Being Curious about the Past, by Gillian Polack

 

I’m not at my desk. This is rare for me. I’ve been unwell for a number of years and one of the results is that I almost live at my desk. Except now. I am travelling. I’m meeting with other History Girls when we’re close enough to each other, and I’m so looking forward to this. It’s not the main reason for my voyages. I have research to do. I may or may not be well enough to do it with any sort of comfort, so this is a vast test. It will basically let me know what kind of life is ahead for me. I want to do extraordinarily well, and I want to be able to dance again when I get home. I’ve not been able to folkdance for over a decade, but I still have many friends who do, and … I miss it and them. This is also not why I’m travelling!

I’m researching a bunch of different things, but they all fit together and create one project. Some of it is fiction and some non-fiction. I’m also giving some workshops and seminars in worldbuilding using Medieval history, in Australian Gothic (the fiction, not the architecture) and even how to write fight scenes using the model of Old French epic legends. This later is an oldie but a goodie. I once was an expert on these battle scenes and soon I teach German translators how to write them. It’s mainly so that we can talk about translation. I will be working with MA students at Heinrich Heine University, and I’m very excited. I am addressing my own past in teaching students about Australian fiction and about Old French epics. My convict ancestry is not actually English. Lemon, my ancestor who was convicted in the Old Bailey (unjustly, I suspect, given what happened later) was born in Leipzig, not London. He married a Londoner, and having German ancestry is something I’ve been wanting to address for years, but never had the courage. Since I’m not a tourist, but a research fellow, I will not be alone, and that matters. It especially matters now, when I can’t take a break from exploring impossible pasts and take refuge in the present. In fact, now is the perfect time to confront Jewish history in Germany, and that’s one of the core things I’m doing while away.

The research side of my travels is all about things past, in fact. I’m trying to learn more about how we see our past and what layers our history with meaning. I will explore Reading (and have afternoon tea with Leslie Wilson while I’m there) to discover how a single town presents the Middle Ages for tourists. I will create a photo-essay for this, and could be persuaded to give it as a slide show (with added bad jokes) for anyone who is curious. I’m also exploring Cambridgeshire, and spending time with Rosemary Hayes. Every moment with a History Girl is a good moment and those few days would be worth travelling to the other side of the world for in and of themselves.

The rest of my research concerns German Jews. Not my ancestors, to be honest. Jews from a quite different part of Germany. I will be comparing the cultures of the German Middle Ages to those of the Early Modern. Jews in the various German states had interesting differences in culture and traditions and… I want to know what has been lost, but also, just as Reading presents its Middle Ages to visitors, some towns in Germany present their Jewish history to visitors. I will explore both sides of the coin: the memories of once-neighbours and how those once-neighbours lived.

Next year is the earliest I can finish my projects. I have other things that need to be done first. At the end of it, there will be a novel: set in our far future, in the same universe as Poison and Light (where, on a distant planet, a society takes refuge in the 18^th century, which for some is salons, for others is politics, and for yet others it’s revolution) though not at all on the same planet. There will also be a non-fiction book, discussing all of these curious pasts.

This is why I’ve been largely quiet. I’ve been trying to finish my current big project so that I can move to the next. Everything went awry and now I’m taking a pause in the current big project so that I can go to Europe and do some of the groundwork for the next. When I’m back and the doctor and I have worked out the effects of this trip, then I shall return to looking at writing techniques used to present culture in novels, especially in fairy tale retellings.

This post got away from me! I just wanted to tell you that I’m an historian again and working on a novel that uses much history. I don’t have time to tell you the fun stuff. I’m posting this twelve hours before I catch my first plane.

If you want my next post to be about some of the history I discovered, let me know! I may even have pictures...