The Certainty of the Uncertain

Simon Schama, Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations). New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1991.

History is a controversial subject and Simon Schama’s Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations) certainly looks like a controversy waiting to happen. A collection of imaginative narratives mixed with winsomely rendered biographical accounts, it reads like a novel, but claims to be history. Finding a thesis in Schama is a bit of a trick, as the first chapter does not clearly stake a claim. But within said first chapter is a running theme of historical restructuring, the notion that, in the name of artistic license, it is possible to craft a “representative history” that eventually supercedes the truth.

The story of Dead Certainties goes something like this: “At the close of the French and Indian war, General Wolf died in battle. His memory was remembered in painting and even changed to something holy. Some years later, Francis Parkman, historian and world traveler, also died after writing a grand account of the Heights of Abraham. Meanwhile, back on those same heights, a tired and frightened soldier hurried up to tell the dying general that the battle was won for England. On a somewhat unrelated note, while Francis Parkman was traveling the world in his younger days, Governor George Briggs of Boston stressed over the responsibility to sign off on the death of a Harvard professor who had been implicated in the murder of young Parkman’s relative, Dr. George Parkman. There follows an examination of the victim and the villain and sundry others.”

What results is a bizarre and clever organization of chaos. This is no book for those interested in light reading that progresses from points A to B to C. The transitions from one set of stories to the next is more analogous to a plate of spaghetti; each chapter is like a noodle that is swerving and turning and contacting other noodles, meatballs, and the odd spice or diced tomato that’s been stirred into the mix. It is a masterful recipe, though some readers might find it hard to digest.

But very real problems arise throughout, thanks to Schama’s chosen means of narration. There is a great deal of story and a great deal of history to be seen, but what is what, which is which? The lack of notes means that the author could very well have written up an outline of the facts and then filled in the blanks willy-nilly, thumbing his nose as the reading public, daring them to trust his account. Indeed, Schama stresses in the afterword that the stories that he has told are just that, “works of the imagination, not scholarship.” So has Schama written fiction, or history? What is the reader to make of this?

Upon examination, Schama’s sources certainly appear to be sound. For the death of General Wolfe there are listed books written from the 1800s through the late 1900s, letters, journals, wartime memorabilia, and art. For the macabre murder in Boston, more letters, trial accounts, and contemporary news clippings are presented. A whole host of secondary sources – primarily books and news clippings – are also included. Schama certainly seems to treat his sources with respect, even pointing out how some were grossly inaccurate, but still useful for the purposes of establishing atmosphere and such. But the disturbing reality remains: Schama did not include footnotes or endnotes within his pages, so unless an intrepid investigator wishes to recreate Schama’s work, one must take the author at his word. Some will probably chafe at such a necessary evil, especially when in A Note on the Sources, Schama admits that, “The more purely fictitious dialogues (such as Marshal Tukey’s conversation with Ephraim Littlefield) are worked up from my own understanding of the sources as to how such a scene might have taken place.” What! The very idea of imagining history! And yet in such a confession is summed up the very beauty of the whole work.

By subtitling his book Unwarranted Speculations Schama seems to take a jibe at himself, pointing out that his book is naught but a collection of speculations that, in the greater scheme of things, are unwarranted, and will offer little by way of new knowledge. This thesis is summed up well in the developed martyrdom of Wolfe. Though seemingly at odds with a murder trial in Boston (the main story), the death of Wolfe lends the insight that, regardless of what really happened, history will remember the account told by the best author. Just as Benjamin West’s painting reshaped the way school children would remember their history lessons – even if they were actually taught the truth of the matter – so might narrative accounts, even Schama’s own, color the reader’s understanding of murder most foul in Boston.

If anything, Schama has succeeded in artfully blurring the distinction between History and Historical Fiction. His book may not be suitable as a secondary source, but it is highly informative as to how such a secondary source might turn out – it is thus both a discouragement to “serious historians” and an encouragement to authors of both camps. But it remains a warning to all: what is written may overcome what has transpired.