Writers are liars and opportunists!
— Rita Charbonnier
I have a blog in Italian, and when I put the article about the film Amadeus on there, it sparked some fairly lively comment. Some Mozart lovers felt that authors of historical fiction ought to curb their imagination. The question is whether it is legitimate to create your own story around what actually happened, or whether this is disrespectful behaviour typical of writers who use heroes of the past to their own ends or to sully people’s memory of them?
To be honest I don’t believe that things “actually” happened. I think that reality only exists in the eyes of the beholder, so every individual has their own version. In general, people who get cross because they feel that the proper version of history has been violated, get cross because their own version of the facts has been violated. Thus, what they are defending (and this is natural) is themselves rather than the historic character in question.
One morning I found myself on a French blog about classical music. The author, who is a great lover of Mozart, said he had devoured my novel Mozart’s Sister (in French La soeur de Mozart, Editions du Seuil/ Points Grands Romans) in one night and that it was… afwul. In terms of the writing. I must point out that the French translation was done by a top-class writer, as well as a lovely person, called François Maspero, and that his version is nicer than mine. This is what the post said:
The fact that a famous publisher could publish a book like this which, in my opinion, and it is only my opinion, is so awful makes me feel very sad about the world we live in, a world which allows people, in the name of freedom of expression, to sully the memory of a family who have no living descendents to defend them.
The next day (brace yourselves) he says goodbye to all the people on his blog because Mozart’s Sister had upset him so much he didn’t want to talk about Mozart any more.
I can’t get rid of the image of Mozart’s father Leopold as Thénardier and his mother as a big, ruddy, rather stupid German woman, Wolfgang as a horrible man and Nannerl as a rude and nasty martyr, the dirty slatternly Constanze, and the poor violinist accused of alcoholism who we imagine is supposed to be Wenzel. No, really, it is too difficult to rid my mind of this false Mozart family and find the real one again!
You can imagine how I felt when I read this. I felt really upset about making this man so depressed but, at the same time, a wicked thought came to mind. He was only defending himself because he felt attacked. Someone had expressed a point of view about Mozart which didn’t coincide with his own, and that made him cross. There is something much more personal behind this brandishing of shields than passionately defending the historic truth. And, in fact, after a couple of miserable days, the Mozart lover was back to his old self again, happily and eruditely expressing his musical opinions on his blog.
On the subject of reality and fiction, you might be interested in this article on the musical talents of Mozart’s sister.
