of its own. “To mark” a past is to

make a place for the dead, but also to redistribute the space of possibility, to

determine negatively what must be done, and consequently to use the narrativity that

buries the dead as a way of establishing a place for the living. The ordering of what is



66

absent is the inverse of a normativity which aims at the living reader and which

establishes a didactic relation between the sender and the reader.

(ibid., 100)

But the “marking” of the past, and the exploration of these possibilities of history is

not exclusively the territory of historians. Perhaps to her detriment, author Kate Grenville

also takes on the role of historiographer in her novel, The Secret River . While her writing

exhibits elements of implicit HMF in its examination of her ancestor, at a higher, socio-

political level, the author is using explicit HMF to search for meaning about relationships

between white and Indigenous Australia, our place in the world, and in the actions of one

generation echoing through to the present. Grenville’s detailed exploration of her family

history began after a fleeting and anonymous encounter during the 2006 Reconciliation Walk

across Sydney Harbour Bridge:

I urgently needed to find out about that great-great-great-grandfather of mine. I

needed to know what he was like, and what he might have done when he crossed

paths with Aboriginal people.

(Grenville 2006a, 13)

As Grenville’s research progressed, and drafts of her fictionalised biography

unfolded, however, the author realised that her project was bigger than just her ancestor; her

imperative had changed to one that involved a more comprehensive understanding of the

clash and reconciliation that had played out over the two centuries since the colonisation of

Australia (ibid., 139). In fact, Sarah Pinto, in Emotional Histories and Historical Emotions:

Looking at the past in historical novels (2010) uses Grenville’s novel as a case study to argue

that “it is not historical understanding—that is, understanding of a specific time and place—

that many historical novelists seem to seek. Rather, novelists seem intent on using stories of

the past to shed light on aspects of humanity that are presumed to have resonances across

time, space and place” (ibid., 192).



67

While Grenville still used her exhaustive research about Solomon Wiseman’s life, she

realised that a fictional version of her ancestor would offer more opportunities to explore the

socio-political implications of two very different civilisations crashing together. In the

resulting novel, the characters had similar experiences to their historical forebears, but the

implementation of HMF meant that Grenville could stretch the boundaries of their existence

to explore and augment matters that she would never be able to corroborate through archival

research alone:

I was shameless in rifling through research for anything I could use, wrenching it out

of its place and adapting it for my own purposes [...]. But I was trying to be faithful to

the shape of the historical record, and the meaning of all those events that historianshad written about. What I was writing wasn't real, but it was as true as I could make it.

(ibid., 191)

At this point, it is necessary to address Grenville’s role in the fiction element of the

history wars that embroiled historians, politicians, and authors in the latter half of the first

decade of the twenty-first century. More than ten years after Geoffrey Blainey argued in

Drawing Up a Balance Sheet of Our History (1993, 10-15) against the type of “black

armband view of history” that he believed was dominating Australian historiography, former

Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly maintained his stance against the apology that

Grenville and her fellow marchers were demanding. Howard’s position had its roots in his

1988 manifesto to the Australian Liberal Party— Future Directions (Howard 1988)—part of

which later echoed in Blainey’s address as both argued that the time had come to cast off

contemporary white Australian guilt for actions committed against Indigenous Australians

since 1788. In the intervening years, historians from the ideological Right—including Keith

Windschuttle—and from the ideological Left—Henry Reynolds—conducted a sometimes

vicious polemical battle to champion their conflicting versions of postcolonial history in

Australia (Gaita 2007).



68

By 2006, the debate was conducted mostly by politicians and historians, and observed

and reported by the Australian media. But with the publication of The Secret River in 2005,

Kate Grenville was suddenly being perceived as a champion of the Left’s faction of the

history wars, with her sympathetic, empathetic version of colonisation throwing a fresh light

upon old wounds. In an interview with the ABC Radio National’s Ramona Koval (2005),

Grenville inadvertently became a major figure in the history wars, and began her own little

historical fiction battle. Responding to Koval’s question about where her novel would sit if

laid out with others about the history wars, Grenville said:

Mine would be up on a ladder, looking down at the history wars. I think thehistorians, and rightly so, have battled away about the details of exactly when and

where and how many and how much, and they’ve got themselves into these polarised positions, and that’s fine, I think that’s what historians ought to be doing; constantly

questioning the evidence and perhaps even each other. But a novelist can stand up on

a stepladder and look down at this, outside the fray, and say there is another way to

understand it. [...] The historians are doing their thing, but let me as a novelist come to

it in a different way, which is the way of empathising and imaginative understanding

of those difficult events. Basically to think, well, what would I have done in that

situation, and what sort of a person would that make me?

(ibid.)

Within months, historian, Mark McKenna delivered a public lecture— Writing the

past: History, literature and the public sphere in Australia —in which he castigated Grenville

for assuming to “look down” on the history wars and its historians, and for her role as an

author in aiding “the decline of critical history in the public domain” (2006, 100).

McKenna—and later, his colleague, Inga Clendinnen (2006, 31)—raged against what they

perceived as unwarranted trespass by authors like Grenville (McKenna 2006, 97) and David

Malouf (Clendinnen 2006, 21) into the more “accountable” field of history; both of these

authors of historical fiction argued that the most effective way to understand history was by

trying to “experience” the events through empathy or imagination. Grenville (2005) was

quick to point out that she had been misquoted by McKenna, who had argued that she had

said, “looked down on” the history wars, rather than her actual words, “looked down at ”,



69

which is less inflammatory or judgemental, and misrepresented by Clendinnen, whom

Grenville (2007) argued had compounded McKenna’s misquoting with outright lies and

untruths. Grenville also devoted an entire chapter of her memoir about the novel, Searching

for the Secret River (2006a, 122-126), in an effort to undo the damage she regarded McKenna

and Clendinnen to have done to her career.

For the wider communities of historians and authors, the lines had been drawn in

terms of the rights to portray and represent history. Jane Sullivan, in Making a Fiction of

History... (2006), has noted that writers like Peter Carey and Robert Drewe, whose works are

regularly marketed as historical fiction, are careful to identify their writing as fiction, rather

than historical fiction, Louis Nowra avoids the description of his work as historical (2009a),

and Richard Flanagan flatly denies that his work involves historical figures or research, “I

just make things up” (2010). Perhaps this caution on the part of Australian authors is

indicative of an awareness that writers need to tread carefully through global publishing

arenas that have diverse characteristics both abroad and at home.

While these self-imposed descriptions may be dismissed somewhat speciously by

commentators like McKenna (2006, 100) as a “Dan Brown Defence”—referring to author

Dan Brown’s description of his novel, The Da Vinci Code (Brown 2003) as “fiction” (Brown

n.d.) in the face of criticism over historical inaccuracies—it is not difficult to understand why

contemporary authors would avoid classification of their work, in Australia at least, as

historical fiction. Each authors mentioned above has expressed different motivations for this

reluctance to categorise their work, and it seems that many Australian writers of historical

fiction tread carefully when discussing their practice. Outside their public statements, it is

apparent that they are wary of following the same path of Grenville in being accused of

transgressing demarcation lines laid down by Australian historians, especially given

Grenville’s efforts in the wake of the “history wars” to rehabilitate a public reputation



70

savaged by her historian-critics. Regardless of authorial reluctance to classify their own

works, Pinto (2010, 192) argues that it is important to avoid categorising historical fiction as

just “imaginative excursions into picturesque pasts,” as these novels involve intricate

plotting, meticulous research, and “historiographically self-aware considerations of the past”.

If asked to classify my own work, I am not sure I would have as much difficulty as

writers like Grenville, Flanagan, and Nowra, among whose work there are novels that

undeniably have a historical flavour. I am happy to use the “Dan Brown Defence”—while

there are elements of my own life in the contemporary narrative, only those with an intimate

knowledge of my life would be able to untangle what might be perceived as the truth from

the fiction, and I make a specific point in the novella of introducing the historical narratives

as recounted and re-imagined through the minds of another, with all the inaccuracies and

unreliability that such a process might introduce:

:+$3& 9(1# %+ #$()T",/ )";&(&1 #$('T# (,9 [%%/)3 #3(&'.3#- (,9 ;)3(&1 '(++3",3>

+83))39 ,"/.$# ;3",/ $&(,#0%&$39 $% ( 68'. '&83))3& $"63- R +33) &3(91 $% $&1 (,98,93&#$(,9 =.($ 6"/.$ .(<3 9&"<3, 61 (,'3#$%&? :+$3& #$%'T",/ 80 $.3 +&"9/3- R

)%'T $.3 9%%& (,9 $8&, %++ $.3 0.%,3- (,9 +)"'T $.&%8/. 61 ,%$3# $% +",9 ( /%%934(60)3 %+ %,3 %+ P%6\# (9<3,$8&3# $.($ #336# ( )"$$)3 )"/.$ %, 93$(")? O.($ 6"/.$

R ;3 (;)3 $% ;&",/ $% $."# #$%&1](“Folly” 2011, 29)

*

Grenville wrote about similar inaccuracies, unreliability and paucity of information in

her search to flesh out her ancestor’s life. Dead-ends and obstruction had impeded her search

for clues to his character and motivation, and she was forced to characterise her ancestor

using business and official correspondence, along with the occasional apocryphal anecdote. A

fictional version of Wiseman opened narrative doors previously closed to Grenville the

biographer. Her treatment of Wiseman (Thornhill )’s wife, Jane (Sal ) is even more revealing,

given that information about the woman was almost non-existent. Writing historiographic



71

metafiction meant that Grenville could experiment with the character in order to find the right

fit:

And what about that wife? She'd always been a vaguer figure in my mind than

Solomon. Partly this was because there'd been so little about Jane in the records. I'dtried to find out about her, but if the life of men on the frontier was hard to see at this

distance of time, the life of women—especially of working-class women—was almost

invisible. As I'd written her so far, Jane was a permanently unhappy creature, wistfuland sulky. That picture of her had drawn on the three things I knew about Jane

Wiseman: the frequency of her pregnancies, her 'actual state of invalidity', and her

'lingering illness'.

Thinking about her now as 'the wife character' and giving her another name—Sal—

once again freed me from the straitjacket of 'what really happened'. Her health

improved miraculously but her temper grew worse. She hated the flies, the trees, the

sun. She hankered for England. That was always 'Home'. Australia was one long punishment. Her husband bore the brunt of her outrage at what life had dumped on

her.(Grenville 2006a, 189)

Ultimately, Grenville’s portrayal of her great-great-great-great-grandmother in a

fictional context is much more sympathetic than suggested above. The fictional Sal becomes

a reliable source of support for her husband, and an innovative problem-solver against what

life throws up against the Thornhill family.

My own creative practice presented a similar challenge. Tom’s memoirs (1906, 15)

offer scant details about an encounter with a young woman whom he eventually claimed was

the love of his life, a relationship I suspect may have had drastic implications for Tom’s

behaviour until he died. In less than two pages, Tom tells the story of his first true love:

At length I quitted Auch, [...] and repaired with my beauteous Helen to Lyons, andfrom thence to Montpellier, where she was delivered of a daughter who died shortly

after. When the mother was sufficiently recovered to be removed, I placed her in the

Convent of the Tiercelets and allowed her a pension which was regularly remitted toher until all communication was stopped between England and France. Since that time

all my endeavours to discover what became of her have been fruitless.

(ibid., 17-18)

In the absence of other clues, I wondered about the impact such a series of events

might have upon a seventeen-year-old—while this kind of incident has happened before to



72

other young men, and the luxury of time may have offered sufficient healing to allow the

adult Tom to offer such a sparse account of this affair, I felt that Tom’s relationship with

Helen represented a crucial turning point in the young man’s life. Perhaps at such a formative

stage in his adolescence, the loss of someone so dear might force serious behavioural

changes. I searched for more information about Helen, the convent, Tiercelets, and the

nobleman she was related to, but found nothing. This represented an example of the kind of

gap or elision or unfinished story that might be worthy of exploration, and a chance to

experiment with HMF. I wrote a chapter about their first meeting, touched on their courtship,

and expanded upon Tom’s mention of his encounter with the priest. With the exception of the

encounter, the entire chapter was complete conjecture; the beginning represents an example

of recontextualising history in HMF:

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O.()31 %+ `8;)", ($ 1%8& #3&<"'3? R (6 #$(1",/ +%& ( +3= 9(1# ="$. $.3 a%8,$

93 Q8'- =.")3 R 3#$(;)"#. ( ,86;3& %+ &3#"93,'3# ", $."# &3/"%,?_

^R (6 !3)3, S(&/%$$3,-_ #.3 &30)"39 ="$. ( 93)"'($3 '8&$#31? ^S1 +($.3& "# (0.1#"'"(, ", P(&;3#? :,9 $."# "# 61 ;&%$.3&- b('U83#?_ !3& ;&%$.3& .(9 #$30039

;('T =.")3 P%6 '%60%#39 ."6#3)+- ;8$ .3 =(# '(&3+8) $% 0%#"$"%, ."6#3)+

;3$=33, P%6 (,9 ."# #"#$3&? !3 %++3&39 P%6 ( #)"/.$ ,%9? (“Folly” 2011, 54-55)

Helen and her brother are fictional constructs, along with the role of her father as a

physician. I do not know the true circumstances behind her relationship with Tom, therefore I

had to construct my own version of history; I was, as Nünning (2004, 367) says of HMF,

transgressing the “boundaries between history and writing, between fact and fiction, and the

real and the imaginary.”

Grenville further blurs these boundaries in her construction of supporting characters

within her narrative. These are fictional versions of historical figures, or simply

characterising names she had gathered from historical records:



73

Blackwood—a defender of Aboriginal people—was there from the beginning, too.

He’d emerged out of that mysterious place where characters sometimes come from,

fully formed and complete. One day he even showed me what he looked like when I

found a photo of Jack Mundy, the union leader, addressing a public meeting—a big

solid man with a magnificent nose and a face full of powerful character. Blackwood! I

thought. So that’s what you look like!(Grenville 2006a, 190)

While Blackwood never existed, Grenville notes that archival records indicate there

were settlers like him who could serve as inspiration for a fictional character. In choosing to

appropriate the lives others in the context of HMF, Grenville expands the cast of characters

she has available to help Wiseman (Thornhill ) tell his own story. In defining the various

parallel and multi-plot narrative structures available for use in postmodern literature, Patrick

O’Neill identifies the embedded or nested narrative as “playing a clearly subsidiary role, [...]

providing one more item of narrative material for the larger narrative in which it is

embedded” (2005, 369). Grenville cleverly plays with the concept of nested narrative in The

Secret River , drawing on the back-story of another emancipist—in one level of HMF—and

allowing Thornhill to use and augment it to his own ends, engaging him in an act of fictional

HMF at a second level within the narrative:

It was a well-made story, every corner of its construction neatly finished, as it hadcome to him from Loveday, whose story it had been. No one was the poorer for the

theft. In this place, where everyone had started fresh-born on the day of their arrival,

stories were like shells down on the beach. A crab might live in one for a while, until

he grew too big for it, and then he would scuttle around to another, the next size up.

Loveday had found a new story, too, involving a girl, a cruel father and a false

accusation. He was not going to ask for his old one back.

Sal looked at her husband sideways as he spoke to the gentleman from Cambridge,

out of the side of his mouth so as not to spoil the pose. Under her gaze he added

moonlight elopement with the daughter of a well-to-do shipowner, and she saidnothing.

(Grenville 2006b, 321)

In the same way that Grenville is recontextualising historical personal stories, I had to

make a choice about my historical protagonist’s final moments. When Sullivan (in Whaley

1906, xxviii) notes in his preface to Tom’s memoirs (Appendix 1) that “newspapers of the



74

day ascribed his death to a rheumatic fever contracted in Ireland,” and then reveals two

alternate scenarios involving crimes of passion resulting in Tom’s murder, I am offered a

valid set of choices around which to frame the death of my protagonist. Each of the following

quotes come from sources that are as legitimate as the newspapers quoted above. My choice

as a writer of historiographic metafiction lies in the most effective version of Tom’s death for

my own artistic purposes. The metafictive component in this process is the discourse in-text

that justifies or argues against this decision. Despite an assertion by Knutsford historian, Joan

Leach (2010) that the “stabbing story is fantasy,” I regarded both of the following newspaper

reports as interesting and worthy of recontextualisation in my novella:

“Sarah, or Sally, Jenkinson is stated by one writer to have been the name of the ladyfrom whom he received his death wound...”

(Evans 1894, 293)

“... another authority records the fact that this was the very light-o’-love who had

passed into his possession from the royal seraglio.”

Isle of Man Examiner , June 21st, 1902

(Whaley 1906, xxviii)

The “light-o’-love [...] from the royal seraglio” in the latter account refers to an

apocryphal story quoted by Henry Green (1859, xxvi) in his book, Knutsford: Its Traditions

and History, and struck me as a fitting end for an adventurer like Tom, rather than death

brought on by rheumatic fever. I wrote the end of Tom’s story accordingly, moving from

Tom’s point of view in the moments leading to his death, to that of his manservant after:

Pevensey squats on his haunches and looks at the figure sprawled on the rough trestle

in front of him. Thomas is only familiar for the unruly mess of bloody hair hangingfrom the edge of the table—his dark, bruised face is swollen and broken, one side

stoved in. The long tunic that offers some escape from indignity is stained darkly with

blood, the wound beneath now empty of the knife that ended his life. How could this

have happened? The manservant leans forward, cradling his own face in his hands. A

dull, painful thumping matches his pulse, reminding him of his own carousing the

night before—perhaps if he had been a little less merry, things might have been

different this morning.

(“Folly” 2011, 98-99)



75

The character of Pevensey is a fictional construct in the same way as Tim’s

contemporary friend and co-protagonist, Sar. While the latter is an amalgamation of several

real-life figures, Pevensey is a metaphorical amalgamation of some of the servants and valets

Tom had employed in his adult life. I easily could have incorporated the following anecdote

in my novella:

During the building of this house, Whaley lost a favourite and trusty servant named

Jack. The intercourse between Douglas and Liverpool was, in those days, very

uncertain, and accompanied by danger, and the servant had been sent to the latter

place for the purpose of procuring a sum of money. This he obtained; but on returning

in an open vessel he was shipwrecked and drowned. The money was found on his

person when the body was washed ashore.

(Green 1859, 149)

But in a story already filled with Tom’s own adventures, and wary of the limitations

of space, I was concerned that adding reference to such a dramatic story about someone else

might draw the focus too far from Tom. This novella uses real and imagined experiences of

Tom’s life to inform my contemporary experiences and existential wanderings. I could never

incorporate all of Tom’s adventures, no matter how exotic and exciting they might be, but his

life offers Tim previously unconsidered options.

*

Perhaps Richard Flanagan faced a similar problem searching for inspiration from such

a wide range of exotic sources when writing his novels, Gould’s Book of Fish (2002) and

Wanting (2008b). As I discuss below in Recontextualising reality and its characters, the

latter novel draws heavily on the life and experiences of several historical figures, and yet

Flanagan (2010) vehemently rejects any classification of his works as historical fiction.

Citing the castigation of Kate Grenville by Australia’s community of historians after an off-

the-cuff remark that historical fiction is more “true” than historical fact, Flanagan sees his

writing as fiction, and nothing more; while his characters might sometimes have historical



76

counterparts, the author argues that readers and historians alike should take the novels as they

are offered: fiction (ibid.). Despite this, on the website (2008a) for Wanting , Flanagan offered

“readers’ notes”, a document offering more than five thousand words of detail about more

than a dozen historical figures featured in Wanting . When I enquired about the availability of

a similar document for Gould’s Book of Fish, Flanagan said that there was no such thing,

offering as explanation an anecdote about his experience on a panel at a writers’ festival in

California, at which Annie Proulx was asked about her research in the lead-up to writing her

fiction. Over the next twenty minutes, Proulx detailed her meticulous methods; when

Flanagan was asked the same question, he quipped, “I get up in the morning and make things

up” (2010). While this statement might seem disingenuous and possibly calculated to gain

sympathy from his audience—the Wanting readers’ notes alone indicate that Flanagan

conducts significant research—the subtext behind his remark hints more at his efforts to

distance himself from the controversial debates between writers of fiction and history.

In Using focalisation and point of view as a narratorial tools, I acknowledge and

analyse Flanagan’s complex manipulation of voice, narrator and narrative structure, but here,

I focus on the status of these novels as historiographic metafiction, a term that, given the

topics of his conversation with me, seemed to make Flanagan quite uncomfortable. Gould’s

Book of Fish (2002) is a fascinating example of HMF drawing inspiration from a historical

artefact; in this instance, a specific document of the same name written by William Buelow

Gould in the early eighteenth-century, and housed in the Allport Library and Museum of Fine

Arts, at the State Library of Tasmania.

Flanagan opens his story using a first-person narrator that throughout the novel

transforms through real and fictional incarnations, or “aliases”, from Gould and the

contemporary, fictional antiques dealer, Sid Hammet, to various eighteenth century figures,

and, I suspect, a fictional version of Flanagan himself. The novel’s first identifiable narrator,



77

Sid Hammet, tells of his discovery of and eventual obsession with Gould’s original

manuscript:

My wonder upon discovering the Book of Fish remains with me yet, luminous as the

phosphorescent marbling that seized my eyes that strange morning; glittering as thoseeerie swirls that coloured my mind and enchanted my soul—which there and then

began the process of unravelling my heart and, worse still, my life into the poor

scraggy skein that is this story you are about to read.

What was it about that gentle radiance that would come to make me think I had lived

the same life over and over, like some Hindu mystic forever trapped in the Great

Wheel? that was to become my fate? that stole my character? that stole my character?

that rendered my past and future one and indivisible?

(Flanagan 2002, 1)

While this easily could be mistaken for Flanagan’s voice describing his own

discovery of Gould’s book, the ostensible narrator of the novel is Hammet, a corrupt dealer in

genuine and counterfeit antiques, whose discovery and eventual loss of Gould’s annotated

copy of his original, illustrated manuscript, prompt him to reproduce the artworks, and

include his own version of Gould’s marginalia detailing the madness of Sarah Island. Thus,

the text segues in the first of a series of nested narratives from Hammet’s narration of his own

forgery to that of the increasingly unreliable William Buelow Gould, a convict transported to

Van Diemen’s Land. After a conviction for murder, Gould was transported from London to

Hobart and finally to Sarah Island, one of the cruellest penal colonies in Australia history;

there he was commissioned by the colony’s surgeon to compile an illustrated volume of the

aquatic wildlife of western Tasmania (Allport 1966).

Flanagan’s Gould extends this role, becoming a historiographer and effectively

introducing the process of narratorial manipulation as a character. Gould and his iterations

detail the colony’s vicious history, along with the madness of his gaolers, from the syphilitic

Commandant and the local surgeon who regulates torture and punishment, to the warder

charged with keeping Gould incarcerated in a seaside cell filled to the ceiling by the daily



78

tides, and covertly forcing him to reproduce paintings to sell; unbeknownst to the gaoler,

Gould is also writing a history of the colony to accompany the paintings.

Flanagan’s finished novel is beautiful, using colour versions of Gould’s fish as

paratext to open each chapter, and to inform the tone, style and content of the prose. Added to

this, Flanagan uses different coloured inks to “colour” the body text for each chapter, and

allowing Gould to explain the origins of each choice based upon whatever found ingredients

he used in their construction. The result is a complex, richly layered, multi-textual work that

demands a sophisticated commitment from its readers.

Flanagan’s discomfort with the term historical fiction —he seemed equally

uncomfortable when I mentioned the concept of historiographic metafiction —does not

negate the fact that the author has written historiographic metafiction. Gould and several of

his compatriots did exist in the early eighteenth-century; Sarah Island was a harsh penal

settlement, in which the real Gould was confined; and the forger’s book does exist in the

Allport library. The HMF is evident in Flanagan’s choice to paint exotic versions of Gould

and those around him, along with a fantastic, impossible history of the already perversely

administered Sarah Island Penal Colony under the authority of a maniacal Commandant and

his second-in-charge, surgeon, James Scott (Stancombe 1967). While the alternate,

impossible history of Sarah Island is impressively wrought, the appropriation and

recontextualisation of Flanagan’s characters is a fascinating exercise in HMF.

Aside from Gould working as a historiographer—insane though he may be as

portrayed here—Flanagan brings life to another historical writer and presses him into service

as the “official” historian for the colony. In reality, Jorgen Jorgensen originally visited Van

Diemen’s Land as a free man in 1802, returned as a convict almost a decade later, was

granted a ticket-of-leave and eventually came to act as a “scribe for the illiterate”, and

worked in various governmental and private posts as a clerk (Dally 1967). When Gould



79

finally discovers Jorgensen’s Official Registry of Sarah Island, he views the bland, quotidian

accounts of the colony’s activities as anathema to “the reality in which we lived. The bad

news was that reality was losing. It was unrecognisable” (Flanagan 2002, 285). Gould

continues in his apprehension of Jorgensen’s “fiction”:

But at a certain moment Jorgen Jorgensen’s work began to outstrip even his master’sambition in its deranged achievement. Though at first he had allowed his works to be

guided by the desires of the Commandant, a seeming cipher of another’s whims &

inventions, he had slowly drifted into his own extraordinary conceit of an alternative

world.

(ibid., 284)

In “Nothing was reconciled: everything was beautiful”: Gould’s Book of Fish and

the Critique of Colonial Modernity, Paul Stasi (n.d.) argues that Flanagan’s manipulation of

historical fact in the novel reproduces the “conditions of production”, but fails to recognise

anything that might exist outside whatever narratives the people have become comfortable

with. Stasi continues:

Flanagan does not rest with a straight-forward contrast between real historical

experience and ideologically conceived propaganda. Rather he directly thematizes thequestion of how experience is mediated, by multiplying the various narratives within

the book itself, suggesting that the truth emerges, not simply, from its recovery and

restitution, but rather from the conflicts that arise when competing truths are

confronted with each other.(ibid.)

This mediation of experience intertwines the flaws of traditional Western modes of

historiography into the cyclic and circular styles of historiography evident in the aural

storytelling of Indigenous Australians that influenced Flanagan in his youth (in Hugo 1995).

In fact, as Gould discovers, and as Xavier Pons (2005, 65) has observed in This Sad Pastiche:

Texts and Contexts in Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, there are at least five

iterations of Gould’s book within and without Flanagan’s prose:

1. The original written by Gould and stored in the Allport library;

2.

The version found by Hammet in the meat locker, which includes Gould’smarginalia;



80

3. The second version found by Hammet, which is similar to Version 1;

4. Hammet’s forgery; and,

5. The version Gould rescues from a fire after escaping from Sarah Island.

I am most interested in Version 5 when considering Gould’s Book of Fish as a work

of historiographic metafiction. Soon after deciding to rewrite Gould’s book, Hammet admits

the possible flaws of his project, which is particularly relevant given he possesses the genuine

article (Version 2), which already has been mistakenly identified by an expert as counterfeit:

But I must confess to a growing ache within, for these days I am no longer sure what

is memory and what is revelation. How faithful the story you are about to read is to

the original is a bone of contention with the few people I had allowed to read theoriginal Book of Fish. The Conga—unreliable, granted—maintains there is no

difference. Or at least no difference that matters. And certainly, the book you willread is the same as the book I remember reading, and I have tried to be true to the

wonder of that reading and to the extraordinary world that was Gould’s.

(Flanagan 2002, 29)

X%$3 $.3 %0","%, %++3&39 ;1 !(663$\# '%))3(/83- a%,/(- =.% 3'.%3# J)(,(/(,\#

2GA@A7 (9<"'3 $% 63 (# ( =&"$3& %+ +"'$"%,? c3&"#"6")"$893 %& %8$&"/.$ '%,+)"'$ 9%3# ,%$

3,$3& $.3 3U8($"%,- =.($ 6($$3&# ", J)(,(/(,\# %0","%, "# $.($ $.3 =&"$",/ "$#3)+ $(T3#

0)('3V ()) 3)#3 "# "&&3)3<(,$? Later, Gould finds Version 5:

With great violence, I screwed the page up & threw it on the fire, only to see revealed

on the next page a picture of a freshwater crayfish. It looked as if it had been painted

in perfect imitation of my style. Trying desperately to avoid the conclusion that if this

book of fish was a history of the settlement, it might also just be its prophecy, I then

realised that the book was not near ended, that it contained several more chapters, &

with mounting terror I read on the succeeding page of how—“I realised that the bookwas not near ended, that it contained several more chapters, & with mounting terror I

read on the succeeding page of how—”

(Flanagan 2002, 335)

By now, the fictional Gould is nearing insanity, but readers familiar with

historiographic metafiction will recognise Flanagan’s covert authorial presence entering the

text, taunting his hapless character into madness. Flanagan is not adopting Fowles’s overt

tactic in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, of addressing the reader directly. Nor is he



81

speaking directly to his character like some kind of omniscient, all-powerful god. In Fold ,

Gilles Deleuze (2006, 4) speaks about the Baroque—an artistic style in Europe from the late

sixteenth-century to the early eighteenth-century—and of its tendency to overlap and

reconnect with aspects of itself. His discussion of a multi-level montage created by Leibniz

prompts the following observation:

The text also fashions a way of representing what Leibniz will always affirm: a

correspondence and even a communication between the two levels, between the two

labyrinths, between the pleats of matter and the folds in the soul. A fold between the

two folds?

(ibid.)

By folding the narrative back in on itself in such a way as the narrator themself is

aware of some mysterious manipulation, Flanagan is using metafictive techniques to

influence the narrative and the narrator’s perception of the world or universe that he occupies.

Perhaps the implicit (Flanagan) and explicit (Fowles) authorial manipulation of characters is

evidence of the authors’ efforts to regain control over fictional constructions that have

gradually gained their own autonomy. In an era where postmodern writers enthusiastically

embrace the possibilities of alternate universes, and bend and break the rules binding their

characters, what right of reply do these constructs have to the whims of their creators? Early

in Flanagan’s novel, Gould laments a crisis of identity, and hints at his suspicion that he

exists at the whims of another:

I was filling with the same terror […] I may actually be someone else, that everything

around me was beginning to whirl, that all my life was only a dream dreamt byanother, that everything around me was only a simulacrum of a world, & I was crying,

lost, I really was somewhere else, somebody else, seeing all this.


Like Grenville, Flanagan plays with historical fact to tell a layered, multi-textual story

that explores contemporary connections and relationships with historically traumatic events.

In his review of Flanagan’s book, Will Cohu (2002) suggests the work addresses an

“‘inconsolable memory’ [... that] is the guilt and hurt of Australian beginnings, something



82

that Flanagan feels is only approachable through fiction, which puts him at odds with his

material. On the one hand, he employs facts as stepping stones; on the other, he longs to

disregard history altogether.” Gould’s Book of Fish approaches historical fact at a number of

levels, using facts from traditional Western historiographic sources, and blending them with

in “great, circular” fictional narratives (Pons 2005, 69) that resemble Indigenous aural

storytelling, in an effort to an understanding of his (and our) place in history. In the process,

Flanagan also seeks an understanding of himself:

The great freedom—but the great difficulty of being a writer—is that you allow

yourself access to parts of your soul that most people in everyday life, for a very good

reason, leave closed off. Because if they were to be open to everything they feltwithin them, they simply couldn't continue to live. And I think to really write

something of worth you've got to go back within yourself, dredge your soul, and that'sa profoundly disturbing thing to do because it goes beyond simply feeling sad or

happy—it takes you to aspects of yourself that you may not like or wish to disturb.

(in Hugo 1998)

Flanagan concedes in his Author’s Note for Wanting , and in other forums (2008b,

2008a, 2010) that while significant elements of the novel remain speculation that may never

be corroborated, his aims were less about historical accuracy and more about the nature of

desire and its effect on human behaviour. In particular, Flanagan’s writing in Gould’s Book of

Fish less resembles the linear, chronological narratives of historiography and historical

fiction, instead approaching the looping, cyclic aural histories of Indigenous historiographers

he loved as a child (in Hugo 1998). By layering and folding his story in a way that recalls

Deleuze’s discussion in Folds, Flanagan makes new connections and asks new questions

about the past. In a similar manner to Grenville, Flanagan pushes and provokes conventional

historical fiction into the realm of historiographic metafiction by using the self-conscious

manipulation of the historical record to explore certain aspects of the identity of their

protagonists, rather than simply offer a representation of the past.

In addition to the aspects of historiographic metafiction evident in “Folly”—including

the exploration and theorising about the character and motivations of Tom performed by Tim



83

and Sar—the contemporary narrative explores and analyses Tim’s motivation, sense of

purpose, and a flawed and stubborn belief in self-reliance. In fact, the metafictive prose in

“Folly” exploits Tim’s struggle with these characteristics, and their recognition by characters

like Sar:

M(& 0(8#3# +%& ( 6%63,$- #$&8//)",/ $% '%,$(", .3&#3)+? ^d%8 ,339 $% #%&$ $.($ %8$-

P"6? d%8\&3 ,%$ ( &%'T- (,9 1%8\&3 ,%$ #3)+>&3)"(,$- (,9 1%8\&3 ,%$ ",9303,93,$e,% %,3 "#? :,9 ", (,1 '(#3- .(# "$ %''8&&39 $% 1%8 $.($ 93#0"$3 %8& %''(#"%,() )"$$)3

#0($#- R 3,Y%1 ;3",/ ="$. 1%8- (,9 $.($ $."# $&"0 6"/.$ ;3 (, 340&3##"%, %+ $.($]_

(“Folly” 2011, 89)

My novella began as an exploration of intergenerational mores, and metamorphosed

into an exploration of another’s motivations and behaviour. Starting with a flawed secondary

source that had been tainted by Victorian manners, and drawing from a sparsely documented

and sometimes unreliable historical record, I conjured a number of interpretations of

Whaley’s motives. As the potential stories emerged from the gaps, inconsistencies and

ambiguities in Sullivan’s version of the historical record, and I started to experiment with the

different styles for my new version of Whaley’s story, I began to recognise the value of

implicit historiographic metafiction in investigating what might have been. This could never

be regarded as a work of historiography; in fact, it only thinly resembles a work of historical

fiction in that my novella’s action, whether historical or contemporary, is filtered through

several narrative viewpoints that render their action closer to opinion than historical fiction.

*

If the four published novels analysed here were placed within a spectrum that ran

from Nünning’s implicit to explicit historiographic metafiction, Grenville’s The Secret

River —with its overt message of searching for contemporary understanding of a national

issue by trying to establish an empathic position through the thinly disguised historical



84

protagonist of William Thornhill—would sit comfortably at the explicit end of the scale.

Flanagan’s Wanting and Gould’s Book of Fish, while subtly addressing larger, human issues,

takes a more covert approach in constructing their characters and manipulating them in a

narrative context. As such, both novels could be placed at the opposite end of the spectrum to

Grenville’s novel. While his colleagues sit at either end of the scale, Louis Nowra hovers

somewhere in the middle, with Ice and its subjective manipulation of character and plot

neither overt nor covert in its classification as historiographic metafiction.

Nowra has stated publicly that he consciously discourages any description of his work

as historical fiction, directly contradicting authors like Grenville and Malouf, who would seek

to “conjure up the real feelings of a person born in an era that is more than two generations

ago” (Nowra 2009a). In fact, I will call upon this quote again as this thesis concludes, as I

discuss the merits in writing a work of historiographic metafiction that has been inspired by a

genealogical relationship. In the case of Ice, Nowra wanted it to be clear that Malcolm

McEacharn was being presented to the reader through the prism of an unreliable narrator, that

this perception should only be viewed as an interpretation of the historical figure, rather than

offering some reliable impression of verisimilitude. Nowra’s contemporary narrator, Rowan,

only makes his presence known at page 20, speaking directly to his perceived audience, his

wife Beatrice:

(As you know, my darling Beatrice, all I have written about the dinner party is more

than conjecture. Victoria, one of the Reade’s' daughters, the one who sat at Andrew'sleft hand, kept a diary, and next day recorded everything she remembered of theoccasion, including her sister Elise's appalling behaviours—as usual , and the

observation that McEacharn has a soft Scottish burr …)

(Nowra 2009b)

Here, Rowan hints at his own historical research, and my exploration of historical

archives reveal that some, but not all of Rowan’s “research” is verifiable. On page 24, Rowan

quotes a letter between McEacharn and a French engineer that could only ever be fantasy, for

while both correspondents had existed in reality, the subject of the letter concerns a fictional



85

narrative device introduced by Nowra in the opening pages of the novel. And so Nowra’s

Rowan establishes a pattern of occasional intercessions into McEacharn’s historical narrative,

on one level hinting through the amateur biographer’s questionable sanity that as a narrator,

he actually might not be reliable, and on another level offering a one-sided dialogue on behalf

of the despairing husband in the hope of waking the unconscious wife through professional

outrage:

(Perhaps these policemen protected him from a sudden inexplicable, brutal attack by

one of those men whose internal turmoil is only matched by their indiscriminate

savagery. But I suspect no policeman could have saved you, my darling Beatrice. Are

you listening? Are you hearing me? You see, it's the randomness that is so upsetting,

the capriciousness of fate that pierces the heart, as it does me, as it did to Malcolm.Blink, groan, moan, grimace, tell me that you are understanding me. I am trying my

hardest to fill in the gaps in your research—and there are many—the putty of myimagination probably annoying you. If so, then open your eyes in wonderful

indignation...)

(ibid., 43)

This is effectively a concession from Rowan about his own efforts at historiographic

metafiction, as he describes elements of his flawed research and writing process as only “a

humble echo” of Beatrice’s professional practice, and that his work involves “cutting

corners” and struggling to “explain what I can only guess at” (ibid., 153). In fact, Rowan’s

meta-narrative echoes Grenville’s explanation of her own creative practice, as he justifies his

intuitive leaps, “I can say to you, my darling, that the evidence I have found points to this

and, of course, I have the required empathy to make connections, draw conclusions where

others in my position, in our position, couldn't” (ibid., 157). Where the historian or the

biographer might have some professional imperative to abide by historical truths, Rowan and

those real-life counterparts who indulge in historiographic metafiction can manipulate their

narratives according to their own purposes.

While my writing in “Folly” may not go so far as to use metafictive techniques to

manipulate the narrative in the explicit manner that Nowra uses Rowan to do so, I have

consciously used narratorial manipulation to take the novella from conventional historical



86

fiction to historiographic metafiction. I will discuss the mechanics of this manipulation

below, but for the purposes of this section of my close textual analysis, I would like to briefly

address the manipulation of focalisation to create HMF. In constructing three discrete

interwoven narratives featuring different voices and focalisation, I established the terrain of

an overarching metafictive discourse that is both an acknowledgement of historiographic

metafiction at a narrative level, and an argument about the merits of experimenting with real

and concocted historical figures and events. At the level of the historical record, the veracity

of Whaley’s life flexes and weaves according to the whims of its original author and its

twentieth-century editor. In “Folly”, a new level of uncertainty is introduced through Tim’s

second-person speculation about Tom’s motivations and choices; then, a third perspective is

introduced in Sar’s impressions of the Irishman that are sometimes contradictory, and

sometimes approving of Tim’s version. In both of these perspectives, the contemporary

characters draw on ambiguous historical events in Whaley’s life to inform their speculation

and to influence the creation of their narratives. Finally, in pitting these two perspectives

against each other as an active discourse between Tim and Sar, I introduce the overarching

manifestation of historiographic metafiction. My Literature Review into historiographic

metafiction and the techniques of recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios and

narratorial manipulation offered me a limited theoretical understanding of these concepts;

while my textual analyses of the historiographic metafiction offered a third party applied

understanding of the same concepts. But it was only after experimenting with these concepts

in the direct applied creative practice of writing “Folly” that I could appreciate their value in

exploring the alternate experiences of my historical protagonist: in particular the increased

flexibility available in the process of character formation; the lesser ethical considerations

present where a significant temporal buffer exists between the author and his protagonists;

the significance of modulating the reader’s consonance and dissonance between the narrator



87

and protagonists; the possibilities opened in a wide variety of choices offered in ambiguities

and elisions in the historical record; the effectiveness of second-person voice in modulating

the dissonance evident when a narrator relates a story about a historical protagonist; and the

usefulness of narratological taxonomies in classifying, understanding, and applying narration

and voice.

*

In History & Criticism, philosopher Dominick La Capra (1985, 128) argues that “the

past arrives in the form of texts and textualized remainders—memoirs, reports, published

writings, archives, monuments, and so forth”. Linda Hutcheon (1989, 11) extends this

argument in Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History,

suggesting that all of these texts manoeuvre and interact with each other in complex ways. In

writing my novella, I have drawn inspiration from newspaper accounts, journals and

memoirs, anecdotes and innuendo, intertextuality and invention. I have appropriated the lives

of others, subverted my own memories, and conjured fictional people and alternate histories

from my imagination. In examining the confluence of historiographic metafiction and

narratology, Ansgar Nünning (2004, 122) concludes that humans tell stories in order to find

meaning in chaos. He states that when we look back on our own lives and the lives of others,

we use narrative to “impose ... specific narrative shape[s] on events” (ibid.), rather than

offering transparent, objective accounts of historical reality. “Folly”—in its various

manifestations of historiographic metafiction, recontextualisation and narratorial

manipulation—represents one example of Nünning’s “search for explanations, for answers to

the question, ‘Why?’” (ibid.) While, to paraphrase Nünning, my novella can never be seen

only as an act of exact mimesis of history, I have engaged in an act of “subjective,

retrospective construction” (ibid.) in order to explore the behaviour of a historical figure. At



88

the same time, as a creative writer creating a metafictive text, I am exploiting Flanagan’s

“great freedom” (in Hugo 1998) to explore desirable and not-so-desirable facets of my own

existence.

Flanagan (in Pons 2005, 69) argues that traditional Western forms of historiography—

with their linear chronologies and synchronic interpretation of events and their

implications—can stifle efforts to understand the bigger picture and the cyclic implications of

history and its lessons. In a sense, the diachronic narratives in the fiction of Grenville,

Flanagan, and Nowra have been created after these authors identified and speculated on gaps,

inconsistencies or ambiguities in the historical record, and then incorporated these

speculations in a wider narrative discourse about history. Lubomir Dole!el writes in Fictional

and Historical Narrative: Meeting the Postmodernist Challenge (2002, 258) of the

implications of gaps in the narrative to his possible worlds model of narratology, whether

fictional or historical. In a fictional universe, the gaps can only be ontological in nature, for

they came into being in the act of creating that universe. In history, however, gaps in the

historical record are epistemological and limited by human knowledge. The spectrum of

reliability between gaps and conjecture in both universes, therefore, is defined by a “degree

of probability” or “plausible conjecture” (ibid.). While historians and historiographers are

constrained by epistemological limitations, those authors who are prepared to admit to “just

making things up,” are only limited by their ontological leanings (ibid.).

*

The first section of this chapter analysed the creation of implicit and explicit

historiographic metafiction by Kate Grenville, Louis Nowra and Richard Flanagan, and

contrasted my findings with examples of historiographic metafiction from my creative work,

“Folly”. In the next section, I analyse the use of recontextualisation in the same novels as a



89

key technique in the writing of historiographic metafiction, and contrast its use by Grenville,

Nowra and Flanagan with my uses of the technique in “Folly”.

Section 2: Recontextualising Reality and Its Characters

One of the key concerns I faced while writing the creative component of this research

was the act of writing about historical and contemporary nonfiction characters. “Folly”

incorporates a multi-narrative storyline, and two of its protagonists are based on real people:

Tom Whaley (1766-1800), and Tim Milfull. As such, if I chose to recontextualise these two

characters, the need inevitably would arise to incorporate the characters and characteristics of

actual people who lived in the same timeframes. I have already discussed the implications of

using Tom as a real-life character, along with the unlikely possibility of including any other

historical real-life characters outside major historical figures including Prince George, Tom’s

brother-in-law, Lord Clarence, and George “Beau” Brummell. Most, if not all, of the other

characters in the historical narrative would be fictional constructs chosen and manipulated in

order to advance, restrain, or stabilise the storyline.

In the contemporary narrative, however, matters became a little more complicated. I

was creating a fictional version of myself, and painting variations of certain incidents in my

life on the page. Unlike Tom’s narrative—where I had the luxury of two centuries to buffer

me from any implications of creating fictional versions of actual people—the contemporary

narrative carries the risk of offending people, or compromising friendships and other

relationships by fictionalising actual contemporary people and incidents.

I shall discuss below the influences various fictional and real-life characters have

upon each other in this novella, and the ways in which I delineated their characters and

voices. In this section, however, I am concerned with the challenges and implications of

recontextualising contemporary people. While most writers of fiction make conscious



90

decisions to recontextualise reality—and many do so without compunction or consideration

for the characters or scenarios they use—I made a personal decision to be careful when

recontextualising actual figures and incidents in my writing; therefore, I turned to my reading

for inspiration, seeking out a number of Australian novels that in some way used the process

of recontextualisation to incorporate historical characters in their stories.

Louis Nowra’s historical novel, Ice (2008) can be classified as implicit

historiographic metafiction and features multiple narratives and voices that also will be

examined below. For the purposes of this section, however, I examine the novel in the

context of Nowra’s recontextualisation of a real-life person. The historical narrative thread in

Ice follows the real-life figure, Malcolm McEacharn; a less substantial contemporary

narrative thread follows the fictional biographer, Rowan Doyle, as he finishes the biography

started by his now gravely ill wife, Beatrice.

According to the historical record (Dunstan 1986), Malcolm McEacharn was a

typically larger-than-life nineteenth-century figure: a self-made man who built up a massive

fortune on the back of a Victorian-era obsession with industry and technology. He

revolutionalised refrigerated transport in a time when export industries were becoming large-

scale, modernised Melbourne’s transport system, became mayor of the city, represented the

region in federal parliament, and permanently changed the face of his adopted city.

McEacharn’s achievements were many, and his exploits and adventures similar in number,

offering ideal elements for biography or other life-writing, and understandably presenting as

attractive a protagonist to Nowra, as I found Tom.

While I discuss narrative, voice and stylistic choices below, I am primarily concerned

at this point with Nowra’s choices in terms of characterisation. At first, the identity of the

narrator or implied author is unclear—in Ramona Koval’s (2008) Radio National interview

with Louis Nowra, he is identified as “Rowan”, which is an anagram of “Nowra”—and



91

Rowan is gradually revealed to be a professional translator or interpreter who has reluctantly

taken on a role as a life writer or biographer. But this is where the fictional similarities to

Nowra end. This may be seen as an effective distancing technique to isolate Rowan from

Nowra, but there also are some technical choices on Nowra’s part that eventually diminish

Rowan as a character, almost making him obsolete. Peter Rose, in The Australian (2008, 23),

observes that, “the anguished Rowan, unable like McEacharn to cope with the idea of his

wife’s death, admits that he has failed to distinguish between himself and McEacharn.”

Recontextualising McEacharn certainly provides an alternate reading of the

industrialist, but rendering the fictional McEacharn through the filter of Rowan adds another

complex, unstable layer to the character. While his public life was quite well documented in

the historical record, the industrialist’s private life was less well-known, prompting Nowra

(2009a) to consider the poetic license of recontextualisation, “[Once] I understood I would

never know enough about Malcolm and Andrew I felt free to invent, just as Rowan does.”

Thus, Nowra scatters his prose with fact and fantasy. Written in an expository style, and

opening with a grand, entirely fictional tableau featuring a steamship towing a huge iceberg

into Sydney Harbour to ease the heatstroke of a waiting, slavering crowd, the prose setting

the scene foregrounds the circumstances leading to this momentous event, and introduces the

character of McEacharn. Throughout the rest of the novel, save for the occasional, very brief

interruption by the fictional narrator to clarify matters in the present, Nowra methodically

documents the industrialist’s life, from his birth to a grand but tragically short love affair and

marriage that would haunt him for the rest of his life, and on to his death in Melbourne after a

lifetime of achievement.

Without a background in writing, Rowan cannot offer much more than vast tracts of

exposition explaining what McEacharn did, and then what he did next. This sometimes

uncomfortable exposition can all be explained to some extent by Rowan’s lack of



92

qualifications—he struggles in his attempt to finish something his wife started in the hope

that she will awake from the coma when he does so. But his inexperience and fragile mental

health does not explain adequately why Rowan tends towards wild speculation about

McEacharn’s exploits. In addition to opening the novel with a fantastic, fictional anecdote

about an iceberg in Sydney Harbour, Nowra has Rowan wonder about the doomed love affair

between Ann and Malcolm, and, later, an unhealthy, typically Victorian obsession with

foetuses, spiritualism, and waxworks.

As a literary trope within the genre of historical fiction, the occasional reinterpretation

of Malcolm’s life is entirely feasible, especially given that this is a work of historical fiction.

While this reinterpretation is an interesting choice in terms of recontextualising McEacharn’s

life, Nowra (2009a) has admitted a personal distaste for the genre:

My problem with historical novels is one of suspended disbelief. I can never believe

that a writer can truly conjure up the real feelings of a person born in an era that is

more than two generations ago, that is, within the lifetime of our grandparents. It’s

why I get testy with writers saying their historical novel is a better reflection and/or

closer to the truth of historical events and characters than a historian can manage.

Essentially historical novelists implant their own cultural and political attitudes onto

the historical characters and events. I did want to make it completely obvious thatRowan, who is telling Beatrice, his wife, about the life of McEacharn, is giving his

own interpretation of the man she wanted to write a biography of.

Influences can be drawn between Nowra’s work and my research and application of

its findings. While we both draw upon the historical record and archives, as noted in above in

Chapter 2, I also have access to what amounts to a primary source in Whaley’s writing,

flawed though it may be in its unreliable narration and with its Victorian editing. Originally,

there were two handwritten copies of the memoirs. Whaley had wanted them published after

his death, but both sets quickly disappeared after 1800, with one reappearing in the late

nineteenth-century to be discovered by Edward Sullivan. I discovered that this set of actual

hand-tooled, leather-bound memoirs themselves had been stolen from the Library of London

some time since 2004. I also have a number of newspaper accounts that often support the



93

accounts offered in the memoir, but sometimes dramatically contradict Whaley’s version of

his own life.

After publishing Ice, Nowra admitted that he fabricated and filled gaps in the

historical record of McEacharn through his own poetic license. Nowra (2009b, 24)—and by

association, Rowan—allude in Ice to correspondence between McEacharn and French

engineer, Eugene Nicholle:

As Malcolm later wrote to the Frenchman, It was the perfect preservation of the

youth's long eyelashes that unnerved me; I expected his eyes to open at any moment .

In the space of one sentence, Nowra moves from the historical record to a fictional

incident in McEacharn’s life: Eugene Nicolle (1823-1909) was a French engineer who lived

in Australia and worked with McEacharn (Barnard 1974), while the body of the “youth”

referred to by McEacharn was frozen in the fictional iceberg McEacharn recovered from the

Antarctic. A fictitious incident is offered elsewhere in the novel:

(As you know, my darling Beatrice, all I have written about the dinner party is morethan conjecture. Victoria, one of the Reades' daughters, the one who sat at Andrew'sleft hand, kept a diary, and next day recorded everything she remembered of the

occasion, including her sister Elise's appalling behaviours—as usual , and the

observation that McEacharn has a soft Scottish burr .)

(Nowra 2009b, 29)

While Rowan argues the veracity of the incident based upon a diary he had recovered,

we know that even if Victoria Reade had existed and met McEacharn and his business

partner, the incident overshadowing the meeting—the delivery of an iceberg to Sydney—was

entirely fictional. I have used similar techniques in my own writing. While Tom’s arrest,

incarceration, and rescue from Bridewell can be corroborated in his sparse account of the

incidents, I can only imagine the detailed circumstances. According to the memoir (Whaley

1906, 329), Tom was apprehended after his return from France, imprisoned, and freed by his

brother-in-law; in the memoir there is a small reference to the warden’s “homemade



94

champaign and claret” and an encounter with his daughter, “a stout, athletic wench” (Whaley

1906, 329-331). Beyond these fragments, I had little else to work with, and set about

recontextualising the circumstances leading to the arrest: a fabricated debt to White’s

gambling house; a meeting of the fictional Chiswick Chapter of the Hellfire Club; the wager

that places Tom in the hands of the law; the conditions in Bridewell; the detailed encounter

with the jailer and his daughter; and his subsequent rescue. Thus, I fabricated a

comprehensive framework around the slim details provided by the memoirs.

These techniques have been used successfully elsewhere. Nowra’s epic impression of

McEacharn’s love affair set over decades also is a classic literary trope; therefore all of the

ingredients exist here for a work of historical fiction intertwined with the modern tragedy of

Rowan and Beatrice. Nowra makes the interesting decision to invest this untrained, creatively

talentless, and possibly traumatised narrator with the task of telling a story. Narratively,

Rowan’s decision to take up where his wife left off is completely understandable—he hopes

that this work will help rouse Beatrice:

You mentioned to me that Ann was the key to Malcolm, but you never elaborated.

Since I began writing this biography of Malcolm for you, I keenly missed her. Where

was she? [...] As you said, you cannot write about Malcolm without writing about his

great love, just as I cannot write about him without reference to you, because you are

inextricably tied to your subject as he was to Ann and you to me.(Nowra 2009b, 62)

As Rowan gradually reveals the details of his relationship with Beatrice, along with

the circumstances of her coma, both narrative threads become progressively more difficult,

unsettling and destabilising. In a series of thinly-veiled admissions, Rowan hints at his

failings and fabrications as a researcher, and admits his own shortcomings as a biographer:

I had initially hoped that, in writing Ice for you, it would merely be a humble echo ofyour research, but as you never finished researching the book—and, indeed, I am

amazed at how sketchy and bare some of the information is—I have had to cutcorners, do my own digging, even though I am not an expert like you, and even stoop

to explain what I can only guess at.

(ibid., 153)



95

And I hear you asking from your own dark chamber, How do you know this? And I

can say to you, my darling, that the evidence I have found points to this and, of

course, I have the required empathy to make connections, draw conclusions where

others in my position, in our position, couldn't. Evidence? you ask.

(ibid., 157)

How do I know he thought these things? Remember, it was almost eight months ago

when you wondered out loud if Nicolle's papers were held in any Australian archives.

We were smoking a joint and you said that the brilliant Frenchman may have written

about his colleague. If he has, you said, half in hope, then it would give me another

angle on Malcolm—or another layer at least. Because he was a man of layers. Everyindividual consists of a layered self, with some layers hidden beneath the threshold of

consciousness but constituting, nevertheless, the individual's identity. These were partof a series of thoughts you scribbled down when you were stoned because, as you

said, it could be a key to Malcolm.

(ibid., 241)

What about this underworld McEacharn built? Is there any evidence for this? I toldher all you had were unsubstantiated rumours of what lay beneath Goathland, but that

I had been able to confirm it.

(ibid., 317)

One could argue that Nowra’s imposition of Rowan’s deeply flawed writing

undermines the narrative in Ice. The contemporary thread might have compensated for

Rowan’s unsound biography of McEacharn, and offered some justification for the

biographer’s instability and warped research; the historical narrative also is deeply

impregnated with Rowan’s simpering madness and idiosyncrasies. Perhaps Nowra aimed to

force the reader into a disconnected or uncomfortable state that resembled the perspectives of

Rowan or McEacharn. Unlike McEacharn’s epic narrative, Nowra offers Rowan’s own story

as a series of tiny, discrete hints that are overwhelmed by the growing insanity of Malcolm.

This suggests that echoes of Malcolm’s obsession with ice might have parallels with the

plight of Beatrice, whose hometown of Sydney, after all, is currently caught in its own tragic

love affair with a more contemporary manifestation of ice. The suggestion that the drug has

played a part in her coma is intriguing, but anticlimactic as the narrative of Rowan and

Beatrice founders beneath the epic shadow of Malcolm’s life so completely that the former

might well have been excised from the finished work without any real consequence.



96

Ultimately, there are lessons to be learned here about balance—apart from the issues

about historiographic metafiction and stylistic choices that I discuss here. In “Folly”, I

intertwined historical and contemporary narratives, and rather than balancing these

quantitatively, I used thematic influences and varied consonance and dissonance in the

respective voices and registers to affect balance. As I experimented with tense—present,

close-past, and past—I began to recognise the effectiveness with which Suzanne Keen’s

(2003b, 36) consonant and dissonant narration could modulate the pace of the narrative and

chart inner growth and character development, as well as allow the narrator to use hindsight,

judgement and reflection to influence and sometimes even rehabilitate their discourse. While

I am not suggesting that the stories of McEacharn and Rowan needed to be more evenly

balanced in quantitative terms, or that McEacharn’s recontextualisation could have worked

quite effectively without the distraction of the contemporary narrative featuring Rowan and

Beatrice, I do feel the separate tempos at which Nowra maintains the voice and register of the

two narratives eventually derail the effectiveness of the novel; in fact, I found it extremely

difficult to balance the three narratives and registers in my own novella. Also, by allowing

Rowan’s poor technique as an untrained writer to negatively affect the historical narrative,

McEacharn’s story is diminished. Rowan’s inexpert narrative manipulation is an interesting

narratorial choice, but the narrator ultimately throws the ship of McEacharn’s story up onto

the rocks. While Nowra may have had exactly this effect in mind, I would argue that the

dramatic differences in narratorial hierarchy in Ice diminish the overall narrative, with the

lesser position of Rowan overwhelming the potentially domineering influence of McEacharn.

In “Folly”, I encountered a similar domineering character in Tom Whaley, particularly

given his larger-than-life exploits. I did not want Whaley’s personality to overwhelm the

entire novella, and I was also aware of the risk that elements of the contemporary narrative



97

could smother my relative. For example, Tom’s outrageous wager at the Chiswick Chapter of

the Hellfire Club:

The carriage approaches; you flex your legs. Even in this narrow street, you have adistance to cover. Your quarry draws close, and everyone lets out a cry of

encouragement. You crouch once more and push out from the rail. There is a rush of

wind, and the carriage looms below. You tuck your knees into your chest and curl

yourself into a ball, cannoning through the roof with a crash.

(“Folly” 2011, 48-49)

Or Sar’s shenanigans after a night on the town:

f3+%&3 (,1$.",/ '(, &3'%,#"93& %& '%60)(",- #.3 8#3# .3& 6%63,$86 $% #=",/

(&%8,9 ('&%## $.3 0%,9 (,9 )3(0# $.&%8/. $.3 ("& $% ."$ $.3 /&%8,9 &8,,",/? R

=."&) (&%8,9 $% +%))%= .3& +&%6 $.3 %$.3& #"93- (,9 ($ $.3 )(#$ 6%63,$ #.39"#(003(&# ;3.",9 63? !3& .(,9# #)(0 %,$% $.3 ;(&# %+ $.3 +3,'3- (,9 $.3, %,3

+%%$ .%%T# ",$% 61 ;3)$ (,9 R ;3(& 80 (/(",#$ .3& =3"/.$ (# #.3 ')"6;#? P.3 %$.3&

+%%$ )(,9# %, 61 #.%8)93&- (,9 #8993,)1 $.3&3 "# ( $.89 (# M(& "# #$(,9",/ ;3#"9363?

(“Folly” 2011, 77)

Like my literary relationship with Tom Whaley, Nowra also shares the luxury of

extreme temporal distance, in that he is immune to complaints by McEacharn and his peers,

and in most likelihood, his ancestors—McEacharn had become part of the public record

through his achievements and notoriety, therefore using him as a character, and identifying

him as a historical figure would seem to be relatively safe. While Mills argues in Friendship,

Fiction, and Memoir: Trust and Betrayal in Writing from One's Own Life (2004, 118) that

“truth must set us free”, she acknowledges that fictionalisation or the use of pseudonyms can

open further creative doors. In taking this route, however, Nowra might have reduced what is

essentially a true story to a complete work of fiction. Nowra’s choice to overlay McEacharn’s

identity with fictional events while offering a metafictional commentary may run the risk of

disturbing the narrative of historical flow, but this experiment offers rewards in terms of the

wider narrative possibilities opened up by such disturbances.



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Nowra’s stretching of the truth to tell faux stories like McEacharn’s spectacular

scheme to bring ice to Sydney also needs to be addressed in terms of recontextualising

history. In light of McEacharn’s technological and industrial achievements, I paraphrase East

Timor’s Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta (Cunningham 2009) in answer to questions about

his depiction in Robert Connelly’s film, Balibo (2009): those events didn’t happen as they did

in the book, but they could have. In fact, Connelly himself (ibid.) has been quoted regarding

the liberties that recontextualisation can offer:

Camus once said a similar thing about works of fiction based on fact, this idea that

often the question is not whether something happened as it did but whether it couldhave. I don’t make documentaries but I think that works of fiction can consider

history in a way that is liberated from the nuts and bolts and is able to really get into

the heart of the human experience.

This leaves the suggestion by Nowra’s Rowan that McEacharn may have embraced a

typically Victorian obsession with the morbid and bizarre, which, despite my best efforts, I

have not been able to corroborate. If I discovered that Nowra was referring to a genuine

obsession to spice up a novel already replete with adventure and intrigue, I would simply

envy the author for his access to yet another exciting perspective of McEacharn. If these were

fictional, it seems that this is simply a legitimate and very effective instance of authorial

choice. In my research, I was comfortable with experimenting with Thomas Whaley—his life

and exploits were extraordinary enough; in any case, I also have made it clear that I wanted

the opportunity to experiment with the gaps and elisions in his life story. Like Nowra,

ultimately, I was in the position of writing fiction based upon what would generally be

perceived as fact; therefore using fiction to fill the gaps in Tom’s memoirs was a valid tactic.

*



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Unlike Nowra’s Ice, all of the characters manipulated by Richard Flanagan in

Wanting (2009) can be identified as historical figures, and the events recounted in the novel

are closely based on the historical record. In this section, I examine his most recent novel,

Wanting (2009), which recontextualises a number of prominent historical figures from the

nineteenth-century.

It was 1839. The first photograph of a man was taken, Abd al-Qadir declared a jihad

against the French, and Charles Dickens was rising to greater fame with a novel called

Oliver Twist .

(Flanagan 2008b, 3)

Flanagan uses two separate nineteenth-century narratives to address the theme of

irresistible wanting or desire, uniting both through Lady John Flanagan, one-time “First Lady

of Tasmania”, and later, champion of the reputation of her late husband. While the narratives

are separated by a period of roughly a generation, all of the main characters are united in

possessing an all-consuming desire: Mathinna—the Aboriginal child who craves recognition,

status, and legitimacy in the world of a British colony; Lady Jane—the stalwart gatekeeper of

her husband’s reputation; Lord John—an arctic explorer reliving the glories of his youth;

Charles Dickens—caught up in an obsession with the missing explorer, an obsession that

ultimately morphs into the last great romance of his life.

Flanagan’s use of perspective and point of view—to be addressed in more detail

below—has an interesting effect upon the reader’s understanding of each character, and

implications in the process of recontextualising a historical figure. In the opening quotation

above, Flanagan is narrating in partially omniscient-third-person, past-tense, offering an

intimate, but slightly clinical, disconnected perception of a minor character and his

thoughts—Aboriginal advocate, George Augustus Robinson (Plomley 1967).

While it is likely that Flanagan drew inspiration for the thoughts of the Protector and

Dickens from journals, diaries, and personal communications, the reconstruction of

conversations, motivation, and internal dialogue of a figure like Dickens in Wanting is, in



100

part, well-informed conjecture, representing a direct example of recontextualisation of a

historical figure. Speaking to Juan Martinez, Flanagan justified his decision to fictionalise

Dickens:

My publisher questioned whether I really wanted to create a character out of one of

the greatest creators of characters in the language. I think to create any successful

character is hard and I'd always wanted to write about the cost of writing. [I liked the

idea of] creating a character who feels corroded by his creations and the only way he

can understand and escape is to continue creating.

(Martinez 2009, 25)

In an intimate example of enlightening the reader about a character’s motivations,

Flanagan explores the mindset of Lady Jane Franklin, specifically in terms of her marriage

(and very briefly offering Lady Jane’s own speculation about the motivations of her

husband):

Lady Jane's aspirations came from the same source as her shame and her energy: herfather. Intimacy between herself and Sir John she had discouraged from early in their

marriage. It disgusted her, his sounds and flesh and face, and reminded her of all that

she had devoted her life not simply to forgetting but to burning out of her being withexperiences of a higher nature. Occasionally he forgot himself and was captive to his

basest urges: at such times she believed herself exemplary in her tolerance of the

revolting bestiality that is man. She endured his clumsy dull repetitions, the finger

exercises of one tone-deaf to flesh. She came to see men as weaker—depraved,

certainly—and in servitude to an uncontrollable animality, which was only the moremocking in her case because it had never resulted in a living child.

(2008b, 54)

Again, these are the kind of inner thoughts that might be imagined by an author after

examining diaries or journals. But what of the more difficult characters, those historical

figures whose lives were only ever recorded as oral histories, or in some fortunate, fleeting

instances, in oil portraits like those of Indigenous Tasmanians, chief Towterer and his

daughter, Mathinna? Historical records about both of these people are rare, with mentions

usually only in passing, and skewed by colonial perspectives. Flanagan’s first mention of

Towterer eschews this stance, speculating directly about the chief’s concerns at a looming



101

encounter with white men, and also about the influence of the kind of tribal lore and tradition

that would be almost impossible to determine given the many decades since Towterer’s life,

and the damage of Indigenous culture in Tasmania:

Then, his name was Towterer. He was standing atop a boulder scree on an unknown

mountainside in the middle of a vast, unmapped wildland. [...] He was a tall,

powerfully built man, careful and wary, and over one shoulder he wore a white

kangaroo skin. Heading towards him along a distant ridgeline was a party of men

whose coming he had feared, but of whom he was determined not to be frightened.

The sacred stories foretold no tragedy; and besides, he trusted in his own guile.

(ibid., 58)

Flanagan’s recontextualisation of Towterer’s story (2008a) draws on the journals of

Robinson, and a portrait painted by William Buelow Gould (both of these men also feature in

Gould’s Book of Fish). While the author’s recontextualisation of Towterer’s daughter—

Mathinna’s characterisation also draws on Robinson’s journals—there is a richer vein of

archival material to inspire a recontextualisation of the young woman: orphanage and gaol

records; colonial archives; commissioned portraits; newspaper accounts of her exploits as a

young woman—one of the latter mentioning of her death by “misadventure” at twenty-one.

Flanagan’s perspective of Mathinna always operates at a distance, omniscient and weighted

with the tragedy of history that carries an anticipation of the contemporary plight of

Australia’s Indigenous people:

... Mathinna drank with Walter Talba Bruney because, other than a few blue ginriders, no one else would. For all that they annoyed each other, the Aborigines shared

something so obvious that it sometimes evaded them, as they sought in the rise and

fall of their chipped cups and rusty tin mugs, in the merge of their old and new

worlds, some answer to who they were and who they might be.

[...]

Mathinna managed to lift her head out of the puddle once. Walter Talba Bruney

slipped the filthy red scarf from her hair down onto her throat, and twisted its greasy

loop into an inescapable garrotte. The track in front of her shuddered. Time and the

world were not infinite, and all things end in dirt and mud. She finally saw herfather’s face. Long, with a slightly bent nose and a kind mouth, it was, she realised



102

with rising terror, as she felt herself being forced back into the wet void, the face of

death.

(2008b, 245)

While the newspaper story tells the story of Mathinna’s death and does not advance

any theories behind the circumstances, Flanagan can only speculate on what was going

through Mathinna’s mind in her final hours. Despite this speculation, Flanagan’s perception

of Mathinna’s final moments—in fact, her final years—offer a compelling argument in

favour of the value of recontextualisation and historiographic metafiction in exploring the

circumstances of wider communities through the experiences of individuals. As Kate England

notes in Rewriting the Past , Flanagan’s novel examines “love and longing and the effects of

longing denied’ (2008, 12), from Lady Jane’s fervent wish to rehabilitate the circumstances

of her husband’s disappearance, and the destructive and passionate effects of Dickens’s

relationship with the young Ellen Ternan, to the tragic desire of Mathinna to find some

compromise in maintaining connections with two lives: one with her Indigenous community;

the other with the new “owners” of her land. By drawing on the sometimes detailed,

sometimes sparse historical record, and speculating on the motives of his characters, Wanting

sees Flanagan offer a similar commentary to Grenville, in that his novel’s implicit intertextual

discourse reflects an ongoing contemporary discourse about certain aspects of Australia’s

recent history.

*

Until now, I have examined the work of established authors and provided some links

to my own practice. Each of the published cases I have examined has been written in a

historical context. In a contemporary setting, however, recontextualising people from one’s

lived experience involves new advantages and disadvantages, especially when the people



103

have an intimate connection with the author/main character. The following exchange was

inspired by my discovery of Whaley’s memoirs:

a(&%)",3 #$(&3# ($ g(&) +%& ( +3= 6%&3 #3'%,9# (,9 #336# $% =3"/. 80 M(&\#

'%663,$ ;3+%&3 $8&,",/ $% )3(9 8# ",$% $.3 .%8#3- (,9 $.&%8/. $% $.3 )%8,/3&%%6? ̂ M% 1%8\&3 ",$3&3#$39 ", f8'T O.()31]_

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033&",/ 80 ($ $.3 ;%%T#.3)<3# $.($ )",3 %,3 =())?

^R$\# .3&3 #%63=.3&3-_ #.3 #(1#? J",())1- #.3 +",9# =.($ #.3\# )%%T",/ +%&e( )(&/3

0(&'3)- =&(0039 ", ( 0"))%='(#3? ^R$\# 0&3$$1 %)9-_ #.3 340)(",#? ^:,9 R\636;(&&(##39 $% (96"$ $.($ R .(<3,\$ )%%T39 (+$3& "$ ()) $.($ =3))?_

M.3 )(1# $.3 0(&'3) %, $.3 9",",/ &%%6 $(;)3 (,9 8,+%)9# $.3 0"))%='(#3 ;3+%&3

#)"00",/ %8$ ( +($- .(&9;('T ;%%T ="$. ( /%)9>)3(+ $"$)3? P.3 0(/3# (&3 $."'T (,9

13))%=",/- (,9 $.3 '%<3& "# =($3&>9(6(/39 (,9 =(&039? R '(, #33 $.($ #%63 %+$.3 0(/3# (&3 =&",T)39 $.3 =(1 $.($ 0(03& /%3# (+$3& ;3",/ =3$- $.3, 9&1",/?

^S1 "9"%$ #%,# =3&3 $.&%=",/ ( =3$ =(#.')%$. (&%8,9 $.3 )%8,/3 %,3 6%&,",/-

(,9 "$ )(,939 ."/. 80 %, $.3 ;%%T#.3)+ %, $."#? h+ '%8&#3- $.31 +%&/%$ (;%8$ "$- (,9

$.3 $.",/ #($ 80 $.3&3 +%& ()6%#$ ( =33T ;3+%&3 R +%8,9 "$? O.3, R 08))39 "$ 9%=,-$.3 ;%%T =(# )"T3 $."#?_

(“Folly” 2011, 25)

Here, the close, consonant, intra-homodiegetic first-person focalisation immediately

narrows the reader’s understanding of the universe being described. They can only rely on the

author/narrator’s point of view, which is restricted to his own surroundings and interpretation,

rather than explicit knowledge of other people’s thoughts and motivations. The

conversation—with the exception of the reference to the fictional character, Karl—is as

accurate as I can remember, an act of mimesis, as defined by Walsh (2003, 118), who argues

that the technique is “understood less as a copy than as a synthesis—not as plot , but as

emplotment .” Authors such as Nowra and Flanagan use detailed archival research to compile

realistic versions of their historical inspirations, emplotting and manipulating recontextualised

characters to influence their narrative. I use my own memories and interpretation of incidents

and interactions to create mimetic prose that, while an act of recontextualisation, offers a



104

synthesis of my perception of the incident to advance the narrative. This mimesis contributes

to a narrative flow in the same manner as Nowra and Flanagan have used their historical

figures to drive and enrich their stories.

*

Kate Grenville admits to similar authorial and personal objectives in her memoir

Searching for the Secret River (2006a):

Writing The Secret River was the opening of a new set of eyes in my head, a new set

of ears. Now I could see what was underneath, what was always underneath, andalways will be: the shape of the land, the place itself, and the spirit of the people who

were here.

(ibid., 221)

Grenville recounts her research into the story of her great-great-great-grandfather,

Solomon Wiseman, who settled the Hawkesbury River after being granted a Ticket-of-Leave

from his life sentence in the English colony of New South Wales. The author is based in

Australia, and while she has established a career as a literary author, The Secret River is

Grenville’s first work of historical fiction—and the first in a trilogy of historical fiction; the

second is The Lieutenant (2008), set in similar thematic but not quite as personal territory to

the first, while the third—as yet untitled—will be published in 2011.

In terms of personal connection to her protagonist, The Secret River offers the closest

similarities to my own writing to date. Grenville, as did I, grew up hearing vague stories

about a distant, long-dead relative; Grenville’s relative—Solomon Wiseman—had been

transported to England’s penal colonies in the early nineteenth-century. Despite a fascination

with Wiseman as a child and an adult, she also remained ignorant of his past, the

circumstances that led to Wiseman’s conviction, and the life that he led in Australia, chiefly

because the truth of those stories had been distorted and lost over the intervening centuries.

She knew where he had settled upon release, had visited the massive stone mansion be built



105

on the banks of the Hawkesbury, and used her imagination to construct her own mini-

narratives in the absence of anything more substantial. On deciding that Wiseman’s story was

worth investigating, at the very least in the interests of genealogy, but with a possible

biography in mind, Grenville trawled the local archives in Sydney before setting off to

London to explore the mystery of her long-lost relative.

After compiling a massive amount of research about Wiseman’s life in the Old

Country, and the new life he made here in Australia, and yet still in the dark about certain

aspects of his life, Grenville set about writing about him, finishing the first draft of a

biography within a year. Ultimately, however, she felt unsatisfied at the conclusions she had

come to draw about Wiseman, his family, and the interactions and decisions he made in

Australia, especially with local Indigenous tribes, who suffered egregiously at the hands of

the settlers who had been neighbours of Wiseman, and possibly at the hands of Wiseman

himself:

Now, sitting so small in this immense airy night, I was beginning to sense the real

dimensions of this thing. There was a story here that was bigger than my ancestor,

bigger even than the tale of his relationship to the Aboriginal people. It was about thelife that the place held within itself, within its rocks and trees. The place was speaking

to me as I sat listening, and although I couldn’t hear it properly, and didn’t know how

to tell its story, I knew I was going to try.

(Grenville 2006a, 139)

In the absence of enough evidence about Wiseman’s actions and motivations,

Grenville subsequently decided to fictionalise her ancestor’s life, a choice that opened

numerous thematic and narrative doors for her. As well as exploring the mysteries of her

family’s past, Grenville also wanted to explore the impact of her ancestor’s decisions within

the wider historical narrative of colonisation, and how Wiseman (now the fictional character,

William Thornhill) might have reconciled the implications of his interactions with the

Indigenous peoples into whose lands he had trespassed in the name of freehold settlement.

Thus, The Secret River carries more than a few subtexts, including a historical narrative



106

exploring the choices and actions taken by someone very similar to Grenville’s ancestor, and

a broader social subtext about two highly different civilisations violently crashing together,

with the inherent tragedy that such difference involves.

Recontextualisation offered literary freedoms in terms of craft, specifically in terms of

finding the right voice for her new protagonist, William Thornhill. Now she was able to flesh

out the various relationships Wiseman might have had, especially with the wife who

ultimately followed him to Australia. On a personal level of metaphysical or spiritual

enlightenment, Grenville explored her own relationship with, and an understanding of her

ancestor’s choices, along with the long-term societal implications of historical decisions

made by him and his contemporaries:

Changing his name changed my relationship to the character. My great-great-great

grandfather had stepped out of the book now, taking his name with him. He had a

story, the one I'd found in the archives, but it wasn’t the one I was telling. He

watched—sardonically, I felt—as I went on writing in another direction, further and

further away from him. I left Thornhill with Wiseman's quick temper, his tendency

towards violence, and a certain cold-blooded determination. I gave him Wiseman's

consciousness of humiliation by the gentry. I also gave him Wiseman's rough-and-

ready sense of justice and even charity.

(ibid., 188)

While Grenville had little in the form of personal journals or diaries to draw

inspiration from in trying to construct a character based upon Wiseman, she did find a large

collection of business correspondence written by her self-educated ancestor, including reports

and petitions about and on behalf of his convict slaves, as well as other correspondence.

While not personal, all of this material contributed to a slightly deeper appreciation of

Wiseman’s character. I also have drawn on both the memoirs written by Tom, and stories

written about him; the latter are few in number but still quite revealing about his personality

and his exploits. Even small asides, like Tom’s reference to a cheque drawn to cover a

dramatic gambling loss (Whaley 1906, 22) opened new possibilities in terms of research and

emplotment.



107

Recontextualisation also offered Grenville the opportunity to be flexible in her

depiction of Wiseman’s wife and family, of whom little was known. All she had in terms of

information about the wife was a tragic story about her dying after a fall down the internal

staircase of the sandstone mansion Wiseman had built. Other than the fact that the wife was

relatively frail after a life of giving birth to and raising a large family, Grenville had little to

manipulate, and a great deal of scope to play with. Thus Thornhill’s wife Sal became a

mostly fictional construct that Grenville could fill with whatever characteristics she might

desire, especially in terms of useful fears, hopes and desires that might influence or inhibit

Grenville’s main character, Thornhill.

Grenville (2006a, 55) speaks in Searching for the Secret River of finding a special

souvenir on the banks of the Thames:

There were shards of terracotta, smoothed by the river, all the same thickness, many

with a hole in them about the size of a pencil. Old roof tiles, I thought. The hole was

for tying the tile onto the battens. Maybe very old. from Wiseman's time. from

Wiseman's house? I picked one up. A bulge along one side recorded where someone

had flattened it against a straight edge. The inside of the hole was grooved where a

rough stick had been pushed through the clay. Feeling guilty, I slipped one into my

pocket. There should be some special ordinance that forbade the pocketing ofhistorical shards from the banks of the navigable River Thames. [...] As if someone

had nudged me, I suddenly realised, he was here. This, right here, where I'm

standing, is where it happened.

Writing of the fictional version of Wiseman’s wife, Grenville incorporates her

personal experiences into Sal Thornhill’s character:

Everything they had owned in London had been pawned, or sold, or stolen during thevoyage. Even his old leather hat, and Sal's good blue shawl that her father had given

her—even those had gone. But there was one thing she had brought from London that

became more dear to her than any of those other objects because it was the one thatremained to her: a broken piece of clay roof-tile that she had found in the sand by

Pickle Herring Stairs the morning of her last day in London. It was worn and rounded

from the tides of years, but the bulge along the edge could still be seen where the clay

had been pushed into a straight line, and the hole where it had been tied on to the

batten. The hole was not quite round, and its inner edge retained the grooves where a

stick had been jabbed through the damp clay. I'll take it back to Pickle Herring Stairs

by and by, she said, rubbing her thumb over its smoothness. Right back where it came

from. The thing was like a promise, that London was still there, on the other side of

the world, and she would be there too one day.



108


Sal became the type of literary device that enabled her author to manipulate and

augment the sparse record that represented the historical character. Here, Grenville uses what

Freadman (2004, 142) terms fictive modelling , searching for motivation and clarification for

the actions of historical characters.

In my own practice, I drew on the attraction of literary freedoms available to

Grenville. Given the unreliability of Tom’s memoirs, I felt safe in experimenting with the

gaps in his narrative—to date, I have found very little evidence corroborating or disputing

Tom’s versions of his life—with the exception of a few newspaper and magazine reports

from the time—and the gaps and elisions are likely never to be filled, unless the primary

source of his original missing memoirs are one day found; even then, the unreliability of

these works put the veracity of his claims into question. My ultimate decisions about

recontextualising these gaps involved speculation and extrapolation; while Grenville had a

separate, broader, societal motive for exploring the possible behaviour of her ancestor, I was

more interested in personal motivation and personal growth, both of myself and what I could

determine of Tom.

My choice to maintain Tom’s identity also lies in my connection with him, and the

personal nature of both narratives. I feel like I know Tom well, even if there is a gap of more

than two hundred years between us; my/our story is just that—“our” story, without the

complicating drivers of societal clashes and national tragedy. Grenville used her writing to

search for the meaning/s behind the complex relationship between contemporary Indigenous

and white Australia, and to consolidate a personal connection with an ancestor she once knew

very little about. My motives are much more ground level, intimate, and in the similar sense

that Grenville was seeking a closer connection to Solomon Wiseman, personal. In this sense,

I feel that I can justify my choice to maintain Tom’s fictional persona as effectively as



109

possible. The more I tried to understand and interrogate the mysteries of this long-dead

ancestor, the more I hoped I could come closer to understanding the processes of

interrogating a personal history through creative writing.

*

The previous section analysed examples of recontextualisation of historical figures

and scenarios in the novels of three contemporary Australian authors, and contrasted these

examples with analysis of examples from my creative work, “Folly”. In the next section—

Narratorial Manipulation in Historiographic Metafiction —I examine the process of

narratorial manipulation, which uses focalisation and multiple voices and points of view to

create complex narrative patterning.

Section 3: Telling Stories in Character

In writing “Folly”, I sought to create a multi-narrative story featuring more than one

voice and register. In order to achieve this, I needed a comprehensive understanding of the

mechanics involved in creating convincing narrators or narrative voices. Anglo-American

criticism has wavered in describing the various modes of narrative voice, from Henry James’s

reflector-character , Percy Lubbock’s extension of James’s work to classify different points-

of-view, and Friedman’s typology of narration, to the structuralist classification of narrative

voice by Seymour Chatman and Gerard Genette (Niederhoff 2001). In the predominantly

European school of narratology, focalisation has become the accepted mode of classification

for voice in narration, despite arguments by theorists including Mieke Bal (1996, 116) that

Genette’s concept needed significant revision. The following analyses examine the novels in

question with Burkhard Niederhoff’s (2001) compromise in mind: that there is room in the

study of narratology for both point of view and focalisation when analysing narrative voice,



110

especially if the subjectivity or lack thereof is taken into account. Throughout these analyses,

I refer to the manipulation of narrative voice in my own creative work.

*

At first glance, the narration in Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2006b) is

straightforward—ostensibly, the narrator is Grenville herself, and the narratee is the reader.

Grenville offers her reader a third-person, close, past-tense narrative focalised through the

character of recently transported convict, William Thornhill:

Thornhill’s wife was sleeping sweet and peaceful against him, her hand still entwinedin his. The child and the baby were asleep too, curled up together. Only Thornhill

could not bring himself to close his eyes on this foreign darkness. Through thedoorway of the hut he could feel the night, huge and damp, flowing in and bringing

with it the sounds of its own life: tickings and creakings, small private rustlings, and

beyond that the soughing of the forest, mile after mile.


Here, we are offered the impression of William Thornhill’s first night with his family

in the strange new land of Australia’s penal colony in Sydney, New South Wales. Despite

the comforting warmth of Thornhill’s wife beside him, the prose allows us to empathise with

the sharp undercurrent of fear and reservation that runs through this man in an unfamiliar

climate. Using Genette’s narratological paradigm (1980, 215-228), the narrator can be

identified as extra-heterodiegetic, or a narrator who exists outside the discourse and the story.

In her reflexive analysis of the process of writing the novel— Searching for the Secret River

(2006a)—Grenville herself becomes a character in the discourse as she searches for

information about her long-dead ancestor. But in the novel, Grenville’s presence as a

narrative force is covert, detached, and distanced from the events that she narrates. Thus, the

novel’s narrator can be seen in objective terms as not having any connection to the main

protagonist, William Thornhill.



111

But the voice that Grenville uses throughout the story is solidly focalised via the

character of Thornhill. The author explains her quite deliberate decision to do this in her

interview on Ramona Koval’s Radio National Programme, The Book Show:

That was tricky because what I didn’t want to do was to step into the heads of any of

the Aboriginal characters. I think that kind of appropriation…there’s been too much

of that in our writing. That didn’t seem to me appropriate. [...] I certainly didn’t feelcomfortable about doing it. That was just a decision I made, and I suppose it’s not so

much a matter of principle as realistically seeing my own limitations, and also that the

subject of this book is actually white settlers, it’s the white settler response to the fact

that the Aboriginal people were on the land they wanted to settle on. It’s not actually

about the Aboriginal response to the white settlers. That’s not a story I could tell. I do

believe that you have to draw on what you know to write well, and I don’t pretend to

understand or be able to empathise particularly with a tribal Aboriginal person from

200 years ago; that’s beyond me.

(Koval 2005)

Historians such as Mark McKenna (2006, 96-110) and Inga Clendinnen (2006) have

mocked the efforts of authors of historical fiction to empathise with their characters,

suggesting that in the pursuit of verisimilitude, the writers inevitably impress upon the

historical characters their own “contemporary assumptions and current obsessions” (ibid.,

27). While this accusation might justifiably be levelled at Grenville in terms of her efforts to

establish “empathy” towards Thornhill’s situation—a scenario that arose out of Grenville’s

efforts to understand her character’s actions in settling in an area previously occupied by

Indigenous tribes—Grenville is quite clear about her inability (and unwillingness) to try and

“empathise” with the Indigenous characters she creates. In fact, the author’s decision to

restrict the reader’s perception to a field of understanding that is similar to her protagonist

arguably is a deliberate act of positioning the reader on a similar ontological plane as herself.

Grenville is hoping to understand a particular period in her family’s history, and the wider

socio-cultural implications of Western imperialism and colonisation; she speaks early in

Searching for the Secret River of wanting “to find out about that great-great-great-grandfather

[...] what he was like, and what he might have done when he crossed paths with Aboriginal



112

people” (2006a, 13). As an author rather than a historian—who is constrained, and in some

ways freed, by the “facts” and objectivity of history—Grenville’s challenge was to imagine

her protagonist’s actions and motivations through the restricted prism of his point of view.

Thus readers are presented with an external, character-bound, focalised perspective,

with the events recounted in The Secret River constrained to Thornhill’s immediate and

restricted understanding of what is happening around him based upon what he can experience

through his own senses. In Levels: Realms of Existence (2003), Suzanne Keen offers two

levels of narration that “may present the experiences of the protagonist-self as reported by a

narrating self positioned very close to the experiences (consonant narration), or it may

emphasize the altered perceptions made possible by a gap in time between experiences and

narration (dissonant narration)” (2003a, 36). Grenville offers the reader a consonant

impression of his life, rather than the kind of dissonant , “informed” reading that might come

with decades of hindsight. As the story unfolds, and as Thornhill gains some insight into his

new surroundings, Grenville hopes that the reader will gain some insight into the wider

implications of British “settlement”. So, while Thornhill (and the reader) initially puzzles

over inexplicable Indigenous practices like setting fire to grasslands, a series of later

observations—along with the insight gained through Thornhill’s son, Will, who has been

raised alongside these Indigenous neighbours—gradually reveal the motivations behind these

actions. There are moments, however, where Grenville’s choice of focaliser changes. In one

instance, this alters in mid-sentence, as the point of view moves from Thornhill to his wife

and back again:

Out on Sydney Cove pulling an oar, Thornhill could imagine himself back on the

Thames, but Sal could never for a moment stop seeing the differences between that

place and this. She was astonished every time at the rain, no gentle drizzle that misted

everything over soft and grey, but lightning and thunder loud as cannon-fire, and

water hurling itself down hard out of the sky, trying to make holes in the ground. ByGod, Will , she would say, have you ever seen anything like it ? and by the livid shocks

of lightning he would see her eyes wide, as if at a circus where some trick was being performed. (Grenville 2006b, 87)



113

Arguably, this could simply be Grenville’s attempt to portray Thornhill as speculating

about his wife’s thoughts and reactions, or to focalise the actions through him, especially in

the latter sentences of the paragraph as Sal’s comments are offered in conjunction with

Thornhill’s witnessing his wife’s physical reaction to the storm. But within a page, Grenville

has moved completely away from Thornhill, and directly begins focalising through Sal:

She was inclined to take it personally about the trees, wondering aloud that they did

not know enough to be green, the way a tree should be, but a washed-out silvery grey

so they always looked half dead.

(ibid., 88)

Again, while this certainly could be an impression of Sal’s perspective reflected

through the experiences and impressions of her husband—especially given the fact that this

observation was “wondered aloud”, and possibly within earshot of Thornhill or someone who

could report back to him—the third-person recollection about Sal’s souvenired shard of roof-

tile that immediately follows feels too personal and sentimental to have been focalised

through Thornhill (I have already mentioned this piece of roof-tile in the HMF section of

analysis above, where I speak of Grenville’s choice to incorporate a personal experience into

her fictional narrative to strengthen an already weak character):

But there was one thing she had brought from London that became more dear to her

than any of those other objects because it was the one that remained to her: a broken

piece of clay roof-tile that she had found in the sand by Pickle Herring Stairs the

morning of her last day in London.

(ibid., 89)

The intimate nature of this reminiscence may have much to do with its origins in a

personal experience of Grenville while researching her novel in London.

Throughout the novel, Thornhill and his wife are presented to the reader as a team

who would founder without the support of each other, and despite occasional lapses into

collective focalisation—“She would have to go on to the streets. They both knew that.” (ibid.,

69)—the predominant focalisation throughout The Secret River is offered through the



114

character of Thornhill. Grenville’s narration is consistently close, consonant, past third-

person in form.

In “Folly”, there are predominantly three forms of focalised narration. As Tom’s life

draws to a close, Tim writes his own version of his death, with a narration that is close,

consonant, and present second-person in form:

&!''#'( )* +, !'# -./'*0'.'1 2"#"! 30'43 5)#6"#( 6/'.(/*7 0!' 8*/5'1 "*( 0!#9303 /0

94 0)6"#(3 ,)9: ;* /*0'*3'1 3!'"#/*7 4"/* -)$'3 "3 0!' +."(' 3./43 946"#(3 /*0)

,)9# 30'#*9$1 +90 0!' ."30 0!/*7 ,)9 5''. +'5)#' 0!' 5/*". ("#8*'33 -.)3'3 /* /3 "

-".$1 6)*('#59. 3'*3"0/)* )5 #'./'5 "3 ,)9# +."(('# 5/*".., <)/(3:

(“Folly” 2011, 98)

There is a fourth example at the end of the novel when the narration is filtered through

the perspective of Tom’s manservant, Pevensey, this fleeting focalisation is necessary for the

reader to be able to make the transition from the early nineteenth-century to the contemporary

narration of Tim. Later, Pevensey finishes his master’s story:

='<'*3', 3>9"03 )* !/3 !"9*-!'3 "*( .))83 "0 0!' 5/79#' 34#"6.'( )* 0!' #)97!

0#'30.' /* 5#)*0 )5 !/$: ?!)$"3 /3 )*., 5"$/./"# 5)# 0!' 9*#9., $'33 )5 +.))(, !"/#!"*7/*7 5#)$ 0!' '(7' )5 0!' 0"+.'@!/3 ("#81 +#9/3'( 5"-' 36)..'* "*( +#)8'*1 )*'

3/(' 30)<'( /*: ?!' .)*7 09*/- 0!"0 5)#$'#., )55'#'( 3)$' '3-"4' 5#)$ /*(/7*/0, /3

30"/*'( ("#8., 6/0! +.))(1 0!' 6)9*( +'*'"0! *)6 '$40, )5 0!' 8*/5' 0!"0 '*('(

!/3 ./5': A)6 -)9.( 0!/3 !"<' !"44'*'(B ?!' $"*3'#<"*0 .'"*3 5)#6"#(1 -#"(./*7 !/3

)6* 5"-' /* !/3 !"*(3: ; (9..1 4"/*59. 0!9$4/*7 $"0-!'3 !/3 49.3'1 #'$/*(/*7 !/$ )5

!/3 )6* -"#)93/*7 ."30 */7!0@4'#!"43 /5 !' !"( +''* " ./00.' .'33 $'##,1 0!/*73

$/7!0 !"<' +''* (/55'#'*0 0!/3 $)#*/*7:

2";"9?- CF>CC7

J",())1- P"6 $(T3# 80 $.3 ,(&&($"<3 $% ;&",/ “Folly” $% ( ')%#3i

:+$3& )(1",/ 9%=, ( 0("& %+ ;%&&%=39 #=%&9# ", ( '&%##39 #.(03 %, $.3 /&(## ",

+&%,$ %+ $.3 .3(9#$%,3- M(& (,9 R #$30 ;('T ",$% $.3 #.(93 %+ ( $()) %(T $&33 =.%#3

&%%$# .(<3 $%00)39 %$.3& /&(<3 6(&T3&# (&%8,9 P%6\#? S%&3 $.(, ( +3= .%8&#$."# (+$3&,%%, .(<3 ;33, #03,$ #'&(;;)",/ (&%8,9 ", #%+$- )%(61 9"&$- 08))",/ 80

/&(##- (,9 $&(60",/ $.&%8/. '.3#$>."/. =339#- ;8$ =3 +",())1 +%8,9 P%6\#/&(<3e%& =.($ =3 $.",T "# ."# /&(<3 ;3,3($. $."# $&33?

(ibid., 101)



115

R, 3('. ",#$(,'3- $.3 ')%#3 ,(&&($"%, "# '%,#%,(,$ ="$. $.3 #$%&1- ="$. $.3 +"&#$

$=% 34(60)3# (;%<3 34$&(>.3$3&%9"3/3$"'- (,9 $.3 +",() ",$&(>.%6%9"3/3$"' ,(&&($"%,?

*

Richard Flanagan takes a similar, restrained approach to Grenville’s in the narration

of his novel Wanting (2008b), while the narration of Gould’s Book of Fish (2002) is complex

and unpredictable. Over the course of Wanting , Flanagan offers two intertwined, third-

person, close past-tense narratives focalised through two major protagonists: the young

Indigenous woman, Mathinna, and the famed nineteenth-century writer, Charles Dickens.

While the two intertwined narratives are essentially the stories of Mathinna and Dickens, the

focalisation gradually swings back and forth within their respective stories through these

characters and their peers. For example, in the first forty pages, the point of view is focalised

through half a dozen characters, from Mathinna, her anonymous government-assigned

Protector (a fictional version of the real-life George Augustus Robinson), and her eventual

patron, Lady Jane Franklin, to Dickens, his assistant, John Forster, and one of Dickens’s best

friends, Wilkie Collins. In fact, while Mathinna is the overall focaliser of one main narrative,

the story of Lady Jane Franklin and the events leading to her patronage of Mathinna, and Sir

John’s eventual disappearance form some significant structural links between the two

narratives, particularly when the narrative is focalised through Lady Jane, or when it is

focalised through Dickens and his associates in their interactions with Lady Jane.

Like Grenville’s focalisation through William Thornhill, the reader’s perception of

the action is influenced by an extra-heterodiegetic narrator outside the story and discourse,

and the narratee can be regarded as the reader. This external, character-bound focalisation for

the most part is also a consonant impression of the events that affect the lives of Mathinna

and Dickens (I discuss examples of Flanagan’s dissonant narration below). In his Author’s



116

Note, Flanagan is careful to explain the way in which he hopes the novel should be regarded

by its readers (and perhaps historians):

This novel is not a history, nor should it be read as one. It was suggested to me by

certain characters and events in the past, but does not end with them. [...] The storiesof Mathinna and Dickens, with their odd but undeniable connection, suggested to me

a meditation on desire—the cost of its denial, the centrality and force of its power in

human affairs. That and not history, is the true subject of Wanting .

(Flanagan 2008b, 255-256)

While Flanagan also admits his “free use of sentences and phrases from Dickens’ own

work,” and that the thoughts and conversations of his characters were influenced by extant

historical records (ibid., 256, 2010), he also concedes that significant elements of the novel

are speculation based upon what might have happened in the gaps in the historical records of

Mathinna, Dickens and their contemporaries. Therefore the external , covert narrator offering

observations like the following is mostly (also, Flanagan’s occasional use of limited

omniscient narration is addressed below) limited to the immediate senses and perception of

the focalised character:

It was, thought the Protector as he closed the ledger after another post mortem report

and returned to preparing notes for his pneumatics lecture, inexplicable.

(Flanagan 2008b, 3)

Later, there is similar close internal focalisation, when after Dickens’s wife, Catherine

stumbles on unsteady legs and her husband mutters about careless housework. Flanagan

offers Catherine’s unspoken reaction to her husband’s criticism:

But you haven’t borne ten children, she wished to reply as she awkwardly got her

balance back. You don’t know what it does to you. You grow heavy, your memory

wanders, your body leaks, your back burns. But she said none of it.

(ibid., 157-158)

In a similar manner, Flanagan repeatedly tells the overarching stories of Mathinna and

Flanagan through the type of multiple focalisations categorised by Prince (2001, 44) in his



117

response to Genette’s definition of the concept (1980, 241). But from the centre of the novel

until its conclusion, Flanagan’s narration takes on a more dissonant, disconnected, partially

omniscient tone. While still focalising on one or another character, the narration feels more

detached:

At times, Mathinna could seem naturally haughty, as if her particular history hadindeed bequeathed that very majesty she had once been promised, as though from her

full height of five foot four she had seen everything there was of people and somehow

stood above them, aware of their failings but without judgement. Some in Hobart

Town regarded it as nigger stupidity, others as arrogance; some said it was just the

grog , others recalled older tales of her witchery. She was easily reviled, laughed at

and sometimes spat upon, but the thought of her played uneasily on people’s minds.

(2008b, 228)

Here, there is a clinical and detached third person narration about Mathinna, and the

focalisation is unspecified—this prose is about her, but not focalised through her. By the

middle of the paragraph, the focalisation is more specific: multiple or communal in its

reflection on local attitudes towards a notorious public figure (my italics). Towards the end of

the novel, a similar transgression of focalisation occurs, as the denouement of this particular

stage in Dickens’s life is recounted, the consonant narration focalised through Dickens at one

point exhibits the intense and personal:

At that moment, Dickens knew he loved her. He could no longer discipline his

undisciplined heart. And he, a man who had spent a life believing that giving in to

desire was the mark of a savage, realised he could no longer deny wanting.

(ibid., 241)

But from one sentence to the next on the same page, Flanagan’s narration moves

away from the consonant, close and personal, becoming markedly dissonant and withdrawing

to a fully omniscient position, before returning to its former state (my italics):

His cheek pressed against her uncorseted belly. He could feel its softness pulsing in

and out. He could not know that within a year his marriage would be ended. That in

the thirteen years left to him, he would be faithful to Ellen Ternan, but that theirs

would be a hidden and cruel relationship. That his writing and his life would changeirrevocably. That things broken would never be fixed. That even their dead baby



118

would remain a secret. That the things he desired would become ever more

chimerical, that movement and love would frighten him more and more, until he

could not sit on a train without trembling. He was smelling her, hot, musty, moist .

(ibid.)

Even as Flanagan’s manipulation of narratorial position in Wanting is multifocal and

occasionally varies between consonant and dissonant, and external and internal, the

intertwined narratives are relatively uncomplicated compared to the narratorial positions used

throughout the author’s earlier novel, Gould’s Book of Fish (2002). I have already mentioned

Flanagan’s nested narratives in Chapter 7 in the form of the five versions of Gould’s book,

but I would like to briefly discuss the author’s focalisation and manipulation of voice.

Flanagan’s Afterward offers an excerpt from the Archive Office of Tasmania that hints at the

various—occasionally impossible—narrators he uses throughout the novel:

Gould, William Buelow, prisoner number 873645; aliases Sid Hammet, ‘the

Surgeon’, Jorgen Jorgensen, Capois Death, Pobjoy, ‘the Commandant’; [...]


One could imagine that regardless of which narrator offered by Flanagan, the

reader—or Chatman’s covert listener existing outside the story and discourse (1983, 253-

262)—being addressed from beginning to end somehow is reading one of the five versions of

Gould’s book identified by Pons (2005, 65). In the first pages, Flanagan introduces what

seems to be a contemporary first-person narrator, but within pages it becomes apparent that

this narrator—later identifying himself as the twenty-first century antiquities dealer, Sid

Hammet—is unreliable, lapsing over half a page into third-person, while still referring to

himself. This unreliable narration becomes a constant distraction throughout the novel. The

second and third chapters see Hammet descend into madness, with the subsequent chapter

introducing the convict, William Buelow Gould, who is quick to point out his own narratorial

shortcomings:



119

I am William Buelow Gould—convicted murderer, painter & numerous other

unimportant things. I am compelled by my lack of virtue to tell you that I am the most

untrustworthy guide you will ever trust, a man dead before his time,

(ibid., 54)

This mischievous, flexible first-person narrator sits in contrast to the extra-

heterodiegetic anonymous narrators existing outside the stories and discourses of The Secret

River and Wanting ; here, Gould and his fellow narrators waver between being extra-

homodiegetic (existing outside the discourse, but still a character) and intra-homodiegetic

(narrator inside the discourse, and a character). An example of the first occurs when Gould

occasionally slips back and forth between first- and third-person, a symptom that Stasi (n.d.)

argues is an indication of Gould’s unpreparedness to move from part of his own personal

narrative to a more universal narrative. Here, Flanagan’s de facto storyteller Gould is

focalising the Commandant to tell the story of the latter, although it is not automatically clear

who is taking on the first-person role:

He thought [the Commandant]—don’t exasperate me by asking how Billy Gouldknew what he thought, for if it isn’t obvious by now that he knew much more than he

ever let on, it never will be—he thought several banal things, which I reproduce in no

particular order.

(ibid., 372)

Is the first-person narrator Gould feeling exasperated by the reader’s doubt, or

Flanagan focalising the tenuous connection between the narrator and the reader through the

Commandant’s story as related by Gould? In an example of the second narratorial form—

intra-homodiegetic (narrator inside the discourse, and a character)—Gould indulges in his

own focalisation of another character (Heslop) for one sentence (my italics), before lapsing

back into his own story as a character:

It was a rum thing, thought the mute, but he had no desire to have his hide whaled for

asking why. I slapped Heslop on the back, thanked him for a job well done, but should

have known that the disappearance of Mr Lempriere would not so easily be allowed.

(ibid., 249)



120

And several times throughout the novel, the unfortunate Gould hints at the existential

madness that lays ahead for him, as he flounders in a confusion that ultimately absorbs

Gould, Hammet, and all of the aliases:

For as I was telling the Surgeon of my passion to pursue a higher calling with my art,

I was filling with the same terror that I had had when the peelers were out searchingfor me in the grizzled shadows of my old haunts, that terror that seized me & threw

me down a shivering root outside of myself, huddling in the stinking dirt & filth

behind barrels in dark rookery laneways, the terror I may actually be someone else,

that everything around me was beginning to whirl, that all my life was only a dream

dreamt by another, that everything around me was only a simulacrum of a world, & I

was crying, lost, I really was somewhere else, somebody else, seeing all this.

(ibid., 112)

Pons’s (2005, 70) suggestion that Flanagan is subverting the order of conventional

historical fiction—“its [Flanagan’s novel] point is to echo history rather than reproduce it; not

to set the record straight, as Gould sometimes believes, but to replace it with something

altogether different, a truth of a higher order”—is supported by Flanagan’s manipulation of

both the historical record—in the different versions of Gould’s book—and the alternating and

overlapping unreliable narrators. In offering the reader these flexible, unpredictable

narrations of the same historical scenario in a format that contradicts conventional, linear

Western historiography, Flanagan experiments with his narrative. Discussing his earlier

novel, Death of a River Guide (1994) with Giles Hugo, Flanagan’s comments also apply to

his later work on Wanting and Gould’s Book of Fish:

I knew exactly what it was going to be like—the struggle of '93-'94 was to actually

make it work. Because I really didn't realise until I got into it how ambitious it was

technically. It was a very difficult piece to write and to hold together. I came upagainst a whole host of technical problems that took me a long time to resolve. I

wanted to write it in a circular structure, because I came to think that traditional forms

of narrative were very European-based and very much a straight line. And it always

interested me here that the people tell stories in a much more circular fashion.

Essentially I come from a Tasmanian oral culture where stories are passed on from

generation to generation. It wasn't a literary culture, it wasn't an intellectual culture—

it wasn't a culture that had references in books or ideas. It only had references in

stories and images—its own life and other lives—and they were all in the form of

stories. I had grown up loving these stories. The more I thought about them the more



121

incredibly circular they were in structure and they had very discursive elements within

them but they always came in the end to a very tight point.

(Hugo 1995)

While not as intricate and sophisticated as Flanagan’s complex narratorial

manipulation in Gould’s Book of Fish, “Folly” experiments with the possibilities of this

literary technique, specifically in terms of influencing the metafictive flow of the prose, and

the overall effectiveness of its historiographic metafiction. The entire novella, regardless of

narrative positioning, exhibits a very limited omniscient narrative, rather than the all-knowing

or partially omniscient. The reader can only ever know the immediate impressions of the

focalising character. As this was overwhelmingly a fictional version of the author’s life, Tim

narrates his story in first-person, directly focalising the current action through his impressions

of the world. Tim’s is an intra-homodiegetic, close, consonant present tense narrative, a

deliberate choice that restricts the reader to the closed perspective of Tim’s mind and

experiences:

R (6 (# ()%,3 (# %,3 '(, ;3 ", $.3 %<3&/&%=, ;('T1(&9 %+ (, ",,3&>'"$1j833,#)(,93&? k<3, +&%6 .3&3- R '(, .3(& $.3 #.&"3T# %+ ( ;%%$ '(60 $&(",3&

3'.%",/ 80 +&%6 X3= J(&6 L(&T- (,9 Y8#$ 80#$("&#- 61 ,3"/.;%8&# (&3 0&30(&",/+%& 9",,3&? P.3 S86 "# ;8#1 ')(#.",/ 0%$# (,9 0(,# (,9 '&%'T3&1V `(9 "# '.(#",/

."# $%99)3&# $.&%8/. $.3 .%8#3V (,9 3<3&1%,3 "# )(8/.",/ .1#$3&"'())1?

(“Folly” 2011, 3)

The transition to Tim’s narration of Tom’s eighteenth-century life, sees second-person

focalisation describing the actions and motivations of the adventurer as if speaking to him

directly. This narrative exists first in Tim’s imagination, wrought in prose form. Extra-

diegetic, external, present tense and focalised through Tom, this narrative as seen on the page

could almost mimic Tim whispering in Tom’s ear as he moves through his adventures. But

this impossible, one-sided discourse makes a tacit, implicit acknowledgement of the centuries

and distance that separate Tim and Tom:



123

reflected Tim’s the relationship with his ancestor, and his speculation about Tom’s

motivations and actions.

Without adopting an omniscient or partially-omniscient narratorial role, the action

throughout “Folly” is restricted to the immediate surroundings of the characters: Tim; or the

two versions of Tom. Therefore, I was presented with a minor challenge towards the end of

the “Folly”, when Tom is murdered at the tavern. In order to deal with the immediate

implications of Tom’s murder, and to eventually make the transition from 1800 to 2010 in the

English village of Knutsford, I needed to introduce a new, but short-lived focaliser on Tim’s

behalf:

A)6 -)9.( 0!/3 !"<' !"44'*'(B ?!' $"*3'#<"*0 .'"*3 5)#6"#(1 -#"(./*7 !/3 )6*

5"-' /* !/3 !"*(3: ; (9..1 4"/*59. 0!9$4/*7 $"0-!'3 !/3 49.3'1 #'$/*(/*7 !/$ )5 !/3

)6* -"#)93/*7 ."30 */7!0@4'#!"43 /5 !' !"( +''* " ./00.' .'33 $'##,1 0!/*73 $/7!0

!"<' +''* (/55'#'*0 0!/3 $)#*/*7: (“Folly” 2011, 104)

Interestingly, this transition from Pevensey as third-person past tense focaliser to Tim

as first-person present tense focaliser is the only example of a smooth thematic and aural

transition from Whaley’s life to Tim’s life, as the sound of Pevensey’s commissioned

bagpipes herald the arrival of an Irish dancer, and echo down through the centuries to be

taken up on the iPod as Sar shapes up for her own Irish jig on Tom’s grave.

*

While Flanagan’s narrative manipulation in Gould’s Book of Fish is complex and

unpredictable, Louis Nowra’s Ice offers its own analytical challenges in terms of identifying

and categorising the narratorial manipulation. The opening passages offer no clear hints about

who is narrating the story, and one could be forgiven for concluding that Nowra is using an

extra-heterodiegetic narrator (outside the discourse and not a character):



124

Few, if any, of the spectators had ever seen an iceberg before. Of course they had seen

drawings and photographs but, instead of a jagged, rugged surface, the summer sun

had melted this one smooth, so that it resembled, reported some journalists, a white

pyramid or a massive, lustrous, uncut diamond.

(Nowra 2009b, 1)

In fact, at this point in the narrative, it could be argued that Nowra’s narration is the

type that Chatman (1990, 115) identified as nonhuman narrative agency, where the there

seems to be “no human presence involved”. The unidentified narrator’s voice is consonant,

covert, close, past third-person, with the narratee, at this stage, ostensibly the reader, and

whatever focalisation is apparent occurs at a multiple or communal level. But within twenty

pages, the true narrator and narratee emerge:

(As you know, my darling Beatrice, all I have written about the dinner party is more

than mere conjecture. [...] There is another entry a few days later, my darling, when

Victoria writes of how Elise is irritating the whole household with her endlesslovesick chatter about “You know who”.)

(Nowra 2009b, 20)

This is both a transgression of focalisation and an authorial intrusion, for it emerges

that Nowra’s true narrator—and the implied author of the text in the sense that Nowra is

presenting real readers with a confected work of nonfiction written by a fictional author—is

the contemporary amateur biographer, Rowan, and the implied reader of this fictional

biography is his comatose wife, Beatrice. In fact, Beatrice actually represents what Chatman

(1983, 151) regards as an implied narratee in her passive, comatose state, as Rowan reads to

her. Each authorial intrusion is being offered by an overt, first-person, narrator (Rowan). On

one level—the story of Malcolm McEacharn—Rowan represents an extra-heterodiegetic

narrator in his capacity as a narrator who is outside the discourse and the story. When Rowan

withdraws to the narrative level of his relationship with Beatrice however, his status changes

to that of an intra-homodiegetic narrator, as he establishes a discourse that requires him to be

both a storyteller and a character.



125

With the identification and definition of these two narratorial positions, it becomes

evident that the bulk of the prose written has been researched and drafted as a biography of a

historical figure, and then is being read out to Beatrice, with occasional interjections by its

author to explain his actions. McEacharn’s narrative, once self-identified as being narrated by

Rowan, can now be categorised as dissonant, overt, close, past third-person, in that it is being

related in a retrospective manner.

Of all of the narratorial roles examined in these analyses, Rowan offers one of the

most interesting in terms of unreliability. Seymour Chatman categorises unreliable narration

(1983, 149) through a number of states or misinformed conditions ranging from

psychological instability, intellectual incapacity, infirmity or immaturity, and obtuseness or

limited information. In Ice, it gradually becomes obvious that Rowan’s unreliability stems

both from a psychological instability in response to one level of desperation he feels about

reviving Beatrice, and his conscious choice to recontextualise, subvert, or unwisely

extrapolate data that he has gathered about his biographical subject in order to compile a

narrative that will stimulate Beatrice into consciousness, even if that act is simply to dispute

her husband’s wild conjecture.

In fact, unreliability and conjecture represent two key influences in imagining Tom’s

life for the purposes of writing “Folly”. Whaley’s memoirs are filled with inconsistencies,

exaggerations, and elisions, and in encouraging Tim and Sar to explore examples of these, I

was able to open up a wider discourse in the novella about the elasticity of the historical

record. Where Nowra keeps a tight leash on Rowan’s ability to tell his own story, I use

narratorial manipulation to expand the chorus of voices imagining and recounting Tom’s

story, with the aim of discussing and debating the merits of the different interpretations of his

experiences, and the mysteries of those moments in his life that have been lost to history.



126

This section examined the use of narratorial manipulation in the critically-acclaimed

novels of three Australian writers, and compared and contrasted my findings with examples

of my own narratorial manipulation in my novella, “Folly”. By exploring a diverse range of

narratorial manipulation and my own creative practice, I have demonstrated that this

collection of techniques— focalisation, voice, and point of view —are indispensable in the

writing of historiographic metafiction and the wider field of historical fiction. As with my

analysis of the works of Grenville, Nowra, and Flanagan in the context of historiographic

metafiction and the recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, my appreciation

for the value of narratorial manipulation increased as I moved from a theoretical standpoint,

through an analytical understanding of the manner in which established authors use these

techniques, to an applied perspective gained through my own experimentation with these

concepts. In particular, my variation of voice and register across three narrative positions

consolidated my understanding of how Keen’s (2003b, 30-46) modulation of narratorial

position in terms of consonance and dissonance, and the rotation through first-, second-, and

third-person narration can mediate so effectively the relationship and comprehension that

exists between the reader and successive narrators.

*

This collection of close textual analyses applied the findings of my Literature Review

to a selection of critically-acclaimed Australian novels and then compared and contrasted the

subsequent results with my own creative practice. In Does Historiographic Metafiction Just

Deal with the Big Issues?, I noted a spectrum of HMF ranging from explicit to implicit across

the four published novels as each author sought in their own way to identify gaps in the

historical record, and then imagine what might have actually taken place. I identified

examples from each novel where the author engaged in HMF as an overarching sub-genre of



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historical fiction. In gaining a thorough understanding of the way these authors constructed

these examples, I was able to use them to inform and influence the writing of “Folly” as a

new work of HMF, and situate the novella within the spectrum from explicit to implicit

HMF. In the context of using various narrative techniques to construct narrative, the crucial

combination of recontextualising historical figures and scenarios with narratorial

manipulation will produce historical fiction. Unless the author is using the implicit

intertextuality of wider cultural discourses to question historical fact, historiographic

metafiction will only result after the introduction of an overt metafictive component.

But the broad canvas of any work of HMF involves many smaller brushstrokes in

order to successfully impart meaning and direction. The next two sections of this chapter

charted the application of two literary practices that are indispensible to any work of HMF.

As in the expansive genre of historical fiction, historiographic metafiction invariably requires

the inclusion or influence of historical figures and events. In Recontextualising Reality and Its

Characters, I analysed the work of my established Australian authors and gathered examples

of their use of factual people and events, and examined the various techniques these authors

used to incorporate these elements into their stories. While one of the aims of my research

was a more personal exploration of myself and my relative, I was able to find common

ground in the ways that examples of recontextualisation in “Folly” resembled Kate

Grenville’s fictionalisation of her long-dead relative in the search for a broader understanding

of the socio-political implications of colonisation on Australia since its modern settlement.

Finally, in Telling Stories in Character , I examined the use of narratorial

manipulation in crafting a work of HMF. While elements of narratorial manipulation are

intrinsic in any literary work, my analysis of the four novels revealed that HMF cannot be

successful without manipulating the three techniques of focalisation, voice and point of view.

While Grenville’s manipulated these techniques in a conventional manner to compel her



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narrative forward, in the narratives of both of Flanagan’s novels there was a diverse range of

experimentation, with Wanting exhibiting similar conventional narration to The Secret River ,

while Gould’s Book of Fish was wildly experimental. But the narratorial manipulation of

three different voices throughout my novella was particularly similar to Nowra’s dual

narrative in Ice. All four novels influenced the implementation of historiographic

metafiction, recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios, and narratorial

manipulation in my own creative practice; conversely, this same implementation also vested

in me a new appreciation for the potential of the theory that had informed my analysis of

Australian historiographic metafiction, and the usefulness these concepts have for writers of

historical fiction who wish to propel their practice into an investigation of the elasticity of the

historical record. Ultimately, this chapter demonstrated that complex works of

historiographic metafiction —while incorporating all manner of literary devices and

concepts—are particularly reliant upon the two techniques of recontextualisation and

narratorial manipulation.

*

In the next chapter, I present my findings about the Reflexive Practice involved in this

research, and recount the various influences, actions and reactions involved in engaging in

the creative practice of writing a work of historiographic metafiction. I begin by scoping the

current landscape of reflexive practice theory, and the concept of the author as a researcher,

with a view to defending the nexus between the critical and creative aspects of my research. I

then use this information to examine significant turning points—in my archival research, my

creative practice, and my scholarly research —to qualify my reflexive practice in a scholarly

context.



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Chapter 5: Reflexive Practice

As I stated in the Introduction, this research represents an intervention into national

discourses about historiographic metafiction and historical fiction. Until now, the debate

about HMF has focused upon creative or scholarly directions. In exploring the creation of

HMF, this research takes both creative and scholarly approaches, and combines them with

research into a theoretical perspective of the sub-genre. The first section of this chapter

continues the textual analysis in relation to my creative practice in Chapter 4 in the context

of examining the creative works of three Australian authors of historiographic metafiction.

Here, I discuss my creative application of the concepts of historiographic metafiction,

recontextualisation of reality, and narrative manipulation. I then explore various aspects of

my reflexive practice by identifying specific turning points in my creative practice, and

then speaking about their impact upon the overall project. Throughout this reflection, I

refer to current scholarly thinking about reflexive practice, the concept of author as

researcher, and the nexus between creative and critical research.

*

Section 1: The Three Faces of Thomas Whaley

Ansgar Nünning (Nünning 2004) extended Linda Hutcheon’s research into the

concept of historiographic metafiction in Where Historiographic Metafiction and

Narratology Meet , offering a typology of the various forms of historical fiction. In contrast

to his definition of explicit HMF, which “challenges the hegemonic discourse of

historiography” (ibid., 366), my creative work, “Folly”, falls under the rubric of Nünning’s

implicit historiographic metafiction, which draws attention to the subjective nature of

history that “is accessible to men and women only as a narrative produced by human beings

who remember and interpret events from their particular point of view” (ibid.). I first



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encountered a version of Thomas Whaley’s story that had been filtered through the

Victorian lens of Edward Sullivan’s editorial gaze (Whaley 1906), and this Sullivan’s

edition exhibited examples of the various gaps, elisions, and inconsistencies that I would

ultimately exploit in my creative work. In Fictional and Historical Narrative: Meeting the

Postmodernist Challenge, Lubomir Dole!el (2002, 258) discusses the effects that these

gaps and inconsistencies can have within his possible worlds model of narratology.

Whereas fictional universes will only feature gaps of an ontological nature—in that their

existence was predicated on the creation of the universe itself—gaps in the historical record

are epistemological and limited by human knowledge and influence. Dole!el then defines a

spectrum of reliability between gaps and conjecture in both fictional and historical

universes when he refers to “degrees of plausibility” or “plausible conjecture” (ibid.). Like

Flanagan (2010), who purports to “just make things up,” creative writers are limited at the

very least by their ontological leanings, whereas historians and historiographers find

themselves constrained by epistemological limitations (ibid.).

The most potent example of these epistemological inconsistencies in “Folly”—and,

in practice, a vivid instance of implicit historiographic metafiction—is evident in my

exploration of Whaley’s death. In a footnote to his preface to Whaley’s memoirs, Sullivan

(Whaley 1906, xxvii) notes that official records held Whaley died of “rheumatic fever” on

the way to London; he quickly adds a less official version noted in the Isle of Man

Examiner , which suggested that much more sordid circumstances surrounded his death.

Early drafts of “Folly” had Sar storyboarding Whaley’s death independently of

Tim’s influence or any significant discussion of the competing versions of history.

However, I decided that the discussion between Tim and Sar about this moment of

historical contention could serve as a pertinent illustration of HMF. I used three separate

manipulations of the historical record to achieve this throughout the following extract from

“Folly”:



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From Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1800

Obituary, with Anecdotes, of remarkable Persons.

2. At Knutsford on his way to London, Thomas Whalley, esq. brother

in-law to the Chancellor of Ireland. This gentleman's name will becelebrated for his Journey to Jerusalem, by which he won nearly

£30,000 and which was remarkable for expedition. Mr. W. was married

last January to the Hon. Miss Lawless, the sister of Lord Cloncurry

(now a state prisoner in the Tower) and fell a victim to a rheumatic

fever which he caught in Ireland.

Scrawled in Sar’s handwriting at this point is a notation: “See Tim’s notes

about the article that suggests Whaley was murdered by a jealous lover” I openSar’s iPad, and immediately find a Sticky-Note addressed to me:

I’m sorry, Tim – I can’t possiblystoryboard the official version of

Whaley’s death. Dying of “Rheumatic

fever” just doesn’t do justice to this

man’s story. I think we need to go with

the other ending you found. It’s muchmore dramatic. I was going to have a go

at it, but you found the article so you get

first dibs.

(And he is your cousin!)

Sar

xo

I look down at Sar and gently draw back the hair that has fallen across her face.

She’s right—Whaley deserves to go out in a much more spectacular manner,

even if the version I found in a footnote contradicts the historical record. Ascarefully as I can, I rearrange Sar into a more comfortable position so I can use

my laptop without bothering her. There, in the online version of the memoirs

that Sar had found, is a brief footnote:

The newspapers of the day ascribed his death to a rheumatic fever

contracted in Ireland; but tradition has preserved a more tragic account

of his demise, and would have us believe that he was stabbed in a fit of

jealousy by one of two sisters to whom he was paying marked

attentions at a time when each of them was in ignorance of his

concealed attachment to the other. Sarah, or Sally, Jenkinson is stated by Edward Evans to have been the name of the lady from whom he

received his death wound: another authority in the Isle of Man

Examiner records the fact that this was the very light-o'-love who had

passed into his possession from the royal seraglio.

*

You roll onto your back and nestle into the dirty sheets. (“Folly” 2011, 97)



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The first manipulation highlights Sar’s consideration of the official version of

Whaley’s death as detailed by Sullivan. I use an extract of this version in the text of “Folly”

to show Sar’s reluctance to pursue this line in the face of a more exotic version, which she

foregrounds in her marginalia on the newspaper clipping—noting Tim’s earlier discovery

of the latter version—and justifies her deferral of the adaptation in her Sticky Note to Tim.

Tim then revisits his discovery of the alternative version of the historical record and

considers the merits of the two versions before implementing the third manipulation

through his prose. In their preference for the “stabbing” death of Whaley, both Tim and Sar

make a subjective choice about Whaley’s ending, a decision later dismissed by the

historian, Joan Leach, who chooses to abide by the explicit , hegemonic version of

Whaley’s demise represented in the historical record. While the extract above represents a

fictional and metafictional reflection of my own choice to implement a process of HMF in

my creative work, I also was influenced by Gilles Deleuze’s discussion of a multi-level

montage by Leibniz:

The text also fashions a way of representing what Leibniz will always affirm: acorrespondence and even a communication between the two levels, between the two

labyrinths, between the pleats of matter and the folds in the soul. A fold between the

two folds?

(Deleuze 2006, 4)

By exploring alternate versions of history, by peering between the folds of

conflicting historical accounts, I investigate the veracity of these accounts, and encourage

the reader to consider that the accepted historical record is not necessarily the most

accurate. In his analysis of Richard Flanagan’s novel, Gould’s Book of Fish, Paul Stasi

(n.d.) argues that the author does not simply contrast:

[r]eal historical experience and ideologically conceived propaganda. Rather, he

directly thematizes the question of how experience is mediated, by multiplying the

various narratives within the book itself, suggesting that the truth emerges, not

simply from its recovery and restitution, but from the conflicts that arise whencompeting truths are confronted with each other.



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Like Flanagan, I seek to present the reader with a work of historiographic

metafiction comprising a complex, layered series of narratives that blurs the ontological

boundaries of history, challenges the reader’s perception of received history, along with the

empirical validity and verifiability of historical events, and questions the concept of

historical fact as opposed to historical events, thereby “demarginalising the literary through

confrontation with the historical, and [doing] so both thematically and formally” (Hutcheon

1996, 478).

*

In my analysis of Louis Nowra’s novel, Ice, I recognise that Nowra

recontextualised the historical life and pursuits of his protagonist, Malcolm McEacharn

through the narrative voice of his contemporary biographer, Rowan. In “Folly”, I undertake

a similar recontextualisation using a fictional version of myself as an author seeking to

explore the historical life and pursuits of Thomas Whaley. A second recontextualisation of

Whaley’s life is evident in Sar’s impression of the Irishman, which offers a counterpoint to

Tim’s interpretation. A contemporary example of both of these functions is evident at the

end of the novella, where I briefly recontextualise another “historical” figure: the late

Knutsford historian, Mrs Joan Leach. In the course of my research, this colourful character

was alternately accommodating to and dismissive of certain aspects of my investigation

into Thomas Whaley. Mrs Leach had assisted in my unsuccessful attempts to find

Whaley’s actual resting place in the Knutsford Cemetery, encouraging and participating in

a physical survey of the grounds that involved lifting fallen headstones and clearing

overgrown foliage in the hope of finding a grave that had been relocated and subsequently

lost in the 1970s. Mrs Leach (Leach 2010) also offered a terse denial of any suggestion that

Whaley had been murdered, describing the stabbing story as “fantasy”. As an author of

historiographic metafiction, I do not regard myself accountable to the constraints of the



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historical record, or to anyone else but myself and those readers prepared to recognise the

possibilities opened up through the genre, I decided to incorporate her guarded

enthusiasm—and some quite rigid views on the historical record—in “Folly”:

I quickly lose the first round arguing that the dandy was stabbed by a jealous lover,when Joan dismisses the whole idea as fantasy. My back-up plan involves another

obscure but convoluted theory, so I take Sar’s iPad from her bag and open the file

with Tom’s Last Will & Testament, which had been written three days before he

died. I explain that this and some other evidence I found about his debts at the time,

suggest that Tom may have faked his own death to escape his overwhelming

obligations. Joan is on the final page of the will when Sar returns with somemumbled apologies. “This sounds quite far-fetched, Mr Milfull,” says Joan.

“I know, Mrs Leach,” I say. “But it is just a theory.”(“Folly” 2011, 107)

By drawing the reader’s attention to the author’s consciousness of his position, and

his preparedness to admit that he engages in speculation in order to seek the “truth”, I

attempt to engage in Nünning’s (2004, 122) quest for an answer to the question, “Why?”;

in this case, Tim uses “subjective, retrospective construction” (ibid.) to explore the

alternate circumstances around his ancestor’s death. As a writer of historiographic

metafiction, I sought the most effective version of Whaley’s death for my own artistic

purposes. The metafictive component in this process of recontextualisation is the discourse

within the text that debates the wisdom of this decision.

*

My final act of textual analysis in this chapter, examines the role that narrative

manipulation played in writing “Folly”. While the conceptual evolution of the novella’s

narrative will be explored in this chapter’s section covering percolation, the following

discussion focuses on the practical evolution of the narrative(s) throughout the creative

process.

Early drafts of the novella contrasted the lives of two protagonists: the eighteenth-

century historical character, Thomas Whaley; and a contemporary fictional heiress, Sar.



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The gradual evolution of the novella saw Sar share the status of chief contemporary

protagonist with a fictional version of me writing about the historical protagonist. As the

author of this (meta)fiction, I was creating a work of historiographic metafiction, and in

searching for an implicit version of this genre, I decided to introduce a third voice that

would engage with the core narrator in a debate about the implications of recontextualising

a historical character. This fictive discourse also infers a metafictive contemplation on

behalf of the legitimate author, and thereby transforms a work of historical fiction into a

work of historiographic metafiction.

One complication of introducing a third voice to the narrative involved assisting the

reader in comprehending the three separate narratives below, and to enable smooth

transitions between each:

Narrator Focus Voice Tense Purpose

Tim Tim First-person Present Core narrative of “Folly”

Tim Tom Second-person Present Tim’s interpretation of Tom

Sar Tom Third-person Past Sar’s interpretation of Tom

Figure 2 – Narrative Structures in “Folly”

Gerard Genette’s narratological paradigm (1980, 215-228), allows the

categorisation of “Folly”’s contemporary narrative thread as close consonant, first-person,

present tense narration of Tim’s own life, offered in an internally focalised, intradiegetic-

homodiegetic voice—the narrator is inside the discourse and a character, and the reader’s

understanding of the action is limited to the narrator’s perception of events:

I’ve met all my current deadlines, my email inbox is empty, the theses editing work

has run dry for the moment, and the DVD screeners I’m supposed to catch up withare buried somewhere in one of these boxes. Instead of being responsible and

unpacking all of these moving boxes, I wonder what I can scrape up about my

strange young neighbour.

(“Folly” 2011, 10)

The second narrator is still Tim, but he is recounting a story some two hundred

years distant. The most obvious delineation between this historical narration and the



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contemporary core narration is that the text is presented in italics; in fact, the working

drafts of “Folly” took this visual delineation one step further, with the contemporary

narrative written in black type, Tim’s version of Tom’s narrative written in blue type, and

Sar’s version of Tom written in red type. In imitating Flanagan’s layout of Gould’s Book of

Fish— where each chapter is printed in a new colour that corresponds to the ingredients

used to the narrator’s ink palette—I was able to identify very quickly each respective

narrative, and therefore effectively manipulate the overall flow of the novella.

As Genette (1980, 255) explains in Narrative Discourse, there are certain

obligations expected of the narrator, particularly in terms of maintaining a relationship with

the narratee, and offering ground rules for navigating the narrative. In the extract below, the

reader is expected to move from a contemporary narrative to a historical narrative for the

first time, with the latter taking on an even more intimate register than the reader has

already encountered. In the first instance of this historical narrative, the reader is offered

some context for what they are about to read, with the narrator outlining the source of his

inspiration, followed by a brief consideration of possible scenarios. The following extract

includes both first- and second-voices in order to demonstrate the transition:

After stocking up the fridge, I lock the door and turn off the phone, and flickthrough my notes to find a good example of one of Tom’s adventures that seems a

little light on detail. There, in the very last pages of his memoir, is a story about

imprisonment:

But my companion, who was at that time very ill, entreated me not to

hazard my life in opposing so many, who could not fail to overpower

me in the end. Her entreaties, and a conviction in my own mind that

resistance would be in vain, induced me at length to surrender; upon

which I was instantly conveyed to the Bridewell, a prison solely

designed for thieves and murderers.

[...]

What might I be able to bring to this story? This whole saga happened not long

before Tom died in a coach-house on the way to London, and while he was

relatively wealthy when he died, he was pretty much broke when he was

imprisoned. What led him to that point, and what must it have been like for anaristocrat to be locked up in a place like Bridewell?



137

*

Somewhere beneath the stench of vomit, spilled wine and guttering tallow candles

lies a bass note of sex. The room is filled with the musk. You resist the urge to gag.

You’ve smelled worse; in fact, you’ve been the source of worse.

(ibid., 29-30)

Unlike his intradiegetic-heterodiegetic role in the contemporary narrative, Tim fills

an alternate capacity here as a narrator who is not a character in the story being told at this

level; this designates him as an extradiegetic-heterodiegetic voice, yet in the overall

context of “Folly”, his narration becomes intradiegetic-heterodiegetic: Tim’s second-

person, close consonant, present tense, external focalisation acts as both narrator and a

character, effectively imagining an impossible, one-way conversation by recounting Tom’s

own story to Tom himself. Interestingly, the quote taken by Tim from Tom’s memoirs

represents another level of narration: this close consonant, present tense, internally

focalised intradiegetic-homodiegetic voice is offered by the eighteenth-century narrator,

who is a character in his own discourse.

The first narration of Tom’s story commences after clear conceptual and visual

prompts aid a transition into a new narrative voice that is essentially a one-way

conversation where the contemporary narrator attempts to come to terms with the actions

and motivations of his long-dead ancestor. Where Tim’s contemporary narration relates his

immediate situation to the reader, this new narrative turns the reader into a voyeur, offering

them a window into one person’s speculation about another. Tim steps out of the direct

involvement as a character in his own contemporary core narrative, and, with the reader,

becomes a voyeur looking into Tom’s life. This informed conjecture ostensibly directs the

narration at Tom as an audience, but without offering the eighteenth-century dandy the

right of reply. In a sense, however, Tom’s voice resonates through history in the discourse

between Sar and Tim, as they examine the veracity of various accounts of his life.



138

The third voice used in “Folly” appears deceptively simple: Sar is offering her own

narration as a counterpoint or alternate exploration of Tom’s story. In response to concerns

about the artificiality of having two contemporary characters exploring prose versions of

the same story, I decided to have Sar “storyboard” her version in the same way the

filmmakers plan their shooting schedules using captioned graphic imagery to establish each

scene. I faced practical limitations in terms of incorporating actual graphic imagery in the

novella itself—primarily in my limited capacity as a visual artist—therefore the reader of

“Folly” encounters a narrative universe created by the person reading the storyboard, in this

case, Tim.

Sar’s narration uses an extradiegetic-heterodiegetic voice, as she is not a character

in the story she tells, and her narration is outside the discourse. But like Tim’s narration of

Tom’s story, within the overall context of the novella, Sar’s third-person, close consonant,

near past-tense narration becomes intradiegetic, as she is a character in a higher-level

narrative. In order to assist the reader in making smooth transitions from the core

contemporary narrative to Sar’s historical narrative—and between hers and Tim’s historical

narrative—I used devices like a differing tense (near past) and voice (third-person), and

also included the caption headings used in Sar’s storyboards, which follow the traditional

eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary format used to introduce chapters. The

following extract includes both first- and third- person narration in order to show the

transition:

I swipe the storyboard on to the next frame, and despite the Spartan nature of

narrative in a storyboard, Sar’s obvious skill in building up a story in so few images

helps me to conjure up the details of Whaley’s first love. But the dozen or so wordscaptioning the first doesn’t quite cut it—“A young man stands against a stone wall

looking out over a valley”—perhaps it’s up to me to bring the finer detail to Sar’s

broad brushstrokes.

*

The New Home – Leaving Late – Waking Later



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Tom leaned against the stone wall and looked out over the valley. The gentlest of

breezes took the edge off the midsummer sun. On the horizon, the Pyrenees clawed

at the sky, even in this heat managing to guard their snow-capped peaks.(ibid., 39)

While this is, in effect, Sar’s version of Tom’s story, it is important to clarify that as

Tim constructs a narrative using Sar’s storyboards, he is effectively creating his version of

Sar’s impression of Tom’s life, which carries with it the biases and colour of Tim’s

personality, and adds a further metafictive layer to this work of historiographic metafiction.

In the event that the reader was unable to make this connection, I occasionally used the

transitions to offer a subtle reminder:

“Merci,” said Tom, turning back to Helen and Jacques. He motioned for them to

walk on, while the latter glowered at Henri’s slur, willing for now to bow to Tom’s

authority.*

Even within the sparse medium of a storyboard, Sar’s detailed imagery and

captions are enough for me to evoke an impression of the start of Tom’s first real

relationship that feels quite solid and feasible...

(ibid., 58)

The previous section supplemented textual analysis performed in Chapter 4, and

reflected on the logistical and practical implications of the three key concepts employed in

this creative process—historiographic metafiction; recontextualisation of historical figures

and scenarios; and narrative manipulation. The section below reflects on a series of

conceptual implications involved in the creative writing process.

Section 2: The Unpredictable Nature of Archival Research

Archival research, in its innumerable forms, is an integral part of this form of

creative practice, and in my own case, archival research was a vital component. In the

context of this chapter, however, I would like to discuss a number of turning points

throughout my creative practice that had a significant impact upon the process. Perhaps one

of the most intriguing examples occurred almost a year after I obtained Whaley’s memoirs.

In the Library of London, I found a call number associated with one of the two



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handwritten, leather-bound copies of the memoirs; if I could view the books, I could shed

some light on the tantalising elisions—note the asterisks marking elisions, see Figure 3—

that Edward Sullivan had made to maintain propriety in his Victorian era.

6-.234 $ 7 80.4 93:; ,2<<-=0/>? 4@-14@ =43?-:/ :9 AB0<4C>? ;4;:-3?

2O.()31 @CAE- @HA7

On contacting the library, however, I was informed that both folio-sized, hand-

tooled, leather-bound volumes had been stolen. This blow to the potential of my archival

research had the unexpected effect of spurring me on to find other forms of data about my

subject because of the new and tantalising fate of the memoirs—who would go to such

extraordinary lengths to steal them, and for what reason?

I also spent considerable time reading literature from Whaley’s era in order to

inform my writing, and to lend an authenticity to my prose. From the fictional

autobiography of Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

(1759-1767), to Boswell’s London Journal , (1762-1763), I found a great deal of data that

corroborated and supplemented much of what Whaley had to say in his own memoirs. But

a recommendation to read Diderot’s La Religieuse (The Nun) (1796) had some curious

implications. The epistolary novel recounts a relationship between a novitiate who is being

treated cruelly in a French convent. When she seeks the help of a sympathetic French



141

aristocrat, he enthusiastically engages in a rescue mission, only to find that the entire

exercise was a prank perpetrated by his best friend. Diderot based the novel on a prank he

and his friends had played on their friend over a six-month period in c.1780. When I

discovered that Whaley had been the victim of a similar ruse (Whaley 1906, 27-31)—this

time in a conspiracy (reported in newspapers of the time as A Trip to Paris, or the Banker

Taken In) by his creditors to entice Whaley into returning to France in order to kidnap him

for ransom—I wondered whether the conspirators’ plot had been inspired by Diderot’s

story. While I was restricted in the length of what I could write about Whaley in “Folly”,

this odd reverberation of Diderot’s fictional construct into Whaley’s own experience served

as strong inspiration as I planned and plotted my novella. As Richard Flanagan (2008a)

notes that the narratives within his novel, Wanting , were “[suggested] to me by certain

characters and events in the past, but [do] not end with them.” La Religieuse and other

intertextual connections within and around Whaley’s original memoirs only broaden an

already rich field of potential ideas that might contribute to a creative work.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating instances of archival research, however,

illustrates the unpredictability of the practice, and the dramatic implications that

unexpected revelations can have upon research, creative writing, and the directions that a

work of historiographic metafiction might take. After contacting Knutsford historian, Mrs

Joan Leach—who lived in the village where Whaley was buried in 1800—I was introduced

to a man who revealed his own relationship to Whaley. Keith Tattersall is Thomas

Whaley’s great-great-great-grandson. Keith provided me with a number of documents

regarding our common ancestor, and while I was aware of some of these artefacts—I had

already obtained a copy of the probate inventory of Whaley’s eldest son in the vain hope of

establishing Whaley’s approximate wealth at the time of his death—I was delighted to

learn that Keith had access to Whaley’s Last Will and Testament . The inventory of the

document was fascinating and helpful to my research, but the most dramatic detail came in



142

the timing of its writing (and in the timing of its arrival in my hands). When I realised that

Whaley had notarised the will seven days before his death in November, 1800, I wondered

whether he had intended to fake his own death. While I acknowledge this is conjecture,

such an action seemed in character with Whaley, a man prone to acting on impulse and

renowned for elaborate stunts. Joan Leach (2010) had already frowned on my enthusiasm

for the alternate version of Tom’s death—being murdered by a jealous lover, rather than

dying of rheumatic fever—but this new fact about the will was the ideal kind of fodder to

be included in “Folly”, and despite receiving this new information only weeks before the

final draft of the novella was due, I was able to incorporate my new “theory” into the

contemporary narrative in a small way.

Section 3: The Reflexive Practitioner

Another integral aspect of creative practice that offered crucial turning points

during the writing of “Folly” was the detailed planning of the novella, and there were

several moments during this process where new directions were opened, and in some cases

forced upon me. Before I could decide on the directions my writing might take in terms of

exploring Whaley’s life, I needed to list the most significant moments in his story, not

simply to rule out some of the more banal and quotidian aspects of his memoirs, but to

narrow down potential plot points for a manageable story. This spatio-temporal process

took two stages: establishing a rough timeline of Whaley’s life; and building small and

large-scale maps that noted places of interest that he had travelled to. Both stages simply

involved a close reading of the memoirs, noting significant events, times, and locations. In

some instances, I needed to conduct some archival research to find contemporary names for

locations mentioned in the memoirs; in other instances, I needed to corroborate Whaley’s

reasons for visiting a location, or the names of the people he was calling on. The results of

this research appear in a timeline (Figure 5):



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Another crucial turning point in my creative process came after I received reader

responses to early drafts, which in many ways were similar to the final product of this

thesis, with the exception that the main contemporary character was a Gen-Y heiress, Sar,

who exhibited much the same characteristics as Whaley. I originally planned to research

parallels and differences in the cultural and sexual mores between Whaley’s society, and

that of my fictional heiress. A number of readers agreed that rather than using the

contemporary narrative to focus on the adventures of the heiress, I should consider

replacing her as a protagonist with a character based on myself, especially since I could

demonstrate a genealogical relationship with Whaley. At first, I was dubious about this

idea. I was reluctant to act on strong recommendations to excise Sar completely from the



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contemporary narrative, as I had grown interested in the character of Sar. Also, writing in

character as the contemporary protagonist generated a series of difficult challenges to

resolve. I could discard the research I had done about Gen-Y culture, but now I was

concerned about the implications of writing about real people—the people I had and was

interacting with—as well as historical figures and events. In addition, I faced a struggle to

find a voice to insert my own story, even in fictional terms. In his analysis of Philip Roth’s

“autobiographical” novels, David Gooblar identified the author’s strategy to deal with the

former issue:

While writing, when I began to feel squeamish about confessing intimate affairs of

mine to everybody, I went back and changed the real names of some of those with

whom I’d been involved, as well as a few identifying details. This was not because I believed that the rerendering would furnish complete anonymity (it couldn’t make

those people anonymous to their friends and mine) but because it might afford at

least a little protection from their being pawed over by perfect strangers.

(in Gooblar 2009, 39)

While I found this technique quite effective for incorporating people I had

encountered in my own lived experience, fictionalising myself proved more challenging.

After a series of unsuccessful experiments, I found that a fictional version of Tim with a

pseudonym reduced the emotional and psychological association I— the author —had with

the character: a fictional version of me. Once I found the right voice and tone for the

character, I changed the name back to “Tim” and continued writing.

The final aspect of creative practice I wish to address in this section of my chapter

about Reflexive Practice is incubation (I will explain my preference for the term

percolation below) or what some consider a form of writer’s block . In the 1920s, George

Wallas (1949, 80-81) constructed a model of the creative process that is still highly

regarded today. He argued that problem-solving involved the following steps:

1. Preparation gathering and collating research,

2. Incubation assigning the problem to the sub/unconscious for a solution,



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3. Illumination conscious realisation of the solution,

4. Verification testing the solution.

Ronda Dively (2006, 22-40) has documented contemporary responses to Wallas’s

model, many of which argue the role that the sub/unconscious plays in the incubation

phase of the process. Among these, Albert Rothenburg (1990, 15-24) argues the value of

modes of associational thought ; Robert Olton suggests that “illuminations frequently

emerge during bouts of creative worrying (1979, 11); Siefert et al, recommend a process of

“ selective forgetting , which frees up the practitioner for illumination” (1995, 11); and

Teresa Amabile (1996, 101) has identified a range of environmental forces that may

constrain or hinder the creative process. Finally, at a neuropsychological level, Dively

(2006, 34) notes that scientists have identified fluctuations in the level of certain

neurotransmitters in the cortex—particularly norepinephrine —that quantify the

participation of the left brain hemisphere (logical and analytical) and the right brain

hemisphere (creativity and problem-solving) during the creative process. All of this

research offers qualitative and quantitative corroboration to assertions made by creative

practitioners about their creative process:

The bath-bed-bus syndrome summarises in a phrase that insights frequently follow

in moments of leisure, such as restful states just after waking, before sleeping, or

while riding in a vehicle, or semiautomatic tasks like driving, shampooing one’s

hair, and so on.

(Osche 1990, 196)

For weeks, I got exactly nowhere in my thinking—it all just seemed too hard... I

had run out too many plotlines, and they were in danger of becoming snarled. I

circled the problem again and again, beat my fists on it, knocked my head against

it... and then one day when I was thinking of nothing at all, the answer came to me.

(King 2000, 203)

I write alone in my quiet house and my creative process is informed by walking, by

reading, and by thinking. Like Mark Rothko, I find a lot of my processing is done

by lying on the couch thinking. Like Kary Mullins, driving long distances onsuperhighways also is fertile for the process.

(Jane Piirto in Henshon 2006, 8)



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Even playwright, Arthur Miller (in Wood 2006) confessed that incubation played a

vital role in the writing of Death of a Salesman, as the idea of the play had been mapped

out when he was a student in college, but took two decades of life experience and

incubation for the idea to become mature enough to crystallise into something tangible.

I have already suggested that I prefer the term percolation to incubation in

qualifying my creative practice. I agree with some of the theorists above, who are reluctant

to assign all of the responsibility for the incubation stage to the sub/unconscious. As Bill

Nelson (2007, 43) argues, “For writers, to percolate means to let an idea through a

“porous” substance, allowing for time to extract the good and discard the not-so-good.” I

believe that the “active” metaphor of percolation addresses my criticism of the “passive”

metaphor of incubation, which effectively asks practitioners to “set and forget” the

preparation stage until the completed incubation prompts illumination. A practitioner who

is percolating during the creative process is monitoring and feeding the problem-solving,

not consciously avoiding the process.

In the absence of a solution to a problem, I would consume relevant—and

sometimes seemingly irrelevant—material that aid in the problem-solving process, and

often I would find imaginative solutions to problems when I was engaged in the kind of

activities described by Osche (1990) in his bed-bath-bus analogy; I was particularly

impressed when a problem I had been battling would be solved or addressed when ideas or

whole sentences came to mind as I rode my motorcycle to and from university. While

Osche and his analogy and my motorcycle revelations ascribe to the notion of “passive”

incubation, “active” percolation required other input. To some extent, the archival reading,

timelines, and spatiotemporal mapping were a response to “pauses” in my research, where

the creative practice withered under the stress of scholarly research, or I found myself

reaching dead-ends in the directions I had mapped out in the planning process. For many



147

months, I grappled over the problem of how to intertwine the two narratives of Tim and

Tom. I thought I had found the seeds of a solution when I saw a picture of a strand of

DNA. Two separate strands sitting beside each other offered a metaphor for the

components of my narrative structure.

The problem lay in how to bring them together. I eventually realised that the link

between Tom’s eighteenth-century narrative and Tim’s contemporary narrative might be

realised through the arguments and debates Tim had with his new best friend, Sar. I

wondered if these could be the metaphorical links: narrative chromosomes in the DNA of a

story with genealogical associations. But the narratological form that these chromosomes

might take was elusive. I soon realised that Sar’s narrative contribution did not necessarily

need to take the form of a narrative chromosome: perhaps she could have her own strand.

In one promising moment, I had solutions to a number of problems. The three

character-based strands each constituted substantial proportions of the overall story. If I

delineated each strands by focalising them through distinct points of view, I could weave

effective themes through the story, and answer the issue of categorising the novella as

historiographic metafiction by using the impressions of Tom created by Tim and Sar as the

subject of the metafictive discourse addressing the issues of tenuous and unreliable

historiographic qualities of Whaley and the information associated with him.

Section 4: The Creative Practitioner as Scholar

In Aesthetic Tensions: Evaluating Outcomes for Practice-led Research and Industry

(2010), Cheryl Stock addresses a number of concerns about the disparity in quality

sometimes perceived between artistic practice performed or created in an academic

research environment, and the creative works produced by industry artists outside the

academy. She asks why, if the processes are alike in both settings, the outcomes can differ

in order and quality, and suggests that the answer lays “somewhere between intention,



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contextual parameters, and criteria for evaluation” (2010, 7). While, as Ross Gibson (2010,

5) suggests in The Known World , the conjunction of art and research can make a

contribution to knowledge “whenever their conjunction causes a shift away from ignorance

or befuddlement”, there is the risk that the process of reflexivity in creative practice, and

the requirement of the practitioner to “validat[e] creative works as [...] research vehicles”

(Stock 2010, 11) can effectively serve to stunt the creative practice itself. In fact, Paul

Hetherington (2010, 4) has noted in Some (post-romantic) reflections on creative writing

and the exegesis, that many creatives fear the effect that reflexivity might have upon their

creative process and quotes the fears of Rainer Maria Rilke in support of his argument.

I have found that historiographic metafiction offers a vehicle for practice-based

research, allowing me to combine my creative and critical pursuits by offering an

opportunity to step in and out of scholarly and imaginative modes. Whaley’s story easily

could have been rendered as a work of conventional historical fiction. But my fascination

with Whaley’s life, and my genealogical relationship with the man inspired the decision to

incorporate my own ficionalised narrative. The challenge lay in finding the right

combination of historical and contemporary narratives. Early efforts at writing a work of

this sub-genre identified the complexity of the range of writing positions within

historiographic metafiction. But finding and filling gaps or ambiguities in the historical

narrative answered only part of the HMF equation. There also needed to be a metafictive

discourse arguing the veracity of the historical record. Despite my confidence in the

theoretical underpinnings of what Linda Hutcheon and Ansgar Nünning defined as HMF,

following only one critical line proved problematic. The answer came after I sought

examples of what I thought might be HMF, and then conducted close textual analyses of

the texts. Seeing the theory of HMF in novel-length motion allowed me to at first mimic

the process experimentally, and then, once I had a firmer grasp on the concept, plan and

create an example of my own. As Barbara Bolt says in The Magic is in Handling , “the



149

exegesis is art as a mode of revealing and as a material productivity, not just the artwork,

that constitutes creative arts research” (2007, 34). This equates to the act of defining the

concept of HMF in a Literature Review, identifying examples of HMF in close textual

analysis of works by Flanagan, Grenville and Nowra, and being able to articulate the

application of those findings in the creation of a new creative work of HMF.

Even though I now was comfortable with identifying HMF, and constructing the

historical and contemporary narratives, the metafictive element took longer to elaborate. In

The Reflexive Practitioner section of this chapter, I detailed the evolution of my final

narrative structure with my Narrative DNA model. Here, I articulate the roles of these three

separate voices—Tim, Tim’s Tom, and Sar’s Tom—in the creation of “Folly” as a work of

historiographic metafiction. There are a number of metafictive levels to this novella: the

entire work as the author’s introspection represents a metafictive voice; at a second

narrative level, Tim’s story reflects and subverts the author’s own life; on a third narrative

level, Tim’s impression of Tom’s life as a one-way “conversation” with his relative

explores the dandy’s motivations and experiences; fourthly, Sar’s own impression of Tom

offers an alternate view of Tom’s life, and of an already precarious historical record. But

Sar’s version works on a final level that completes the process of writing a work of HMF:

like the psychoanalytic interpretation of the characters in Tim’s dreams, Sar represents yet

another facet of the author’s own personality, and in arguing various aspects of the

historical record with the novella’s Tim, lends a firm metafictive voice to what would

otherwise be historical fiction. Importantly, it also should be noted that Sar underwent a

significant evolution through successive drafts, from her early status as a foil or sidekick to

Tim in his adventures, to a protagonist in her own right, with a sense of urgency and

agency that had considerable influence on the narrative.

Richard Flanagan (2010) also inadvertently prompted me to consider a nexus of the

critical and creative, when, in the middle of an interview, he encouraged me to avoid



150

becoming too caught up in the theoretical concepts that might be competing for attention

because of my research, and to relax into the enjoyment of the process of “making things

up”. In the same interview, Flanagan resisted scholarly and literary classification of his

own work, preferring to label his writing simply as fiction. This was after he mentioned the

controversy that came in the wake of the publication of Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret

River . The conversation opened several new doors of enquiry, and prompted me to find

confluences of information across creative, theoretical, and scholarly fields, linking

Australia’s “history wars”, and the socio-political themes of post-colonialism in the

historiographic metafiction of Flanagan and Grenville, and a more developed

understanding of HMF itself.

In addition, the process of recontextualising a historical or contemporary figure was

an interesting challenge within my own ethical framework. There are as many different

positions on this issue as there are writers. I thought that I could bring contemporary people

into my story after I had at least considered the ethical implications of the process, if not

compiling a list of ethical guidelines to follow while writing.

What followed was a process of investigating the concept of truth in fiction

(Lubbock and Dolo!el), the ethics of life writing and autobiography (Lejeune and Barros),

and examples of fictionalised autobiography (Gooblar’s reflections on Roth’s Two-Faced ).

Here again, the investigative flow from focussing on the theoretical and scholarly, through

examples of practical application, and into my own creative practice, where I guided my

contemporary recontextualisation with lessons learned from Roth’s experience in writing

fictionalised autobiography: “Nothing need hide itself in fiction, but there are no limits

where there’s no disguise” (in Gooblar 2009, 51). While the concepts of truth in fiction,

autobiography and fictionalised life-writing all informed my creative practice, I no longer

felt the need to establish a set of ethical guidelines for these areas of my creative practice.

Gayle Perry writes in her analysis of her own creative practice in Practice as Research:



151

Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, “Is reconciling the word for what my character and I

are doing? Reaching out to physically touch emotions and troubles, sculpting and moulding

them, yet at the same time to be moulded and sculpted by them?” (2007, 39). In the same

manner, through my creative practice, I was using historiographic metafiction to reconcile

the motivation and behaviour of a historical figure. Ross Gibson (2010, 11) closes his

article about the nexus of the critical and the creative in reflexive practice with the

following:

Artist-researchers have the chance to woo two modes of knowing: the implicit and

the explicit . They have the chance to entwine the insider’s embodied know-how

with the outsider’s analytical precepts. The attraction between these two modes of

knowing must be both felt and spoken. And as the world blooms in the artist’s

consciousness, the mutual commitment of the two modes can abide and provide. Atour best, we can set immersion and critical distance oscillating in a cognitive

quickstep that takes us continuously and instantaneously inside and outside the

dynamic experiences that we are always seeking to understand.

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This research has involved a curious and precarious balancing act. I have evolved

into a creative practitioner-researcher, and balanced the theoretical knowledge I have



152

gathered alongside its practical applications, all the while engaged in Gibson’s oscillation

between full-throttle immersion in, and maintaining a critical distance from, my creative

practice. My hope is that I managed to keep all of these metaphorical plates spinning.



153

Chapter 6: Conclusions

In this final chapter, I offer the conclusions of my research, including discussions

about the following: identifying the principles and ideas that support writing a work of

historiographic metafiction; a reflection on the possibilities that HMF offers Australian

writers; a determination as to the value of recontextualisation of historical figures and

scenarios, and narratorial manipulation in the writing of historiographic metafiction; the

stimulative implications that may exist when there is a genealogical relationship between

the researcher and the novella’s protagonist; an account of the challenges facing an

emerging writer of historiographic metafiction, and their resulting solutions (where these

could be established).

*

In my Introduction, I quoted Robert Dixon (2007, 20) in his article about the state

of Australian literature and its international standing, where he noted that established

Australian authors have learned to adapt to the knowledge that their work is consumed

differently overseas than it is in their home country, and to experiment in new modes in

order to produce their creative output effectively. Alongside, and perhaps because of, a

debate between the academic community or historians and historiographers, and the literary

community of writers of historical fiction, these authors have become wary of the ways

their writing is perceived, even as they conduct ever more innovative experiments into the

genre. Historiographic metafiction is a relatively new sub-genre of historical fiction, and

given the testimonies of Grenville, Flanagan, and Nowra, Australian authors have good

reason to explore the diverse range of possibilities HMF offers, but—as they have found to

varying degrees—they also need to heed the current political and academic environment as

they write and promote their work, and continue to be sensitive to what Tony Ballantyne

(2005, 23) has identified as “[t]he complex interplays between different layers of analysis:



154

the local, the regional, the inter-regional, the national, the continental, and the global,” in

terms of negotiating cross-cultural engagement.

In researching and documenting the process of writing a work of historiographic

metafiction, my scholarly, creative, and theoretical outcomes represent an intervention into

the discussion of contemporary Australian fiction, and contribute to knowledge about the

process of creative writing. My rewriting and recontextualising explores what could have

or might have happened in my ancestor’s life, and “Folly” represents yet another

intervention that has been inspired by the memoirs that so fascinated Edward Sullivan in

1906. My intimate search for Thomas Whaley becomes a work of implicit historiographic

metafiction—I am avoiding the grand hegemonic narratives of history to focus on a

personal narrative. In Nünning’s model of HMF, “Folly” sits somewhere towards the

implicit end of the spectrum, in that its narratives eschew these grand hegemonic narratives,

in favour of offering “multiple perspectives and texts” and drawing “attention to the

distorting effects of selecting sources”, to the historiographer’s problems of flimsy sources,

and the partiality, contradictoriness, unreliability, and questionable authenticity of

historical sources and documents” (2004, 365). “Folly” is not simply a mimesis of

historical figures and events; rather, this act of “subjective, retrospective construction”

(ibid.) explores and hypothesises about the life of a historical figure. In the context of this

project, the outcome delivers an assessment of the problems and solutions involved in

writing a work of historiographic metafiction. In particular, these problems and solutions

include reconciling the historical record with the process of writing a work in this sub-

genre, and finding an appreciation for the relationship and responsibilities a writer has with

those readers who are prepared to accept that works of fiction often set aside many of the

constraints faced by historiographers. This project also qualifies the creative process of

writing this genre, asking the reader to consider the novel’s universe on a number of

narrative levels that are crafted using two key narratological tools from a wide field of



155

literary devices and concepts: recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios and

narratorial manipulation.

My analysis of work by contemporary Australian authors identifies exemplars of

these techniques, and compares and contrasts their writing with exemplars from my own

genealogically-inspired historiographic metafiction. These findings, and their comparison

and contrasting with my own recontextualisation of historical figures and scenarios and

narratorial manipulation in “Folly” charted the application of two literary practices that are

indispensible to any work of HMF. As in the expansive genre of historical fiction,

historiographic metafiction invariably requires the inclusion or influence of historical

figures and events, along with the powerful reverberations that emerge through the

manipulation of intertextuality. As Walsh (2003, 111) has argued, however, fiction does

not sit simply as a “negative foil” alongside nonfiction’s claim to “referential authority”.

The constraints faced by the historiographer in writing nonfiction that meets demands of

veracity only emphasise the possibilities open to authors of historical fiction that can be

embraced by those willing to entertain the positive cultural impact of the genre. To

paraphrase John Fowles (1969, 99), one of the key gifts of historiographic metafiction is

that it acknowledges that when we write in this genre, we tend not to think of the past as

quite real: we dress it up, we gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it and fictionalise it,

and when all is said and done, we put it back on the shelf—our book, our romanced

biography.

Elements of narratorial manipulation are intrinsic in most literary works, but my

analysis revealed that HMF cannot be successful without manipulating the three techniques

of focalisation, voice and point of view. While Grenville’s manipulated these techniques in

a conventional manner to compel her narrative forward, in both of Flanagan’s novels, there

was a diverse range of experimentation within his narrative; Wanting exhibited similar

conventional narration to The Secret River , while Gould’s Book of Fish was wildly



156

experimental. While Kate Grenville’s The Secret River had a relatively simple

chronological narrative structure, and Louis Nowra’s Ice had straightforward interwoven

narratives, Richard Flanagan proved in Gould’s Book of Fish that writing historiographic

metafiction can be a complex exercise. I found that the process of conceiving and enacting

a complex narrative structure offered many challenges. In terms of facing the challenges of

narrative complexity, I sympathise with Flanagan (in Hugo 1995), who has acknowledged

the struggle involved in overcoming the technical realities of writing ambitious historical

fiction. At the same time, however, in exploring the life of my ancestor—and examining

certain aspects of myself—I have experienced a similar uncomfortable liberation in writing

as Flanagan (ibid.):

[to] really write something of worth, you’ve got to go back within yourself, dredge

your soul, and that’s a profoundly disturbing thing to do because it goes beyond

simply feeling sad or happy—it takes you to aspects of yourself that you may not

like or wish to disturb.

All of these novels influenced my own creative practice, but narratorial

manipulation of three different voices throughout my novella was particularly similar to

Nowra’s dual narrative in Ice.

*

I admit that my genealogical relationship with Whaley was a compelling factor in

my desire to research his life, and to contrast it with my own. But as the research and my

novella progressed, I found that the novelty of this relationship gradually began to fade,

even as my fascination with Whaley as a character remained constant. Although Louis

Nowra (Nowra 2009a) made the following comment in the context of the reader’s

acceptance of a character, I believe it also applies to a writer’s ability to maintain a literary

relationship with a long-dead relative:

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159

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160

Appendix A – Images related to the story of Thomas Whaley

6-.234 ) G AB0<4C>? ;0/?-:/ :/ DB4 J?<4 :9 K0/

(Whaley 1906, xxiv)

Figure 6 – Whaley's mansion as a hotel after his death in 1850

(Coakley 2001)

Figure 7 – Fort Anne Hotel, built as a replica of the original mansion



161

(Killey 2004)

Figure 8 – Whaley's Ancestral Home - No. 86, Stephen's Green, Dublin

(Whaley 1906, xi)

Figure 9 – Mrs Courtney Whaley (died 1797/99)

(Hoppner 1887)



162

Appendix B – Edward Sullivan’s Preface to Tom Whaley’s Memoirs

Buck Whaley's Memoirs

Including His Journey to Jerusalem

Written by himself in 1797 and now first published from the recently discovered manuscript.

Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart.

London

Alexander Moring Ltd

The De La More Press32 George Street, Hanover Square W

MCMVI

PREFACE

The manuscript Memoirs of Thomas Whaley, now first published, are known to have, been

in existence ever since 1800, the year in which the writer died. They are mentioned in an

obituary notice of him which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine at the time, but they are

supposed to have passed out of the hands of the family some forty or fifty years ago [Dict.

Nat. Biog., sub Whaley (Thomas).], since which time the place of their disposal has been amystery, and even their existence a matter of considerable doubt. The unknown owners had

been appealed to from time to time, by persons interested in the social history of Ireland

during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, to make their contents public [See

Fitzpatrick, Ireland before the Union, p. 79, n., and Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, ii. 314],

but such suggestions do not seem to have reached the ears of those for whom they wereintended.

Some little time ago, by a lucky accident, I happened to purchase in a London auction room

what I recognised to be an interesting example of Irish binding, in the characteristic style of

decoration common in Dublin at the close of the 18th Century, consisting of two handsome4to volumes of manuscript bound in red morocco, inlaid and tooled in gold, and lettered on

the back "Travels by T. W"

After investigation of the contents-in which I was materially assisted by Mr. Henry F. Berry,

I.S.O., of the Public Record Office, Dublin (to whom I am indebted for much other valuable

aid and information) - I discovered that these volumes were the original manuscript Memoirs

of Thomas Whaley so long missing, and which, as I have learned from enquiries since made,

seem to have been for many years passing from hand to hand amongst English book-collectors, their preservation in all probability being attributable rather to their gold-tooled

covers than to the more or less anonymous story which they contained.

The work was obviously compiled with a view to publication during the lifetime of the

writer, who refers to his intention to publish it by subscription; but the statement which has

been made in many quarters, that the author had left directions to his executors to print the

Memoirs, is not supported by anything to be found in his will, which may be seen at the

Public Record Office in Dublin.



163

The work is in all likelihood in the handwriting of an amanuensis, being written throughout

in copper-plate of an extremely clear and readable type; and the whole is in an excellent state

of preservation. The contents are, however, in a sense written anonymously, the lettered title

on the backs of the bound volumes being merely "Travels by T. W.," while on the written

title-page within the author describes himself by initials only, and in the body of the work the

identity of the principal persons mentioned is sought to be concealed in a like way.

There is one remarkable instance, however, where the writer lays the mask aside, and where

his name and that of his fellow-traveller, Hugh Moore, appear in full.

This is in the copy of the Certificate given to him by the Superior of the Convent at Nazareth

which bears witness to his having visited that city in March, 1789. Whaley's sudden death at

an early age may have interfered with the publication of the Memoirs, but the idea of making

them public does not seem to have been abandoned even after his death, for there are many

indications in the manuscripts themselves which strongly support the theory that the first

volume at least was prepared for the printer. In it are found occasional erasures, while otherwords have been superadded in a different hand, obviously with a view to toning down some

personal revelations which were calculated to hurt the surviving members of the family. I

shall have occasion later on to refer to these alterations in greater detail, as the necessity formaking them will be better understood after a perusal of the main incidents of Whaley's life

and travels.

Thomas Whaley, in Ireland commonly known as Buck, or Jerusalem Whaley, was born in

Dublin on the 15th December, 1766. [His own statement that he was born in 1768 is

obviously an error. It does not fit in with other statements which he makes elsewhere, nor

with the inscription on his tombstone.] He was the eldest surviving son of Richard Chapell

Whaley, of Whaley Abbey, Co. Wicklow, and of Dublin, M.P. for co. Wicklow, 1747-60, a

man of considerable property and of ancient descent, whose ancestors had settled in Irelandin the time of Oliver Cromwell, to whom, indeed., two of them were closely related. [The

pedigree of the Whaley family, so far as I have been able to extract, it from the many

conflicting statements found in the authorities quoted at the end of this note, seems to have been as shown in the family tree at the end of this chapter. See also extended note.] This

Richard Chapell Whaley was twice married; first, in 1727, to Catherine, daughter of Robert

Armitage, who died without issue; and secondly, in 1759, when at an advanced age, to Anne,

daughter of the Rev. Bernard Ward, then a lady of eighteen. The offspring of the second

marriage were:

(1) Richard Chapell, who died young.

(2) Thomas, the writer of the Memoirs.(3) John, who married, 1st, Lady Anne Meade, daughter of John, Earl of Clanwilliam;

and 2nd, Mary Anne, daughter of John Richardsom. John Whaley died 1847. His son by his second wife, John Richard William, married Louisa, daughter of Dr.

Townsend, late Bishop of Meath.

(4) William, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, died 1843.

(5) Susanna, who married Sir James Stewart, Bart., of Fort Stewart.

(6) Anne, who in 1786 married Right Hon. John Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare

and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. She died 13 Jan., 1844.

(7) Sophia, who married Hon. Robert Ward, son of Lord Bangor.



164

Richard Chapell Whaley's Dublin residence was at first No. 77 (now No. 87), St. Stephen's

Green, South; and while he was in occupation of this house; Sir John Meade, first Lord

Clanwilliam, came into the neighbourhood, and built himself a new mansion (now No. 85),

which seems to have stirred the envy of Whaley. The latter thereupon purchased the piece of

ground lying between them, boasting (according to tradition) that he would build something

to make his noble neighbour's house look no better than a pigstye in comparison. The house

he commenced to build, but did not live to finish, was the mansion illustrated, and which alsoappears in the right-hand distance in the view of the Beaux Walk (pictured, left). Being

unfinished at the time of his death, it was by will bequeathed to his "dear wife Anne,"

directions being left to his executors to complete the building. It was occupied by one

member or another of the family up to the year 1853 when, some little time after the death of

John Whaley, it became the property of Cardinal Cullen, and is now the Catholic University

of Ireland. The artistic decorations of its interior still retain much of their original

magnificence.

It is said that Richard Chapell Whaley acquired during his lifetime the sobriquet of Burn-Chapell Whaley from the number of Roman Catholic churches he had helped to destroy by

fire - an assertion which is to some extent confirmed by a periodical publication which

appeared 20 years after his death. [Town and Country Magazine, 1789, p. 9. "The father ofour hero ["The Jerusalem Pilgrim"] was honoured with a commission of the peace, and in

consequence of the proclamation became a furious persecutor of the Popish ecclesiastics. Inone of his priest-hunting excursions it happened that, by firing a fowling-piece, he lodged the

wadding in the thatch of a Romish chapel, which [led to his being] notoriously known by the

name of Burn-Chapel till the day of his death."]. A more harmless instance of his

peculiarities is afforded by a very singular cheque which he once drew on La Touche's Bank

in favour of his wife-probably the only example of such a document ever written in rhyme.

"Mr. La Touche,Open your pouch,And give unto my darling

Five hundred pounds sterling:For which this will be your bailey,

Signed, Richard Chapell Whaley."

Richard Chapell Whaley died about the 16th January, 1769 [Sleater's Gazeteer of 16th to

18th Jan., 1769: "in Stephen's Green (pictured, right), at an advanced age, Richard Chapell

Whaley, Esq."], leaving his young widow and seven children surviving. About two years

after, the widow married a Mr. John Richardson of Dublin. [The marriage license is dated 7thDec., 1770.]

Young Thomas Whaley upon his father's death became entitled, as he mentions in the

Memoirs, to estates worth £7,000 a year, together with a sum of £60.000 in cash, the other

members of the family being at the same time amply provided for. He remained at school

until he was 16, when, with a view to completing his education, his mother sent him to

France, with an allowance of £900 a year, under the charge of a tutor, a gentleman of

education who had been in the army, but who had been obliged to sell his commission to pay

his debts, and who proved but "an indifferent mentor," to a lad such as Whaley was;

possessed of what was then a vast fortune, extravagant in his ideas, impracticable in all

matters of business, intolerant of any kind of moral restraint, and a gambler and libertine to boot.



165

After a short but riotous experience of life in France, fully described in the following pages,

young Whaley returned to Dublin, where he seems to have plunged with a natural relish into

the vortex of bravado and extravagance which distinguished the world of high life in the Irish

capital at the time. To appreciate the utterly reckless nature of his conduct at this period and

after, it should be remembered that the character of Ireland was then an anomaly in the moral

world. Any approach to the habits of the industrious classes by an application to trade or business, or even a profession, was considered a degradation to a gentleman, and the upper

orders of society affected a most rigid exclusiveness [Ireland Sixty Years Ago, John F.

Walsh; Master of the Rolls in Ireland. Dublin, 1847.]. Lawlessness of every kind was

rampant in the metropolis. The few miserable watchmen, to whom the keeping of good order

amongst the citizens was entrusted, were utterly inefficient for any purpose of protection, and

looked on in terror at the many conflicts which were perpetually being waged by day and

night in the streets.

Notable amongst the gentry of the time was a class called "Bucks," whose whole enjoymentand the business of whose life seemed to consist in eccentricity and violence. Many of their

names have come down to us, as Buck English [This English was one of the most

extraordinary characters of his day. Amongst other achievements he fought two duels, in both of which he killed his antagonist. On one occasion he killed a waiter at an inn in

England, and had him charged in the bill at £50. - Huish (Robt.) Memoirs of George theFourth, Lond., 1831, i. p.405. See Barrington s Personal Sketches, ii. 8. For a description of

Bucks, Macaronis, Jessamies, etc., see Ashton, Old Times, p.53, seq.], Buck Sheehy and

various others.

Some of the Bucks associated together under the name of the Hell-Fire Club, and from their

headquarters at Kilakee on the hills outside Dublin in nightly revels defied both God and man

[The Dublin Hell-fire Club does not seem to have been open to the admission of ladymembers, a privilege which was allowed occasionally in similar institutions in England. - SeeMrs. Delany's Autobiography and Correspondence, vi. 162.].

"Lucas's," the celebrated coffee-house, was then a favourite resort of the idle and wealthy,

and was particularly patronised by Bucks whose intolerable insolence was shown to all

persons of lower rank than themselves.

Another gathering-place for the aristocracy and Members of Parliament was Daly's Club in

College Green, where extravagant scenes of gambling and dissipation were constantly being

enacted. In this, the most famous establishment of its kind in Ireland, it is said that the

shutters were occasionally closed at noon that gambling might go on by candle-light; and itwas no uncommon occurrence to see one of the players, suspected of cheating, being flung

from an upper window into the street. The club-house was rebuilt in 1791, and on soluxurious a scale as to excite the surprise and admiration of travellers who visited Ireland.

["The god of cards and dice has a temple, called Daly's, dedicated to his honour in Dublin,

much more magnificent than any temple to be found in that city dedicated to the God of the

Universe." - Extract from a writer in 1794 quoted in Gilbert's History of Dublin, iii .,39.].



166

The first Irish State Lottery was drawn in I782 [At the Opera-house, Capel Street, on 24th

June.], an occurrence which naturally added fuel to the fire of speculation which was already

burning pretty brightly at this period amongst high and low while, as an additional incentive

to immorality and degradation, the hideous spectacles afforded by public executions provided

constant amusement for a mob whose love of drink and devilment was only surpassed by

their social superiors.

Such was the metropolis of Ireland at the time when Burns was writing,

"As sure's the deil's in hell,

Or Dublin City;"

and to such surroundings young Whaley returned after a preliminary course of extravagance

and dissipation in a foreign country where vicious habits of every kind were, if anything,

more common than at home. It was probably about this time that he won his spurs as a Buck.

He does not himself mention the names of his Irish boon companions in the orgies that went

on nightly in his Dublin house [Buck Whaley was never the owner of the mansion in St.

Stephen's Green, which remained the property of his mother until her death, when it passedto her then eldest surviving son, John Whaley.] - but from other sources it is known that he

was on terms of close intimacy with Francis Higgins, the notorious Sham Squire, and withLord Clonmell, and that the three were frequently to be seen disporting themselves on the

Beaux Walk in Stephen's Green during the hours in which persons of fashion in Dublin were

accustomed to take the air.

By all accounts, Buck Whaley must have presented a striking figure on such occasions.

Amongst others, his brother-in-law, Lord Cloncurry, writing in 1849, describes him as

having been "a perfect specimen of the Irish gentleman of the olden time." He had not,however, yet reached this high level of good looks when the portrait was painted which I amenabled to reproduce through the kindness of Mr. John Whaley of Annsboro, co. Kildare.

This was apparently taken when he was still a boy.

[What purports to be a portrait of Whaley at a later date, by the name of "The Jerusalem

Pilgrim," will be found at p.9 of the Town and Country Magazine for 1789, and beside it a

representation of a London Fille de Chambre, whose history is given in the accompanying

article. She may possibly be the female acquaintance mentioned in Chapter 2 of the

Memoirs.]

On the 10th of February, 1785, when he was only 18 years old, he was elected a member ofthe Irish House of Commons, taking his seat for Newcastle in the county of Dublin, which

place he represented until 1790. At a later date, in 1797, he was elected for Enniscorthy; andcontinued M.P. until his death in 1800. It is a curious feature of his Memoirs that he has

extremely little to say in reference to his parliamentary life; but it is possible that he paid but

small attention to his duties as a legislator so long as there was anything else to offer

attractions of a more diverting kind; and as a matter of fact he was absent from Ireland for a

considerable portion of the time during which he had a seat in the Irish House.



167

It was at this period of his career that the well-known journey to Jerusalem was undertaken.

It originated in a jest, and ended in a large and serious wager. Being at dinner one day at the

Duke of Leinster's with some people of fashion, Whaley was asked by one of the company to

what part of the world he meant to direct his course next. "To Jerusalem," he answered

without hesitation. It was suggested by some present that there was no such place then

existing; others questioned the possibility of his getting there even if it were still in existence;

whereupon Whaley "offered to bet any sum that he would go to Jerusalem and return toDublin within two years from his departure. Within the next few days he had £15,000

depending on the result [It has frequently been stated that it was a condition of the bet that

the journey should be performed on foot, except where it was absolutely necessary to make a

sea passage. There is no mention of any such stipulation by Whaley himself, or by Capt.

Moore, his fellow-traveller; and, as a fact, the greater portion of the trip was accomplished on

ship-board. The fiction as to playing ball against the walls of Jerusalem seems also to have

been the outcome of exaggeration, although Whaley's brother-in-law, Lord Cloncurry,

repeats the story in the traditional form. - See Personal Recollections. In Hook's Gurney

Married, vol. i., p. 146, ed. 1838, occurs the sentence: "I should as soon think of walking toJerusalem, as Parson Whalley did in my father's time." T. Crofton Croker, in his Memoirs of

Joseph Holt, General of the Irish Rebels in 1798, appends a long note in reference to Buck

Whaley's performances, which I include in the Appendix.].

He set out for Deal on the 20th September, 1788, where he was joined by a friend, CaptainWilson; and from that port on the 7th October he commenced his memorable journey on

board the London.

At Gibraltar he met another friend and countryman, Captain Hugh Moore, who was then

about to return to England on leave. Whaley however prevailed upon him to alter his plans,

and he consented to join the expedition [Hugh Moore, Whaley's travelling-companion on the

journey to Jerusalem and back, of Eglantine House and Mount Panther, co. Down, Captain inthe 5th Dragoon Guards, was a descendant of a very old Scotch family, the Muires ofRowallane in Ayrshire, his first ancestor in Ireland being a colonel in the army of William

III., who obtained a grant of land in Ulster. He was the eldest son of Mr. John Moore ofClough, and Deborah, daughter of Mr. Robert Isaac of Holywood. He raised, and was

Colonel of; the Eglantine Yeomanry during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, at which time he

served as A.D,C. to General Needham. He married a daughter of Mr. Robert Armitage of

Kensington, and died 29th July, 1848, aged 86. - See Knox's History of County Down and

Burke's Landed Gentry (Moore of Rowallane).]

Captain Wilson was prevented from con-tinuing the journey beyond Smyrna owing to a

rheumatic attack. Whaley and Moore left Smyrna for St. Jean d'Acre on the 3rd of February,1789, on board the Heureuse Marie, and reached Jerusalem on the 28th of the same month.

They arrived again in Dublin in June or July, 1789, and their return was celebrated by thelighting of bonfires through the city by the excited populace [Dublin Evening Post, July 23,

1789.]. Whaley then "produced such incontestable proof of having accomplished his arduous

undertaking" that his friends were obliged reluctantly to pay him a sum of £15,000. This left

him £7,000 to the good after defraying the expenses of the expedition; "the only instance," to

use his own words, "in all my life before in which any of my projects turned out to my

advantage. He remained in Dublin upwards of two years, engaged largely in gambling, only

to find in the end that there was a considerable balance against him.



168

Speaking of these years, he says, "It was at this period I happily formed an acquaintance with

a lady of exquisite taste and sensibility, from whom I have never since separated. She has

been a consolation to me in all my troubles, her persuasive mildness has been a constant

check on the impetuosity of my temper, and at this moment constitutes, in my retirement, the

principal source of all my felicity." She was a Miss Courtney; [Knutsford: its Traditions and

History, by Rev. Henry Green (Manchester, 1887), author of Shakspere and the Emblem

Writers.] and she lived with Whaley up to the time of her death, which took place when hewas resident in the Isle of Man.

Having gone the round of such amusements as Ireland could afford, he opened house in

London, "bought horses and carriages, subscribed to all the fashionable clubs, and was in a

short time a complete man of the ton at the West End of the town."

A restless curiosity next led him to Paris, where the Revolution was then in progress. His

experiences in the French capital at that dangerous time are highly interesting, and are

detailed with his usual openness. From thence he returned to Dublin, but only for the purposeof selling an estate, which brought him £25,000. "Having paid some debts and made a few

necessary purchases," he went back to Paris with £14,000 in his pocket, and again plunged

into the old life.

A journey to Switzerland followed, in the course of which he made the acquaintance ofWilliam Beckford, the author of Vathek, who was then living in luxurious seclusion at

Lausanne, and also Edward Gibbon, the historian of The Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire. He gives some interesting particulars concerning both. Later on, after having spent

some time in Italy, he returned to Paris, where he remained until after the trial and death of

Louis XVI. Here, in the interests of safety, he was obliged to part company with his lady

companion. War was about to be declared between England and France, and her position was

one of much danger and apprehension. After many difficulties she made her escape toEngland for the purpose of procuring money for her protector, who was now reduced tosome-thing approaching impecuniosity. He himself remained in Paris, to be involved shortly

afterwards in a hostile meeting with Count Arthur Dillon, whom he had openly accused ofhaving swindled him at play. Later on he escaped from the French capital, and after some

perilous adventures reached Brussels in safety.

Making his way from thence to Calais, he awaited the return of his "dear companion" from

England. After a period of anxious delay the packet-boat at length appeared off the coast, and

he was enabled with help of his glass to see Miss Courtney on board. The municipality

however refused to admit the vessel into the harbour, and he had the mortification of seeing

the ship put about, without being able to send his friend even a letter, for the conveyance ofwhich he had offered a large reward. Further difficulties met him on his way to Ostend,

which he reached eventually in disguise.

Here, after a delay of some 10 days, he had the satisfaction to see the British flag flying on a

ship in the harbour, and recognizing some old friends among the officers, he was supplied

with sufficient money to take him to Dover. After a series of baffling disappointments and

romantic episodes he at length overtook his "Euridyce," with whom he returned to London,

only to find himself a little while later the inmate of a debtors' prison. From this unpleasant

position, after an ineffectual attempt at gaol-breaking, he was released by his brother-in-law,

the Irish Lord Chancellor, who happened to be in town at the time. "Determined," as he says,

"not to stay another hour in London," Whaley then set out for Dublin. Here he disposed of allhis remaining estates for the discharge of his personal debts, and with the surplus, which



169

amounted to about £5,000, true to the spirit of gambling to which he had always been a ready

slave, he resolved to try his fortune at play, and either retrieve himself or complete his ruin.

"The latter," he says, "was my fate, for in one winter I lost £10,000, which obliged me to sell

all my own jewels, and those I had given to my companion in better days so that in the course

of a few years I dissipated a fortune of near £400,000, and contracted debts to the amount of

£30,000 more, without ever purchasing or acquiring contentment or one hour's true

happiness."

He retired shortly afterwards to the Isle of Man in a hopeless condition of insolvency, where

he tells us he divided his time between the education of his children, the improvement of a

small farm, and the writing of his Memoirs. He ends his story of a wasted and riotous life in a

spirit of contrition and remorse, expressing a hope that what he had written might prove of

some service to other young men exposed to temptations like his own.

For the continuous folly and eccentricities of Whaley's ill-spent life it is difficult to account

in any rational way but, with his accustomed hardihood, he does not shrink from the attempthimself.

"I was born with strong passions, a lively imagination, and a spirit that could brookno restraint. I possessed a restlessness and activity of mind that directed me to the

most extravagant pursuits; and the ardour of my disposition never abated till satietyhad weakened the power of enjoyment till my health was impaired and my fortune

destroyed . . . No small share of my follies are to be laid to a neglected education."

His apologia, written as it was in the sackcloth and ashes of broken fortune and ruined social

standing-had his life but ended with the writing of it - might have appealed with some

measure of success to sympathetic readers. Unfortunately for him, the traditions which have

come down to us connected with his later years go far towards showing that the spirit ofhumiliation which he adopts in the introductory and concluding portions of his Memoirs, andthe sincerity of his anxiety for the morals of other young men likely to follow in his steps,

were merely the outcome of a kind of a death-bed repentance, which was thoroughly genuineso long as "the fell sergeant" was in sight, but the stagey and artificial nature of which

became aggressively apparent when the prospect of immediate danger had been removed.

The Isle of Man [In the MS. reading (p.7, post), "I am, at present, quietly settled in Ireland."

The word "Ireland" has been written over an erasure of something of greater length. Mr.

Greenfield's MS., referred to later on, has the same erasure and addition, but in his MS. the

words " Isle of Man" are still plainly visible.], the spot he selected for his retirement, was

then a favourite place of sanctuary for those who, having outrun the constable, still possessedthat genteel repugnance to the presence of bailiffs which is characteristic of the persons to

whom such officers are most assiduous in their attentions.

Here, in the neighbourhood of Douglas, he settled down after 10 years of dissolute living,

blessed," as he tells us, "with the reciprocal friendship of a tender and beloved companion . . .

. whose mild manners and amiable disposition form a striking contrast with the frivolousness,

the vanity and tinsel which I formerly so much admired in my female acquaintances." The

first period of his life in the island was, no doubt, taken up with the writing of the Memoirs,

which seem to have been ready for the press in 1797. It is strange, however, that Whaley is

altogether silent regarding his life in the neighbourhood of Douglas at this period; for local

tradition does not represent him as devoted solely to literature and the concerns of his newhome. On the contrary, his ways would seem not to have changed in any material respect



170

from their accustomed course, and he is described as filling at the Assemblies in Douglas the

office of Master of the Ceremonies in much the same way as Beau Nash played that part at

Bath. [Knutsford. its Traditions and History. Henry Green. 1887.

Bankrupt as his condition was when he retired from the world, it is certain that an

extraordinary change in his fortunes took place before he was long a resident in the Isle of

Man, for he commenced to build a mansion there of so costly and luxurious a character that itat once became known amongst the Manx people by the name of "Whaley's Folly." This was

Fort Anne. It is described in a scarce pamphlet by Thomas Callister, 1815:

"Fort Ann. - This is an exceedingly handsome seat, having been built at great expense

by Thomas Whalley (sic), Esq., deceased, an Irish gentleman of fortune, some years

since. It is in an elevated situation on the road leading to Douglas Head, just opposite

the Light House, and commands a most delightful prospect of Castle Mona, of

Colonel Stuart's seat, of The Hills, [The name of a house] the quay, the town and the

bay, as well as of Howstrake, and a great part of the country all around. On the westside is a long spacious and elegant hall, through which you pass in entering, which is

chiefly composed of stucco work; and on the east there is a low building adjoining

(left open at top with window openings in the side walk), of nearly the same size asthe hall, which is so contrived as to have the appearance to a stranger, from the pier,

of this edifice having been the remains of some ancient ruins, and that the severalother parts thereof had been lately modernised: the stables and coach-house are

remarkably elegant and the out-offices adjoining are neat and commodious: there are

also two fine gardens adjoining, one of them pretty large, and the other contains a

green-house, etc. There are at present two families that occupy it, each in distinct and

separate apartments, one of which is Major Ormsby's, and the other the Honourable

Mrs. Whalley, who is the proprietor. Under the building are extensive vaults, and the

interior altogether as well as the exterior are both much admired; and although it fallsgreatly short of Castle Mona in extent and elegance, yet the views thereof fromseveral spots, especially from the pier, the strand, and the bay, have an uncommon

pleasing effect."

It is unknown exactly when he commenced to build this house, but a contemporary record

describes it as still unfinished in 1798:

"The Duke of Athol's seat is in the vicinity of Douglas, and Mr. Whalley's beautiful

house and grounds, which are still in a progressive state of improvement, embellish

Douglas very much; it is a part of the Nunnery estate." [Feltham (J.). A Tour through

the Island of Mann. Bath, 1798, p. 231.]

Earlier in the same work, under the heading "A View of the Principal Estates, etc., with theirProprietors, 1798," Fort Ann is mentioned as that of Mr. Whalley.

During the building of this house, Whaley lost a favourite and trusty servant named Jack. The

intercourse between Douglas and Liverpool was, in those days, very uncertain, and

accompanied by danger, and the servant had been sent to the latter place for the purpose of

procuring a sum of money. This he obtained but on returning in an open vessel he was

shipwrecked and drowned. The money was found on his person when the body was washed

ashore [Knutsford: its Traditions and History.].



171

The house, which has been enlarged in recent years by the completion of extensive wings on

either side, was converted into an hotel about the middle of the last century. It is now known

as the Fort Anne Hotel, and many traces of the original luxurious fittings are still visible in

the solid mahogany window-shutters with silvered plate-glass let in, the Chippendale panels

below the windows, and the mahogany doors inlaid with Chippendale work. Especially

noticeable is a finely carved Carrara marble mantelpiece, one of the two medallions on which

is said to be a likeness of Buck Whaley himself. Two portraits formerly hung in the dining-room of the hotel, one of Whaley, and the other of his lady companion - he in the character of

a sportsman, and she in the style of Mrs. Siddons. These pictures were sold by auction some

twenty years ago, since when they have disappeared, and eluded the many efforts which have

been made by others as well as by myself to trace them. [The portrait of Whaley was

probably the one referred to in Mona's Herald and Fargher's Isle of Man Advertiser, 11th

May, 1896: "A full-length portrait of the Regent, and a companion picture of Whalley, his

huntsman and favourite hounds, painted by Northcote, were presented to the town of Douglas

by Sir William Hillary, and were hung in the Odd fellows' Hall, in Athol Street. Their

removal occurred by 'accident.' Power, the actor, rented the hall, and his men who remainedto take down the scenery and ship it, took down these pictures also; when someone told them

they 'were not Power's' . . Marshall, the owner of Fort Anne . . . claimed them, and removed

them back to Fort Anne, which he had no more right to do than . . ."]

The change which took place in Whaley's financial position during his residence in the Isle ofMan enabled him, amongst other things, to get into the Irish Parliament for a second time. He

was elected for Enniscorthy towards the end of 1797. Here, as perhaps in other directions, his

brother-in-law, Lord Clare, would naturally have lent him a helping hand; but it is plain from

the costly nature of the building of Fort Anne that money must have come to him, and in

large amounts too, before he embarked on the erection of such a residence. If local tradition

count for anything, the house would appear to have been built out of the proceeds of

successful gambling.

Up till now the name of Whaley does not seem to have been recorded amongst those that

played a part in the Chronique Scandaleuse which has grown up around the life and doings ofGeorge the Fourth when Prince of Wales. The following Memoirs, however, show that he

was entitled to a place there and if gossip long current in the Isle of Man can be relied on, the

part he played, in at least the financial scenes of the royal drama, must be regarded as of

more importance than that of a mere walking gentleman.

A writer who has collected a considerable amount of information relating to Whaley's later

life [Rev. Henry Green, M.A. Knutsford, op. cit. See Extract from Holt's Memoirs,

Appendix, ad fin.] tells us of meetings at the gaming-table between him and the Prince ofWales, in which fortune at last seemed to take the side of the one who had been so long the

victim of others in similar encounters, and in which the commoner not only relieved his princely opponent of vast sums of cash, but in the end succeeded by a grand coup in

annexing a Favorita of His Royal Highness, whom her ungallant protector had in a moment

of desperation staked as his only marketable asset.

At a somewhat later date, when the question of the Union was engaging the chief attention of

parliamentarians, we learn that another addition was made to Whaley's finances, though no

doubt of smaller amount than his profits from play. Castlereagh, writing to the Duke of

Portland, under date the 7th February, 1800, states that Whaley was absolutely bought by the

Opposition stockpurse, and received £2,000 down, and was to receive as much more. Thestatement is confirmed by Cornwallis: "Twelve of our Supporters deserted to the enemy on



172

the last division, one was bought during the debate (Jerusalem Whaley, the Chancellor's

brother-in-law)" [Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii. p.183; Letter to Bp. of Lichfield and

Coventry. A more detailed account of these transactions is given in Grattan's Memoirs, vol.

v. pp.71, 72:- "Mr. Thomas Whaley had in 1799 voted for the Union; he paid £4,000 for his

election for the town of Enniscorthy. He was not in affluent circumstances, but well inclined

to oppose the Union, and Mr, Goold accordingly agreed that these expenses would be paid if

he would vote against the Government. He did so, and when the division took place on thequestion in 1800, Mr. Cooke, the acting man for Lord Castlereagh . . . went to him and

offered him (to use his expression) a carte blanche; but Mr. Whaley would not break the

promise he had made to the Opposition. The funds, however, were soon exhausted, and a

member who would have opposed the Union was lost in consequence, and voted for it," &c.]

while Barrington states that Whaley afterwards took a bribe from the Government party to

vote in favour of the Union.

The house at Fort Anne, according to a tradition current at Knutsford - where Buck Whaley

died - was built upon Irish soil. Whaley, it appears, whether to win a bet, or for the purposeof fulfilling some strange vow, had undertaken to live upon Irish ground without residing in

Ireland, and in order to perform the undertaking had, previous to laying the foundations,

shipped over to Douglas a quantity of earth from his native land sufficient to underlie thewhole mansion to the depth of six feet. Another story limits the amount of Irish soil to "a

spot" in the grounds.

He does not seem to have been long settled in the new house when Miss Courtney, his lady

companion, died, leaving him with two sons and a daughter. She appears to have passed as

his wife during their stay in the Isle of Man, but it is abundantly clear from his own will-

referred to later on-that she was never legally entitled to this status, in spite of the very strong

attachment which her protector had always shown for her. The date of her death is not

known.

In January 1800 Whaley married [Gentlemen's Magazine, 1800, p. 1114.] the Hon. Mary

Catherine, daughter of Nicholas Lawless, first Lord Cloncurry, and sister to Valentine,second Lord Cloncurry, then an untried prisoner in the Tower of London; but his married life

came to an end before the year was out, his death taking place on the 2nd November, 1800.

At the time of its occurrence he seems to have been on his way from Liverpool to London,

for he was brought in an almost expiring condition to the "George Inn " at Knutsford, in

Cheshire, then a well known halting place on the mail-coach road, where he died soon after

being admitted.

The newspapers of the day ascribed his death to a rheumatic fever contracted in Ireland; buttradition has preserved a more tragic account of his demise, and would have us believe that

he was stabbed in a fit of jealousy by one of two sisters to whom he was paying markedattentions at a time when each of them was in ignorance of his concealed attachment to the

other. Sarah, or Sally, Jenkinson is stated by one writer [Edward Evans in The Irish Builder,

Dec., 1894.] to have been the name of the lady from whom he received his death wound:

another authority [Isle of Man Examiner, June 21st, 1902.] records the fact that this was the

very light-o'-love who had passed into his possession from the royal seraglio.



173

He was buried in Knutsford churchyard, where on a plain stone covering his grave is

inscribed

"Underneath is interred the body of Thomas Whaley, Esquire, of the City of Dublin,

who died November 2nd, 1800. Aged 34 years."

"A strange circumstance," says a historian of the locality [Green's Knutsford, p.139.],"took place just before his funeral. The body had been placed in a leaden coffin and

brought into the old assembly room, and the workmen had just made up the coffin,

when Mr. Robinson, an Irishman, who also was a dancing-master of that day,

stepping upon the coffin, danced a hornpipe over the body."



174

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Thesis Historiographic Fiction

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