Two Views of 1694 Through Contemporary Fiction

The last two books I’ve read (one finished and one just started) are historical fiction with events occurring in 1694. The startlingly vast differences in the two societies make for an interesting juxtaposition of what constitutes a promising plot of intrigue.

Puritan New England is two years past the height of the Salem witch trials. The religious fanatic Cotton Mather, though shaken from his recent encounter with the devils inhabiting Margaret Rule (as part of his holy crusade against various evil angels, an undertaking more dangerous than “ten thousand steps over a rocky mountain filled with rattlesnakes”) continues making excuses for his participation. The Sabbath is at its most pious, the celebration of even Christian holidays is considered corrupt, and nearly every source of recreational pleasure is considered a sin.

In the novel, a Shakespearean manuscript is being hidden to keep it from being burned and the possessors from being ostracized from society, or worse.

Japanese shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, born mentally retarded due to heavy inbreeding and now, at the age of 48, in great decline, is susceptible to the political machinations of his second-in-command Yanagisawa - with whom he had been practicing the ancient Samurai tradition of Shudo (age-structured male homosexuality) as nenja (dominant partner) from an early age - and his own cousin Lord Matsudaira, both of whom are struggling for control of the regime.

(Incidentally, Wikipedia relates that at about this time, Tokugawa begins being called the “Dog shogun” due to the severe protectionism he displays towards the dogs of Edo, the capital city. This eventually results in 50,000 dogs being sent to kennels in the suburbs, where they are kept on fish and rice at taxpayer expense.)

In the novel, a (fictional) senior elder is found dead and the investigators discover physical evidence of anal penetration. This is considered strange, wrong, and unseemly in a man of his age and status, who should be sticking it to someone else. The investigators interpret this to mean that the elder was raped because “he would never have abased himself to anyone.”