Like other parents with young children, I have been through many a parental summer rite of passage in my life. No, I’m not talking about baseball games or vacations to Disneyland — I’m talking about being the designated chaperone for those popcorn-filled orgies that are called children’s movies. Sure, there was the occasional Toy Story or Finding Nemo, but more often than not, I had to sit through the mind-numbing torture of the likes of Nacho Libre, Daddy Day Care, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So, when I was commandeered some years ago to take my kids to see Night at the Museum, I feared the worst — my only faint hope was that a movie featuring Ben Stiller had to have some redeeming qualities. And redeem itself it did — because the movie, quite literally, brought history to life.
The central conceit of the movie, as some of you may know, is that a mysterious Egyptian artifact with magical powers causes the exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History to come alive between sundown and daybreak. Imagine a wild party each night, featuring an eclectic guest list that includes Teddy Roosevelt, Attila the Hun, Sacagawea, a Roman general, a Neanderthal, and a cowboy from the Wild West, and you’ve got yourself much more than the setup line of a two-part joke. I was thinking about this the other day and it struck me that this could be an extraordinary way to blend history and fantasy in a way that’s quite different from what’s been done before. Tolkien and his modern day successor, George R.R. Martin, invented whole worlds and mythologies in the Lord of the Rings and the Game of Thrones respectively. Others, like Michael Crichton, have cannily blended history and science fiction (with a dose of cinematographic screenplay thrown in for good measure), in books like Timeline. And then there is the even more complex fantasy space occupied by works like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which combine historical settings and characters with fantasy and horror.
But instead, what if we took a bunch of real and fictional historical figures from different eras, different geographies, and cultures, and made them inhabit the same narrative space? What would the story-telling arc look like if we pitted Attila the Hun and Augustus Caesar against each other? Or if we sent William of Baskerville forward in time to investigate a poisonous death orchestrated by the Borgias? Of course, we may have to make appropriate concessions for the clash of eras and cultures — adjustments would be needed for at least one side of the historically mismatched characters, in terms of language and attire and worldly knowledge. But for all we know, these perceived obstacles may well turn out to be just the literary devices we need to free us from the shackles of historical fact and let us explore the unfettered world of fantasy.
Needless to say, I have looked at this idea very much from the naive perspective of someone who has not really researched whether it’s already been done. But it seemed too delicious a dessert to wait for — having sampled the appetizer, and smelled the aroma of what’s baking in the oven, can one be faulted for wanting to skip the veggies and the roughage to get straight to the final course? Moreover, if it indeed has been done before, that should be no deterrent to doing it again, and perhaps even doing it better. I think this has the makings of a meal comprised almost entirely of dessert.
Let me know what you think.
Mystery in History 