Recent reading
Jul. 2nd, 2023 02:51 pmRight, here we go! A double bill of Jacobite novels, and some Alan Garner.
A Daughter of Raasay: A Tale of the ’45 by William MacLeod Raine (1901). I'm afraid this is not one of the worthier Jacobite novels I've read. It follows our hero Kenneth Montagu, a foolish young Englishman who loses a lot of money at cards, gets manipulated into joining the Jacobites by the historical Lord Balmerino (here portrayed with very questionable judgement: yeah, just invite this random guy who you know is hostile to Jacobitism to your secret Jacobite meeting, what could possibly go wrong???) and falls in love with a beautiful Jacobite Macleod—then the '45 begins... The book is composed of about equal parts romanticisation of the Jacobites/the Highlands and irritating heterosexuality (occasionally at the same time, as when Kenneth goes on about his love interest's ~pretty broken English~). It's very silly, while trying to take itself seriously. About half the time the villain (Kenneth's rival for Aileen Macleod's affections) is onstage there's an attempt at a sort of Brosterish 'slashy honourable enemies' dynamic which is sadly undermined by the rival spending the rest of his time as a moustache-twirling pantomime villain no one could possibly take seriously. There's that bizarre thing where there's supposed to be some kind of worthiness and even redemptive value in a "love" (a man's for a woman, naturally) which totally disregards the woman's own feelings and wishes. And the descriptive writing includes this sort of excellent metaphor:
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (2021). It's time, thought I, to have a go at the new Alan Garner book! It's got the Uffington White Horse on the cover, which is promising. Like most Garner books this one is difficult to summarise. The main character is Joe Coppock, a sort of quintessential twentieth-century British boy who reads comics, plays with marbles and goes roaming about the countryside collecting birds' eggs and so on, and the book spends its short page-count making everything about this premise very weird. Treacle Walker is a rag-and-bone man who gives Joe a magic paste with which he accidentally anoints his eye (a familiar folklore trope; isn't it also in Susanna Clarke somewhere?), allowing him to see supernatural things like the Iron Age bog body who lives in the local alder copse and comes to life. I suppose there's something about showing the long history of the familiar landscape as a living and powerful thing, which is something Garner is generally very good at. The writing is spare and striking and—as Garner goes—not too difficult to follow. I wouldn't say this was my favourite of his books, but it is highly worth reading. (I'm not sure what the Uffington White Horse had to do with anything; I suppose it fits the general ideas, but the actual setting appears to be Cheshire again).
The Fiery Cross by Lady Kitty Vincent (1930). Happily, a far more worthy Jacobite novel! Lady Kitty Vincent was from the family of the Ogilvy Earls of Airlie—the book is dedicated to her brother David, the twelfth Earl (the book says tenth, but from Wikipedia and the relevant dates that must be wrong)—and this book is about the '45 as experienced by two fictional Ogilvies, Ronald Ogilvy of Inverquarity and his wife Mairi. Vincent is especially concerned with women's experiences during war. Mairi accompanies her husband on most of the Jacobite army's travels (though not the march into England; apparently that would have been impossible, though I believe![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
luzula has written a fic contesting that idea :) ), and we spend much of that time following her perspective, her thoughts and feelings about the Rising, and her interactions with other women—many of them historical Jacobite women, including Margaret Ogilvy, Jenny Cameron and Lady Kilmarnock. When I say there are lots of good interactions between women, don't get your hopes up re. Jacobite femslash possibilities—the female perspective here is very much that of women who love men and are largely concerned with the fate of their men during war. But it's good for what it is, and that's something. (And one gets the distinct impression that Vincent is writing with her own generation and the trauma of World War I in mind.) Also Mairi does get her own 'terrible dilemma of honour and loyalty' moment at one point (and that's about her in her own right, rather than her relationships with men), which I appreciated.
The other interesting thing about this book is that I'm pretty sure it was influenced by The Flight of the Heron! At one point early on there's what looks very much like a deliberate reference: while describing the standard-raising at Glenfinnan, Vincent suddenly digresses into discussing an English officer who, captured by Lochiel, was surprised by his courteous and hospitable behaviour, and by his knowledge of French and Latin; incidentally Lochiel is also called 'Ewen Cameron', the only historical figure whose name Vincent changes as far as I could tell. Later there are a couple of side characters called Wyndham. And the ending could, if one squints, be seen as an attempted fix-it for FotH—albeit one which isn't terribly convincing and which ignores most of what makes FotH such a compelling story, for alas Vincent sadly isn't anything like as good a writer as Broster.
There's quite a lot of use of historical detail and characters, and while it's not in the full-blown Romantic Jacobites mode it's again not as interesting as the history in Broster's books. Oh, also I think Vincent must have been very keen on dogs, because Ronald and Mairi's dog Angus is an important character and paid a lot of attention throughout.
A Daughter of Raasay: A Tale of the ’45 by William MacLeod Raine (1901). I'm afraid this is not one of the worthier Jacobite novels I've read. It follows our hero Kenneth Montagu, a foolish young Englishman who loses a lot of money at cards, gets manipulated into joining the Jacobites by the historical Lord Balmerino (here portrayed with very questionable judgement: yeah, just invite this random guy who you know is hostile to Jacobitism to your secret Jacobite meeting, what could possibly go wrong???) and falls in love with a beautiful Jacobite Macleod—then the '45 begins... The book is composed of about equal parts romanticisation of the Jacobites/the Highlands and irritating heterosexuality (occasionally at the same time, as when Kenneth goes on about his love interest's ~pretty broken English~). It's very silly, while trying to take itself seriously. About half the time the villain (Kenneth's rival for Aileen Macleod's affections) is onstage there's an attempt at a sort of Brosterish 'slashy honourable enemies' dynamic which is sadly undermined by the rival spending the rest of his time as a moustache-twirling pantomime villain no one could possibly take seriously. There's that bizarre thing where there's supposed to be some kind of worthiness and even redemptive value in a "love" (a man's for a woman, naturally) which totally disregards the woman's own feelings and wishes. And the descriptive writing includes this sort of excellent metaphor:
In her cheeks was being fought the war of the roses, with Lancaster victorious.
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (2021). It's time, thought I, to have a go at the new Alan Garner book! It's got the Uffington White Horse on the cover, which is promising. Like most Garner books this one is difficult to summarise. The main character is Joe Coppock, a sort of quintessential twentieth-century British boy who reads comics, plays with marbles and goes roaming about the countryside collecting birds' eggs and so on, and the book spends its short page-count making everything about this premise very weird. Treacle Walker is a rag-and-bone man who gives Joe a magic paste with which he accidentally anoints his eye (a familiar folklore trope; isn't it also in Susanna Clarke somewhere?), allowing him to see supernatural things like the Iron Age bog body who lives in the local alder copse and comes to life. I suppose there's something about showing the long history of the familiar landscape as a living and powerful thing, which is something Garner is generally very good at. The writing is spare and striking and—as Garner goes—not too difficult to follow. I wouldn't say this was my favourite of his books, but it is highly worth reading. (I'm not sure what the Uffington White Horse had to do with anything; I suppose it fits the general ideas, but the actual setting appears to be Cheshire again).
The Fiery Cross by Lady Kitty Vincent (1930). Happily, a far more worthy Jacobite novel! Lady Kitty Vincent was from the family of the Ogilvy Earls of Airlie—the book is dedicated to her brother David, the twelfth Earl (the book says tenth, but from Wikipedia and the relevant dates that must be wrong)—and this book is about the '45 as experienced by two fictional Ogilvies, Ronald Ogilvy of Inverquarity and his wife Mairi. Vincent is especially concerned with women's experiences during war. Mairi accompanies her husband on most of the Jacobite army's travels (though not the march into England; apparently that would have been impossible, though I believe
luzula has written a fic contesting that idea :) ), and we spend much of that time following her perspective, her thoughts and feelings about the Rising, and her interactions with other women—many of them historical Jacobite women, including Margaret Ogilvy, Jenny Cameron and Lady Kilmarnock. When I say there are lots of good interactions between women, don't get your hopes up re. Jacobite femslash possibilities—the female perspective here is very much that of women who love men and are largely concerned with the fate of their men during war. But it's good for what it is, and that's something. (And one gets the distinct impression that Vincent is writing with her own generation and the trauma of World War I in mind.) Also Mairi does get her own 'terrible dilemma of honour and loyalty' moment at one point (and that's about her in her own right, rather than her relationships with men), which I appreciated.The other interesting thing about this book is that I'm pretty sure it was influenced by The Flight of the Heron! At one point early on there's what looks very much like a deliberate reference: while describing the standard-raising at Glenfinnan, Vincent suddenly digresses into discussing an English officer who, captured by Lochiel, was surprised by his courteous and hospitable behaviour, and by his knowledge of French and Latin; incidentally Lochiel is also called 'Ewen Cameron', the only historical figure whose name Vincent changes as far as I could tell. Later there are a couple of side characters called Wyndham. And the ending could, if one squints, be seen as an attempted fix-it for FotH—albeit one which isn't terribly convincing and which ignores most of what makes FotH such a compelling story, for alas Vincent sadly isn't anything like as good a writer as Broster.
There's quite a lot of use of historical detail and characters, and while it's not in the full-blown Romantic Jacobites mode it's again not as interesting as the history in Broster's books. Oh, also I think Vincent must have been very keen on dogs, because Ronald and Mairi's dog Angus is an important character and paid a lot of attention throughout.
