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Richard Abanes said, “First and foremost, The Da Vinci Code is a historical fiction book. It’s primarily for entertainment. ‘It’s a ripping good story’ as one reviewer said, and so people are primarily being entertained by good characters, fast action. But what makes it historical fiction is the story, which is supposedly set against the backdrop of real history, true things that happened. And this is partly why I think it has become so popular. People believe that what the book is talking about actually took place in space and time.” Why is it difficult to separate fact from fiction in a novel that claims to be based on history? What would someone need to do to test the truth claims of a historical novel?
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11 Replies
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Historical fiction novels are written in such a way as to convey a fictional story interspersed amongst real life events, setting, and even characters. None of this “embellishment” can be substantiated because it is fiction. However, it bears enough resemblance to actual proven history that it is often mistaken for the truth. There is just enough truth in the story to make it believable and propel the story forward and make it captivating and engaging for the reader. In order for a reader to test the accuracy of this type of historical fiction novel, a person must go back and ferret out the actual documented history using credible sources, documents, and personal accounts. Then the factual history that was discovered has to be meticulously compared to the piece of fiction. Any differences must be noted and taken into consideration when reading the work in question to be able to decipher the absolute truth. As with most things, things are not always as they initially appear. One must look below the surface to determine what is real and what is not in a piece of historical fiction.
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The book has categorized itself as fiction. There is no truth to it. The author wanted people to buy his product. He wanted to make lots of money, so he included fact (Bible) with fiction.
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A person would actually have to be familiar with the Bible and the history I’m order to evaluate what claims are true and which ones are fiction. It seems that Brown had to modify some historical events along with the rest of his fiction writing in order to entertain his audience.
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I think that people find it so easy to believe fiction as fact if the story has other elements that may be true. I also think that people have a natural tendency to doubt things and anything that could sound logical, is plausible. In order to test the truth claims of a historical novel, one would need to do more research, to either back up the claims or refute the claims.
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Fiction is not truth even if based on historical facts. It is easier to accept truth without doing the work to discern.