Geoffrey Monmouth

People keep saying our present problems are unprecedented.

If you read much history, you will soon realise that hardly anything is unprecedented. We’ve made the same mistakes before. Usually many times. We don’t learn from them anything like as much as we think, as I have said before.

Isn’t Parliament’s failure to manage Brexit unprecedented?

Not really. There have been other times when our politicians couldn’t agree on anything and parliament became ineffective. The early days of the reign of George III come to mind. After he forced Pitt the Elder to resign, and sacked most of his supporters, the king found he couldn’t find a leader with enough followers to form an effective government. There followed years of indecision, ended with the appointment of Pitt the Younger, but he got off to a rocky start.

Our present mess is similar to that of 1660. Was that unprecedented?

In 1659 Oliver Cromwell died. Parliament tried to rule the country, but was ineffective, partly because they couldn’t agree about anything, and also because they kept debating the wrong things. Law and order began to break down. Things weren’t getting done. Then the exiled Charles II issued the Proclamation of Breda, promising (in summary) to be a good king, unlike his father.

What did they do with that unprecedented offer?

Nothing. They wouldn’t even discuss it, unlike everyone else, who did nothing else. They came to their senses when Major-General Monk arrived from Coldstream on the Scottish Border and demanded they debate the Proclamation. He was backed by his soldiers, the predecessors of the Coldstream Guards. Parliament invited Charles to return. That’s why we have a monarchy and parliamentary government.

So a military coup wouldn’t be unprecedented?

Not really, but Monk didn’t set up a military dictatorship. He probably saved us from one. I am not advocating military intervention. Perhaps a second referendum would be gentler. But Parliament needs to act to break the deadlock. Other outcomes would be both undesirable and unprecedented.

 

 

Why have I so far avoided using the term ‘cave-man’ in my blogs?

For many people, the term ‘cave-man’ carries a lot of meaning, but misleading meaning.  We tend to think of a very primitive human, who may not even be homo sapiens. Perhaps you think of a neanderthal? You might think of images from Hollywood movies, which mostly give our early ancestors a bad press.

What do you think a cave-man was like?

Most people imagine someone of low intelligence, aggressive, violent and selfish. That is not how I see the Stone Age Detective, or most of the characters in the book. I believe that people living around ten thousand years ago were very similar to us. Their bodies and brains were about the same size as ours. They lived in communities and must have cooperated to survive. They made a variety of tools and weapons, which were very good for the purposes for which they were made.

Didn’t cave-man have only a club and a hand-axe?

They didn’t only have the so-called ‘hand-axe’ or multi-purpose flint tool, although they did make them. The quality of stone arrowheads from that period was better than that of similar ones that people made in later ages. Archaeologists think that is because people didn’t depend on them so much once they began farming. They probably had professional flint-knappers in the early Stone Age, who went out of business once most people turned to farming.

Didn’t cave-man live in a cave?

Not always. We know that people in that period made houses. On Orkney, there are houses of stone that people made in the Stone Age. In the rest of Britain, evidence from post-holes suggests people made houses of timber posts and covered them with skins, thatch and/or turf. Some were so big that large numbers of people must have worked together to build them.  My characters live in a village made of such houses, but use caves at certain times. Does that make the Stone Age Detective a cave-man? You must decide, but don’t expect him to be stupid or bloodthirsty.

For more discussion of the prehistorical background to The Stone Age Detective, see my previous blog.

What’s a Christmas Purist?

A Christmas purist is someone who complains that not everything we associate with Christmas has roots going back to the First Christmas. Purists especially dislike any new 21st Century features on our cards, in the decorations on the tree, in what we eat or what we do.

What sort of things doesn’t a purist like?

They are not all the same, but a lot object to non-traditional decorations like unicorns, spaceships and hobbits. Then there are those who say Christmas dinner has to be turkey and all the usual accompaniments. I expect they won’t like any carols written this century either.

As I love history, why aren’t I a purist?

Christmas has been celebrated for two thousand years, as the rest of the life of Jesus has been. So too has his death and resurrection. People have found new ways of celebrating these events in every generation. I don’t know much about the early years, but I know a bit about the Mediaeval Christmas and the ways new items have been added, and sometime old ones dropped, in every period since. People made the Christmas story and the Christian message, relevant to their age. That is why they do it differently in different countries.

Is it wrong to be a purist?

I don’t mind other people choosing to try to make their Christmas as authentic as possible, if they don’t give the rest of us a hard time. However, I do think they are on a hiding to nothing. If you throw out everything that you can’t be sure was there in the First Century, you won’t have much left. I don’t think anyone knows how the first Christians did celebrate it. Each Purist probably has his or her own views as to what is or isn’t OK.

Why I really don’t want to be a purist.

Christmas is a time of goodwill and joy. Let’s not spoil it by bickering. If you want curry and fizzy drinks instead of Turkey and mulled wine, go for it! If you love the old carols, listen to them, or (better) sing them with gusto, but if you like songs from Jesus Christ Superstar or even more recent ones (there really are some!) then have a great time with them.

If I’m not a purist, what am I?

I like a bit of everything. For instance, I’ve just been to a fairly traditional service of nine lessons and carols, but some someone had put some to new settings. The readings were in modern English. There was a sketch where Herod was like a present-day megalomaniac. The vicar reflected on the sketch and what the humble birth of God’s son told us about power. On Saturday, I will be going to a panto-nativity in the open, where I will be providing a plywood-and-carpet donkey and a real sheepdog. I haven’t seen the script, but am looking forward to it. Some would say I am catholic, but not in the high-church sense.

What if you don’t buy the baby-in-manger stuff anyway?

Enjoy the holiday, the parties, the presents, the food – as much of all that as you like. It’s joy to the World and goodwill to all – get it?

 

 

People expect dinosaurs in any book set in the Stone Age

This is mainly the fault of Hollywood, because producers (used to) think any story in prehistory had to have these large reptiles to make it exciting. They could have made movies about dinosaurs without any humans. I suppose that would have upset a lot of people, especially actors.

Why can’t a movie or a novel have humans AND dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, give or take a few. According to scientists, the earliest type of humans appeared a mere few million years ago,  and they were not people as we know them. There were several species with long Latin (or Greek?) names. The earliest evidence for proper humans, homo sapiens, puts them on the planet a couple of hundred thousand years ago.

How sure are we that humans and dinosaurs never met?

Even if the experts are wrong, the margin for error is so vast that even a sceptic could hardly imagine that dinosaurs survived tens of millions of years and didn’t leave a trace. Likewise, there might have been humans around, a few hundred thousand years sooner than we thought, but millions?

No dinosaurs? Does this mean there are no monsters in the novel?

It depends on your definition of a monster. No jokes, please, especially political ones.  At the end of the Ice Age, say ten thousand years ago in Britain and the nearer parts of the EU – sorry, the Continent – there were lots of big mammals, both herbivores and carnivores. Life for humans, and a lot of other species, was pretty precarious. The carnivores were out to kill anything edible, including us, whilst the the big herbivores could be dangerous if you tried to hunt them. Some were bad enough, even if you were just passing by.

What mammals were as scary as dinosaurs?

A soldier once told me that the deadliest weapon wasn’t the nuclear bomb, but whatever someone was pointing at you at the time. Some of the things people hunted in the Stone Age, and some that hunted us, are now extinct. These include mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, sabre-tooth cats (I don’t say ‘tigers’ because we don’t know what colour they were) and giant ‘Irish’ elk. These lived in what is now England as well as Ireland. They were probably unionists. One of the most dangerous animals that people often killed was the aurochs. We know this from the bones that archaeologists have found around human settlements. They were wild cattle, much bigger and more aggressive than the domestic kind. Nine feet at the shoulder.  Scary enough?

What else went the way of the dinosaurs?

Apart from those, there were plenty of other animals that are now extinct in the wild in Britain but survive elsewhere, including British zoos. Wolves, bison, musk ox, and several kinds of bear. I wouldn’t want to bump into any of those unexpectedly.

It’s a good thing Stone-Age Man had his dog to help him.

Follow this link for more discussion of my draft novel.

One key character in my novel The Stone-Age Detective is a dog.

I hope you have read my  blog about my prehistoric detective novel. Even if you like what I say there, you may think everything I say about the dog in the novel is pure fiction, fantasy even. Well, I have found, to my surprise, how much scientists think they know about Stone-Age dogs. They have studied DNA from skeletons to establish that the ancestors of dogs were wolves, but by the end of the Ice Age they were two separate species. Dogs were generally similar to but smaller than wolves.

What colour were dogs in the Stone-Age?

The obvious answer is ‘we don’t know’, but there is a clue. A few years ago, Russian scientists experimented with selective breeding arctic foxes, to see how long it took to turn a fierce wild animal into a suitable pet. Not many generations. They found, unexpectedly, that the tamest ones were also different in other ways from their wild ancestors. In particular, they found the tame foxes were more often two-coloured. At first, white socks and tail tips appeared, but later some were 50/50. The scientists believe the colour element in the animals’ DNA is linked to the element affecting temperament.

Wouldn’t Stone-Age Man have preferred plain dogs?

As in my novel, many people probably thought plain dogs were better at hunting, but some would have liked more conspicuous canine hunters, because the prey moved away from them towards waiting humans. This phenomenon probably led to the development of the use of dogs for rounding-up domestic livestock. That is perhaps why most sheepdogs are black and white.

Could a dog climb trees?

Most dogs don’t. Whether they could, is another matter. I once owned one who did, usually when chasing squirrels. She didn’t often catch them. I gave my fictional Stone-Age dog that ability to add something to the story.

Lots of people love dramatic reconstructions

They say such reconstructions bring history to life, much like the reenactments often performed at historic sites in Summer. Some even say the same of historical novels, as they too fill in the parts the textbooks leave out.

What’s not to like about dramatic reconstructions?

The historian and presenter, Mary Beard, among others. She says many are of poor quality. I have seen some that were, but I found others very good. However, that is not her main point. She is concerned that reconstructions fix images in the mind. Therefore, you tend to think that is how things were, not just how they might have been. That is obviously misleading when you think about it, because they show only one version of how things might have been. I fear she may be right, but perhaps it is a price worth paying to make history more interesting and easier to relate to. What do you think?

Are novels as misleading as reconstructions?

I don’t think so. I hope readers know they are reading fiction and that even the historical background in a novel is likely to be only that author’s view of how it was. Most readers probably also realise that we usually adjust the history in places for dramatic effect. Personally, I try to admit to such adjustments in the historical notes I include in my books, but I might not remember to mention them all. A novel is not a textbook.

How can you avoid being misled by reconstructions ?

I think the best solution is to watch plenty of them! If you see several versions of the same story, you will be able to see how historians – and TV producers – differ. Be critical, in a good way. I don’t even mind if you read other historical novels to compare with mine. As I do.

Enjoy historical documentaries and historical fiction. If you haven’t read Highwaypersons yet, here’s the link to Book I, Debts and Duties

And here’s the link to Book II, The King’s Justice.

Book III, Stallion Man will be out in the New Year.

 

 

You can send a question as well as criticism.

Got a question? Here are some I have received about the Stone Age from readers of the draft of  my novel, The Stone Age Detective, along with my answers.

Question 1. Did people hunt in such large groups?

Yes. That was one of the reasons modern humans, homo sapiens, were so successful in hunting such large animals. Neanderthals probably worked in smaller groups and some ask if that was their downfall.

Question 2. Did women go hunting?

We don’t know, but I suggest it was the exception if not that unusual. It helps the story. Humour me.

Question 3. Did people kiss?

We don’t know, but why not? Physical contact, especially touching faces, is an obvious way of expressing affection, encouragement or sympathy. If they didn’t do it by kissing, I’d have to invent something else for the sake of the story.

Question 4. Could they recognise a human footprint as opposed to an animal track?

As they lived by hunting, they must have known all about different prints.

Question 5. How could they speak of points of the compass?

We can’t be certain, but they must have noticed that the Sun rose and set in the same way every day and was always at its height in the middle and in the same place. Relating everything else to that must have seemed a good way of expressing direction.

Is that all the questions?

No! I will discuss more questions in another blog. Please keep sending them. We all learn from thinking about them.

I have had some interesting feedback already from Beta readers and others.

You have responded to my request and here are two of the main comments along with my responses. Keep sending them, so we can make this book as good as it can be.

The main feedback is: there are too many characters in the early chapters.

I agree, and there are 3 things I can and probably will do.

• Introduce the characters into the story more gradually.
• Produce a list of characters.
• Produce family trees for the main families.

The next feedback is that the geography was confusing for some readers.

I had thought of this and will put a map in the final version of the book, showing northern France and southern England at the end of the Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago. It might show the present coastline for comparison. Of course the words England and France would have been meaningless in the Stone Age.

Thirdly, the language seems a bit too sophisticated at times.

Nobody knows what language they spoke, but scientists believe it was something like the Basque language. The main reason is that DNA evidence suggests the earliest post-Ice-Age Britons were closely related to the Basques. That is not as surprising as you may think, since the nearest place where humans survived during worst of the freeze was northern Spain. I once met a few Basques, but we conversed in French, and I never learnt anything of their language.

We don’t know how sophisticated or otherwise the language of our Stone Age ancestors was, but it’s the impression that counts. Therefore I am going through the draft again trying to use the simplest words and expressions possible.

Some feedback consisted of questions.

I will be answering some of those in another blog. I hope you will find the questions, and perhaps the answers, interesting. Keep asking.

Please let me know if you would like a draft of the book for you to comment on, as I could still use some more friendly critics.

 

 

Did you think I was joking about a prehistoric detective novel?

I was serious when I answered that question recently. And I have tried to find out enough about prehistoric times to make the story realistic. I hope you will find some humour in it, but it is not a spoof. Forget the Flintstones.

Is it different from other stories set in prehistoric times?

Yes. Some writers and especially Hollywood film-makers have ignored scientific knowledge and gone in for as much drama, excitement and horror as possible. They created or maintained a lot of myths. Fake news. Well, not exactly NEWS, if it’s thousands of years old, but…

I have tried to stick to what most modern archaeologists and palaeontologists believe. What the stones and bones don’t tell them, they sometimes infer from studies of hunter-gatherers in the present. But I have used creativity to fill in the gaps.

 What’s different from those other prehistoric tales?

• There are no dinosaurs. Mammoths yes. There are other large and fierce creatures too: bison, aurochs*, giant elk, several kinds of bear and big cats.
• I avoid the term sabre-tooth tiger because we don’t know what colour or pattern they were.
• I avoid the term Irish Elk, because they lived in other parts of Britain and elsewhere. Besides, Ireland was still attached to the rest of Britain at the time. We were all Unionists then.
• Britain was attached to the Continent. Brexit had to wait.
• People didn’t all live in caves. They built houses too.
• It wasn’t cool to go naked. It was only just after the Ice Age!
• People didn’t always look scruffy. If they could skin a bear or a mammoth, they could cut that skin to fit themselves properly, and they could choose  plenty of smooth-haired animals too.
• If they made necklaces of beads, they must have cared about appearance.

A  prehistoric novel, yes, but a detective novel?

People have always been capable of murder. At least some people. Remember Cain and Abel? And I believe that there have always been at least some people who cared about truth and justice. You may wonder how anyone could solve a murder mystery without forensics. Read it and find out!

What’s a Beta reader?

It’s someone who reads a draft of a book and gives constructive feedback to the writer.

There are no qualifications except you must be able to read.

They never get paid. The task is its own reward. Hopefully.

What sort of feedback should they give?

1. Did you like the book?
2. What did you like most about it?
3. Was there anything you didn’t like?

Try to say something about:

1. the story
2. the characters
3. the language
4. the descriptions

How should you reply?

You can use e-mail, comments on this blog, the contact form on my website or even the Royal Mail. Write to:

Geoffrey Monmouth, Warrington Business Centre, 67 Bewsey Street, Warrington, Cheshire WA2 7JQ

What should they not comment on?

They are not editors. They shouldn’t waste time on grammar, punctuation, layout or other details. It’s the big story that counts. Don’t try to be an expert. Think like an ordinary person reading a book. Professional editors may be used later, when the overall story has been sorted out.

Why are they called Beta readers?

Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. That’s about as much Greek as I know. I don’t know why they call them Beta readers. If you know, feel free to tell me.