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regshoeThese are some more thoughts arising out of the research I did to put together the FotH Wikipedia article, which involved sorting through decades' worth of writing about and references to The Flight of the Heron on the Internet Archive and other places. Going through the sources over time like this, one gets a broad sweep of general opinion about the book, and a view of how ideas about it have developed over time.
Flight of the Heron and its sequels are fairly widely recommended in guidebooks to the Scottish Highlands, which is just charming. I especially like this one, which discusses Broster for a little bit longer than a brief rec and mentions the homoeroticism of FotH; I know when I'm going on holiday what I always look for from a guidebook is recommendations for relevant slashy novels.
The first published omnibus edition (in 1984) had the title A Jacobite Trilogy, not The Jacobite Trilogy,so actually—— There are in fact various references to the three books as a trilogy before this, but a) as far as I can tell, neither Broster nor the publisher Heinemann used the term and b) from context, they're using an older, looser sense of the word 'trilogy' to mean any three related works of fiction, rather than the modern idea of three closely-linked works forming a single overarching story. (Vocabulary and publishing habits do change in this way; the Waverley novels would not be called a series if they were published today!)
There is a general view that FotH is a children's book—or rather what would now be called a YA book—and more broadly that Broster is a children's author. This isn't present at all in the contemporary reviews of FotH, which treat it as the adult novel as which it was published; it seems to have originated a few years later (perhaps in the US and especially with the second American edition published by Coward-McCann in 1930, which seems to have been treated as a children's book from the start). I don't really like this! On the one hand, there is certainly a lot in the novel to appeal to romantically- and adventurously-minded young readers, and it certainly has been widely read and enjoyed by them. On the other hand, it wasn't written or published as a children's book, and there's not really any reason for all these people to suppose it was aimed at young readers—the characters are adults dealing with adult problems—and one gets the distinct suspicion that its being a) historical fiction, b) not grimdark and c) written by a woman contributed as much to its perception as children's fiction as its actual readership. Certainly female genre authors getting inappropriately categorised as YA is a thing that one hears of happening now.
There is a definite view—only somewhat present in the contemporary reviews, but getting stronger in responses and commentary further onwards in time—that Ewen is the sole hero of the book, that the Highland and Jacobite side of it is its most important aspect and that Ewen's relationship with Keith, while appealing, is merely one of various appealing things in Ewen's story. (Well, there's an argument to be made that this originated with Broster herself in writing the sequels the way she did—it's a big part of why I dislike them—but on the other hand, it's right there in the title...) What a shame! I'm so glad the current fandom is redressing this balance by giving Keith the appreciation he deserves.
As suggested by its being so widely recommended for children, the 'it's kind of gay' element was certainly not widely enough noticed by early readers to create any idea of inappropriateness (the reviewer who talked about 'the love of David and Jonathan' probably didn't mean it that way). I must wonder if the general emphasising of Ewen and the Jacobites at the expense of Keith and Ewen/Keith had anything to do with this. On the other hand, it was noticed by various people independently before modern slash fandom got to it: Patricia Beer in 1968, Belinda Copson in 2000 and, most interestingly, Diana Wallace in The Woman's Historical Novel in 2005 all discuss it. Beer actually succumbs to the 'Ewen as sole hero' fallacy in a particularly bizarre way: she acknowledges Ewen/Keith as homoerotic, but describes it as only one of several compellingly homoerotic relationships in Ewen's life, the others being with Lochiel and Archie. I have multiple questions about this (not least why on earth would you talk about Archie and not Lachlan), but that's beside the point. Copson disagrees with the queer interpretation, but that she, as someone who disagrees, feels it appropriate to mention it as a plausible reading is significant in itself. Wallace makes a very interesting argument about the fantasy element in the book allowing the otherwise suppressed, forbidden desire between the men to find expression, and places it in a broader context of twentieth-century women's writing about relationships between men which one could indeed regard as being somewhat in continuity with modern slash fandom.
Flight of the Heron and its sequels are fairly widely recommended in guidebooks to the Scottish Highlands, which is just charming. I especially like this one, which discusses Broster for a little bit longer than a brief rec and mentions the homoeroticism of FotH; I know when I'm going on holiday what I always look for from a guidebook is recommendations for relevant slashy novels.
The first published omnibus edition (in 1984) had the title A Jacobite Trilogy, not The Jacobite Trilogy,
There is a general view that FotH is a children's book—or rather what would now be called a YA book—and more broadly that Broster is a children's author. This isn't present at all in the contemporary reviews of FotH, which treat it as the adult novel as which it was published; it seems to have originated a few years later (perhaps in the US and especially with the second American edition published by Coward-McCann in 1930, which seems to have been treated as a children's book from the start). I don't really like this! On the one hand, there is certainly a lot in the novel to appeal to romantically- and adventurously-minded young readers, and it certainly has been widely read and enjoyed by them. On the other hand, it wasn't written or published as a children's book, and there's not really any reason for all these people to suppose it was aimed at young readers—the characters are adults dealing with adult problems—and one gets the distinct suspicion that its being a) historical fiction, b) not grimdark and c) written by a woman contributed as much to its perception as children's fiction as its actual readership. Certainly female genre authors getting inappropriately categorised as YA is a thing that one hears of happening now.
There is a definite view—only somewhat present in the contemporary reviews, but getting stronger in responses and commentary further onwards in time—that Ewen is the sole hero of the book, that the Highland and Jacobite side of it is its most important aspect and that Ewen's relationship with Keith, while appealing, is merely one of various appealing things in Ewen's story. (Well, there's an argument to be made that this originated with Broster herself in writing the sequels the way she did—it's a big part of why I dislike them—but on the other hand, it's right there in the title...) What a shame! I'm so glad the current fandom is redressing this balance by giving Keith the appreciation he deserves.
As suggested by its being so widely recommended for children, the 'it's kind of gay' element was certainly not widely enough noticed by early readers to create any idea of inappropriateness (the reviewer who talked about 'the love of David and Jonathan' probably didn't mean it that way). I must wonder if the general emphasising of Ewen and the Jacobites at the expense of Keith and Ewen/Keith had anything to do with this. On the other hand, it was noticed by various people independently before modern slash fandom got to it: Patricia Beer in 1968, Belinda Copson in 2000 and, most interestingly, Diana Wallace in The Woman's Historical Novel in 2005 all discuss it. Beer actually succumbs to the 'Ewen as sole hero' fallacy in a particularly bizarre way: she acknowledges Ewen/Keith as homoerotic, but describes it as only one of several compellingly homoerotic relationships in Ewen's life, the others being with Lochiel and Archie. I have multiple questions about this (not least why on earth would you talk about Archie and not Lachlan), but that's beside the point. Copson disagrees with the queer interpretation, but that she, as someone who disagrees, feels it appropriate to mention it as a plausible reading is significant in itself. Wallace makes a very interesting argument about the fantasy element in the book allowing the otherwise suppressed, forbidden desire between the men to find expression, and places it in a broader context of twentieth-century women's writing about relationships between men which one could indeed regard as being somewhat in continuity with modern slash fandom.
