The shift in attitude towards history in society and in fiction.

"The Remains of the Day", "Regeneration", "Atonement" … the very titles of these recent British historical novels suggest the attempt to come to terms with, or to reverse, or to make up for earlier mistakes. But here, the mistakes turn out to be less individual than societal, and the perspective of each book allows its central characters to grasp that they were mere pawns on the board, pushed into danger or complicity by the powerful figures behind them.

Traditional notions of history have been challenged by postmodern theory. This has resulted in the pluralisation of historical accounts, a focus on the inevitable bias of the agent constructing any historical text, and the role of language in writing about the past.

Late 20^th cent. is remarked by the historical novelists’ awareness that the past can only be known imaginatively, because its accessible remains are fragmented, incomplete and contradictory. The contemporary English novel often emphasizes the difficulties of knowing the truth about the past.

Awareness of the constructed and falsifying nature of any comprehensive and coherent account of the past results in contemporary fiction in a combination of estrangement from the actuality of the historical event and narrative self-preferentiality. Thus, in modern fiction, we can observe a heighted interest in the events that shaped the present and at the same time a resistance to accepting any version of the past which is transmitted by official, already encoded history.

In many novels this new attitude towards history is shown and analysed. The authors try to create an alternative vision of history, to show it through the eyes if its witnesses and from different angles.

Among these attempts, Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence (1991) is by Martin Amis is probably the most controversial fictional experiment with history ever. The novel tells the story of a Nazi war criminal in reverse chronology starting with his death and ending with his birth. The narrator, together with the reader, experiences time passing in reverse, as the main character becomes younger and younger during the course of the novel. The narrator in the novel is not exactly the protagonist himself but a secondary consciousness apparently living within him, feeling his feelings but with no access to his thoughts and no control over events. Amis engages in several forms of reverse discourse including reverse dialogue, reverse narrative, and reverse explanation. The author's use of these techniques is aimed to create an unsettling and irrational aura for both the reader and the doctor; indeed, one of the recurrent themes in the novel deals with the doctor's persistent misunderstanding of the world. For example, he simply accepts that people are to wait for an hour in a physician's waiting room after being examined, although at some points he has doubts about this tradition; he also likens the act of hailing a cab after being paid by the cab driver to be driven to a destination to which he did not want to be driven to a salute to the efficiency of the taxi service. Finally, the author brings its hero to the times when his soul was innocent. Thus the history is shown as a chain of events each of which is deeply rooted in the previous ones.

Many stories are characterized by an attempt to combine different historical periods, the past and the present. The authors try to explain the events of the presents with the help of the past, see the history as the consequent course of reasons and effects. An interest in the histories or ‘genealogies’ of previously marginalized communities and experience has shown how history is related to power relationships between people(s). The history you thought you already knew receives vigorous challenge from novels such as these, but the techniques employed have more to do with the insights produced by writing history from below or from alternative perspectives, than with the frontal assault on the nature of facts, evidence, and the very possibility of a knowable past often found in postmodern fiction.

In Possession: A Romance, a 1990 bestselling novel by A.S. Byatt history is introduced through the practice of collecting historically significant cultural artifacts. Possession is as concerned with the present day as it is with the Victorian era, pointing out the differences between the two time periods satirizing such things as modern academia and mating rituals and analyzing such issues as ownership and independence between lovers. The novel incorporates many different styles and devices: diaries, letters and poetry, in addition to third-person narration.

Major themes in the novel Waterland (1983) by Graham Swift include storytelling and history, exploring how the past leads to future consequences. The plot of the novel revolves around loosely interwoven themes and narrative, including the jealousy of his brother for the narrator's girlfriend/wife, a resulting murder, the abortion the girl undergoes, her subsequent inability to conceive, resulting in depression and the kidnap of a baby.

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