The Flight of the Heron: a retrospective

Looking over my first post about Flight of the Heron, nearly a year ago, I think I can say I was right to predict that 'it's going to be an all-time fave'. :D Since then I've read six more books by D. K. Broster, and now that my read-through has got back up to the publication of FotH I thought I'd do a post reflecting on how reading these earlier books has put Flight of the Heron (1925), Broster's seventh novel and fifth solo novel, into context...

Of course, the most striking difference between FotH and the earlier novels is the historical setting. With the exception of The Vision Splendid (which is an aberration in several ways, probably due to G. W. Taylor's input), Broster's first few books are all set in and around Revolutionary France, and form a fairly straightforward historical progression, from Chantemerle in the early days following the Revolution to The Wounded Name and 'Mr Rowl' towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars. She starts to branch out a little with 'Mr Rowl', with the action taking place entirely in England—although the main character is French—and removed from the Royalist resistance settings of the books before it. Flight of the Heron, however, is a much more ambitious change: set fifty years earlier than any of the other books and in Scotland. Broster's care and attention to historical detail is one of my favourite things about her writing, and I think it's even more impressive to know that she could put that amount of detail into a book, not only in what's clearly her favourite historical period, but in one completely new to her.

There are obvious parallels between the Royalists and the Jacobites, and it's not hard to see why an author interested in one would like the other as well. Interestingly, Charles is a far more important presence in FotH than the Bourbons are in any of the French books; but in both contexts, while Broster writes sympathetically about characters who are loyal to the monarchs in question, she's clearly not ignorant of their faults. The new setting provides plenty of opportunity for Broster to explore her favourite themes of loyalty, honour, duty and sacrifice, which are central to the plots of basically everything she's written so far, and to create those beautiful twisted set-ups of conflicted loyalties, betrayal, damaged honour and misunderstandings that she loves so much. Her interest in exploring both sides of historical conflicts also seems to be developing—while in the early books all the sympathetic characters are Royalists, 'Mr Rowl' features a Bonapartist protagonist forming various relationships with characters on the British side—although most of the British characters don't seem that invested in their loyalty to their side as such. FotH takes the obvious next step, with its central relationship between two characters deeply committed to opposite sides of an ongoing conflict.

Comparing Flight of the Heron with the two books immediately preceding it, The Wounded Name and 'Mr Rowl', Broster clearly has a very specific type of m/m hurt/comfort-focussed relationship dynamic that she likes. It's kind of charming how it appears almost out of nowhere in TWN—there are hints of similar close relationships between male characters, and a few memorable hurt/comfort scenes, in the earlier books, but not this very specific dynamic—and immediately takes over the next three books. I think FotH makes the most effective and emotionally compelling use of this dynamic, thereby producing the most shippable pairing. Aymar/Laurent is really pretty imbalanced as a relationship, with Laurent not having much in the way of his own character development and Aymar's side of the relationship not being explored that much; Raoul/Barrington is very affecting, but it doesn't turn up until halfway through the story and isn't the most important relationship for Raoul or for the book as a whole. In contrast, Ewen/Keith is absolutely central both to the plot and to the emotional core of Flight of the Heron; both characters are well-developed and set up such that both sides of the relationship become deep and compelling, and the whole thing is a great deal more symmetrically meaningful. It's possible to see it as syncretising elements from some of the best relationships in the earlier books: combining 'that one m/m dynamic' from TWN and MR with the emotional arc of Fortuné de la Vireville and his relationship with Raymonde from Sir Isumbras at the Ford.

Another interesting new element in FotH is its use of folklore and fate. Broster has been making use of these for a while—significant folkloric elements make major appearances in SIatF and The Yellow Poppy, and TWN features folk beliefs connected to the fate of a major character—but the heron prophecy in FotH is much more developed and much better integrated with the plot. Indeed, it's what gives the plot its structure, which is another thing I think is particularly good about this book compared to the others—it feels more tightly and surely put together in both plot and emotions, and the fated feel that the prophecy gives to the whole thing is an important part of that. Structuring the plot around a prophecy also avoids some of the issues that the previous books have with contrived coincidence—and here there are no problems with characters acting in ways that don't make sense to move the plot along. Instead the fated plot is bound up with the characters acting in ways perfectly characteristic of them.

Speaking of which: Broster is not as fond of killing off characters as I got the impression she was after reading only FotH and the first two books with G. W. Taylor! If anything, up to this point her endings have been getting tamer over time—both those first two kill off a major character, as does TYP, and SIatF seriously threatens it more than once, but in TWN and MR, although the characters face plenty of deadly peril, I never really felt that anyone was in actual danger—and everyone does survive in the end. But FotH, of course, reverses this trend. It'll be interesting to see how her varied endings go in the later books...

There are plenty of other things I've always liked about FotH that I now recognise as general features of Broster's writing—like the detailed nature descriptions, the carefully-chosen literary epigraphs (although FotH lacks the whimsical chapter titles of SIatF and MR—perhaps it's too serious a book for that sort of thing), the swordfights, the engaging cast of minor characters, and of course her beautiful, eloquent prose. I love getting to know the characteristic elements of an author's style like this, and I think it makes me appreciate that style more in the favourite book I read first.

Overall, much as I've enjoyed the read-through as a whole so far, I have no hesitation in saying that Flight of the Heron is still my favourite of Broster's books. And now I'm going to ruin it by reading the sequels!