True Lies

It is only we who play badly who love the game itself. - G.K. Chesterton

Well, I made it halfway through The Birth of Britain, the Winston Churchill book I promised to read. The main thing I find refreshing about it is that it is the work of an amateur with nary a footnote. Now I have nothing against footnotes, but they tend to give readers a false sense of security. I think it’s exciting when someone has the temerity to write without them, like a 12-year-old going commando on a school day. I also like amateur historians because they love stories and they love to tell stories. Professional historians love to interrupt the people telling stories with shrewd corrections. You can guess which ones are more fun to have over for dinner.

Because they like stories, amateur historians (and all other good storytellers) occasionally tell lies. Churchill admits it on page 202. It was told for centuries that Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, tracked down his mistress Rosamund in a maze at Woodstock (palace not concert) when she happened upon a silken thread. Deep in the bower, Eleanor dispatched Rosamund by giving her the dreadful choice between a dagger and a cup of poison. Ah, sweet revenge! But it sounds just a little too poetic to be true, doesn’t it? You’re right, it was made up by those overzealous Elizabethan poets. Yet Churchill complains that “tireless investigators have undermined this excellent tale, but it certainly should find its place in any history worthy of the name.” Really? Shouldn’t history be all about weeding out these fanciful tales? Churchill willingly admits that, as far as history goes, he values imagination as highly as fact accumulation and I admit that I want to kiss him for saying it (and also for saving the free world from Nazism).

Why, you ask? Well, I’ve always thought that historians are too quick to dismiss compelling stories for being factually false, though on some deeper level they are psychologically meaningful and maybe even “true.” I mean, sure, Rosamund may not have met her end thus, but perhaps this story is the perfect expression of what Eleanor actually wanted, or what we would have wanted in her place. Consider: Eleanor’s attention is miraculously drawn to the tiniest of clues to lead her to the perfect place to fulfill her deepest desire. Not only does she get what she wants, but in a sense she gets divine approval for her action because a red carpet is rolled out to lead her there. The story may not be literally true, but like a good myth, it hints at unexplored truths about the human psyche.

Professional historians often try to figure out what drives people to do what they did. Usually they can summarize their hypothesis of someones’ motivations in two or three sentences without ever using any phrases like “his eyes were limpid blue pools of desire” or “realizing her terrible mistake, she was paralyzed with a quaking fear of death.” Instead they will make a series of qualified and usually materialistic guesses about, say, why Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine in the first place. He married her to acquire her lands. He married her to spite Louis VII. They might even say he married her because she was a remarkable woman. But they will never say anything real about the sense of boyish wonder he probably felt when this female heir to vast tracts of land in France flashed the first flirtatious smile in his direction or sighed as she snuggled up to him in bed after they conceived Richard the Lionheart. Of course there isn’t much evidence for these details so it’s hard to blame these professional historians for focusing on the bigger picture items. But it seems like professional historians might be perpetually missing something important by sticking to the facts without envisioning and evoking the dramatic details.

I remember that a mentor of mine, Alex Kettles, once said “Look around you. There’s a drama behind every face.” I always found that a compelling and humanizing approach to life. People tend to hide most of their inner drama from the rest of the world. Sometimes they even hide it from themselves, but it’s there nonetheless and for most of us it is the most interesting thing about living.

If amateur historians tell lies because they play up the drama more than the facts warrant, then professional historians tell lies because they play down the drama. I don’t blame them for doing this because they are trying to be precise. But rarely do I read them and think I have tasted the world they are describing. I’ve had the taste described to me, but I haven’t tasted it. It’s like describing a good microbrew to someone. You can explain Total Domination until you are blue in the face, but if a person has never had a beer then you might as well put a PBR in their hand and start from there.

So I say Homer may be more true than Hobsbawm. The movie Blow may tell you more about George Jung than Wikipedia. And Shakespeare probably knows as much about King Lear as anybody.