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Ships in the Bay! by D. K. Broster
Jan. 13th, 2021 05:14 pmD. K. Broster further develops the theme of using punctuation in titles which she began in "Mr Rowl".
Ships in the Bay! (1931) is Broster's tenth novel and her first non-Jacobite book since Flight of the Heron. It's also the first one I've read for several months, and, aww, it was so nice to get back to reading Broster! I hadn't realised how much I'd missed her gorgeous prose style, nature descriptions, narratorial attitude and everything else I love about her writing.
Having explored Brittany and Scotland in the earlier books, this one deals with two more Celtic countries. The book is set mostly in Wales—in Pembrokeshire around St David's, a setting that gives Broster ample opportunity for that lovely descriptive prose—and, although the main action never goes there, Ireland is fairly important to both the plot and the historical background. It's 1796 and the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars; Nest Meredith, the daughter of one of the cathedral clergy of St David's, is living quietly in the relatively peaceful Pembrokeshire when she stumbles across a vagabond who deserted from a privateer which stopped on the nearby coast. After a disagreement between this man and her dog, in which it becomes plain that, surprisingly, he's an English gentleman, Nest decides to help him. Eventually she learns this man, Martin Tyrrell's, dramatic backstory, with which I think Aymar de la Rocheterie would sympathise: he's been falsely accused of treason, but for involved reasons of honour he can't defend himself, and so he's gone on the run. After that the plot rambles around St David's for a bit while Martin, with Nest's help, builds a life for himself in hiding; then the pace picks up and there's a somewhat surprising dramatic denouement.
Besides Broster's beautiful prose, this book shows a lot of her characteristic attitude as author. There's her fundamental kindness to her characters, her air of sort of indulgently smiling at them while poking fun at their foibles in a way that's amusing without being OTT (although one could sometimes criticise her judgement of what counts as an amusing foible, e.g. Mr Salt's anti-Welsh attitudes). The romance is kind of annoying but sweet enough, and the book is full of the sort of highly specific geographical and historical detail that Broster is so good at—not just the war and the ships but the surroundings of St David's and its cathedral, the background politics and appearances by historical characters, the 'antiquarian' bits and pieces of Welsh history and so on.
The history gets particularly interesting at the climax, which involves this affair in Fishguard Bay—the bay of the title. I was thinking while reading that this was either a very big thing to invent or a very big role to have fictional characters play in real events. It turns out Broster was inventing an explanation for what she regarded as a historical mystery (I don't know whether it still is one—the wiki page doesn't really give that impression), and doing so in a way I thought was both ingenious and exciting. In any case, the historical detail is as precise and wide-ranging as ever, and very enjoyable to read.
And it presented an interesting historical contrast to the Jacobite books, too. Both situations involve the possibility of Celtic countries unhappily ruled by England rebelling and seeking the help of the French to do so—but the political contexts are entirely reversed and, apparently as a result, Broster's heroes are firmly on the English side here (despite the whole 'English government falsely accusing one of them of treason' thing). It's kind of uncomfortable in the same way her French Royalist books are, really—and although things aren't quite as simple as they sometimes were there, and there are suggestions of treating the Irish rebels sympathetically (including a memorable appearance by this guy), it never really goes anywhere.
I haven't said much about the characters and relationships, which I didn't think were quite as good as in some of the previous books. Nest and Martin are both unobjectionable main characters but not particularly compelling or complex in the way that e.g. Keith is. There were some enjoyable relationships, like Martin and Mr Salt, and some little bits of politics getting messily involved in people's relationships, but nothing of that kind of tension-filled fraught loyalty/enemies dynamic—the people on the other side of Martin's dilemma of honour are not sympathetic at all.
The climax has, as I've mentioned, some very nice historical drama—the first part involves a rather tiresome 'damsel in distress' set-up, but the second part, in which Broster solves the historical mystery, was much more enjoyable, due in large part to ( something spoilery! )
Anyway, despite some flaws, overall I did really enjoy this one. And next up is A Fire of Driftwood, a collection of short stories the titles of which look intriguing—hopefully this will be something a bit different but equally good...
Ships in the Bay! (1931) is Broster's tenth novel and her first non-Jacobite book since Flight of the Heron. It's also the first one I've read for several months, and, aww, it was so nice to get back to reading Broster! I hadn't realised how much I'd missed her gorgeous prose style, nature descriptions, narratorial attitude and everything else I love about her writing.
Having explored Brittany and Scotland in the earlier books, this one deals with two more Celtic countries. The book is set mostly in Wales—in Pembrokeshire around St David's, a setting that gives Broster ample opportunity for that lovely descriptive prose—and, although the main action never goes there, Ireland is fairly important to both the plot and the historical background. It's 1796 and the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars; Nest Meredith, the daughter of one of the cathedral clergy of St David's, is living quietly in the relatively peaceful Pembrokeshire when she stumbles across a vagabond who deserted from a privateer which stopped on the nearby coast. After a disagreement between this man and her dog, in which it becomes plain that, surprisingly, he's an English gentleman, Nest decides to help him. Eventually she learns this man, Martin Tyrrell's, dramatic backstory, with which I think Aymar de la Rocheterie would sympathise: he's been falsely accused of treason, but for involved reasons of honour he can't defend himself, and so he's gone on the run. After that the plot rambles around St David's for a bit while Martin, with Nest's help, builds a life for himself in hiding; then the pace picks up and there's a somewhat surprising dramatic denouement.
Besides Broster's beautiful prose, this book shows a lot of her characteristic attitude as author. There's her fundamental kindness to her characters, her air of sort of indulgently smiling at them while poking fun at their foibles in a way that's amusing without being OTT (although one could sometimes criticise her judgement of what counts as an amusing foible, e.g. Mr Salt's anti-Welsh attitudes). The romance is kind of annoying but sweet enough, and the book is full of the sort of highly specific geographical and historical detail that Broster is so good at—not just the war and the ships but the surroundings of St David's and its cathedral, the background politics and appearances by historical characters, the 'antiquarian' bits and pieces of Welsh history and so on.
The history gets particularly interesting at the climax, which involves this affair in Fishguard Bay—the bay of the title. I was thinking while reading that this was either a very big thing to invent or a very big role to have fictional characters play in real events. It turns out Broster was inventing an explanation for what she regarded as a historical mystery (I don't know whether it still is one—the wiki page doesn't really give that impression), and doing so in a way I thought was both ingenious and exciting. In any case, the historical detail is as precise and wide-ranging as ever, and very enjoyable to read.
And it presented an interesting historical contrast to the Jacobite books, too. Both situations involve the possibility of Celtic countries unhappily ruled by England rebelling and seeking the help of the French to do so—but the political contexts are entirely reversed and, apparently as a result, Broster's heroes are firmly on the English side here (despite the whole 'English government falsely accusing one of them of treason' thing). It's kind of uncomfortable in the same way her French Royalist books are, really—and although things aren't quite as simple as they sometimes were there, and there are suggestions of treating the Irish rebels sympathetically (including a memorable appearance by this guy), it never really goes anywhere.
I haven't said much about the characters and relationships, which I didn't think were quite as good as in some of the previous books. Nest and Martin are both unobjectionable main characters but not particularly compelling or complex in the way that e.g. Keith is. There were some enjoyable relationships, like Martin and Mr Salt, and some little bits of politics getting messily involved in people's relationships, but nothing of that kind of tension-filled fraught loyalty/enemies dynamic—the people on the other side of Martin's dilemma of honour are not sympathetic at all.
The climax has, as I've mentioned, some very nice historical drama—the first part involves a rather tiresome 'damsel in distress' set-up, but the second part, in which Broster solves the historical mystery, was much more enjoyable, due in large part to ( something spoilery! )
Anyway, despite some flaws, overall I did really enjoy this one. And next up is A Fire of Driftwood, a collection of short stories the titles of which look intriguing—hopefully this will be something a bit different but equally good...
