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Flight of the Heron read-along: Part I chapters 1-2
Hark! now the drums they beat again for all good soldiers, gentlemen...
Welcome back to the Flight of the Heron read-along! This week we read the first two proper chapters, and meet Keith Windham—and Keith meets Ewen Cameron.
As you'll have noticed, Broster is fond of including both Gaelic and Scots words in dialogue; this online Gaelic-English dictionary and this one for Scots may be of use if you'd like to look anything up.
Next week we will continue with chapters 3 and 4.
Welcome back to the Flight of the Heron read-along! This week we read the first two proper chapters, and meet Keith Windham—and Keith meets Ewen Cameron.
As you'll have noticed, Broster is fond of including both Gaelic and Scots words in dialogue; this online Gaelic-English dictionary and this one for Scots may be of use if you'd like to look anything up.
Next week we will continue with chapters 3 and 4.
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I think he's different from other Broster heroes especially in his sense of humor, also his exasperated professionalism. And then there's his backstory of being emotionally abandoned and neglected, and his consequent distrust of love, which of course makes him into fannish catnip because I just want to see someone break through that reserve and make him happy. That whole bit of Keith backstory and characterization at the beginning of Chapter 2 is great.
I love the balanced viewpoint of both sides of the war that we get, which is also different from other Broster novels: Ewen's unquestioning devotion to his Prince, and Keith's dismissal of "his absurd landing on Moidart". Also their very different experiences of the Highland landscape.
And then Keith and Ewen's first meeting, which is obviously perfect. ♥ I love how Ewen's chivalry, though it surprises and provokes Keith at first, then brings out his own as he willingly gives his parole. I also like how Ewen keeps surprising Keith out of his preconceived notions of Highlanders, and Ewen's delicacy at the end of chapter 2.
This bit: "I have given Mr. Cameron my parole of honour, and I assure you that even 'the Elector’s' officers observe that!" (For he believed so then.) is a chilly bit of foreshadowing, but for a historical event which I can't remember is directly mentioned in the book, or is it (the captured Hanoverian officers breaking parole en masse some time after the battle of Prestonpans)? But it works as more general foreshadowing of dastardliness, as well.
I love the introduction of Aunt Margaret--she has a great sense of humor, and I love that she isn't intimidated by Keith. Also she reads Henry Fielding, who I've read was an author condemned by strict moralists, which indicates that even though she's a devout Christian (which we see later) she has an open mind.
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Ewen's chivalry, though it surprises and provokes Keith at first, then brings out his own
Aww, yes, that's a good point <3 I love Keith's 'sudden spurt of good feeling' as he gives his parole, and his hand.
That 'For he believed so then' bit struck me too—I don't think the mass breaking of parole is ever mentioned afterwards, and it occurred to me that it would have worked far better as foreshadowing in your alternate history AU than it does here :D
I absolutely love the tiny bit of Aunt Margaret and Keith interacting that we get in chapter 2. That's very interesting about what reading Fielding might indicate about her, too. Perhaps I ought to read Joseph Andrews for some more context...
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They both have quite the sense of humour. I like to think that in happier times, they'd get on very well.
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Ha ha, well, in my head all of canon up until Fassefern is still relevant for that AU, it's just that I didn't want to retell it!
I absolutely love the tiny bit of Aunt Margaret and Keith interacting that we get in chapter 2.
Me too! "I have that disability", ha.
Here's an excerpt from that book about sexual attitudes in the 18th century that I read a few months ago, comparing Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding:
"From the beginning of his career, Fielding wrote his novels in conscious opposition to those of Richardson, explicitly repudiating his style, tone, and plots. In real life, too, the two authors belonged to markedly different sexual milieux. Richardson, the buttoned-up, barely educated, middle-class tradesman, surrounded himself with adoring, virtuous women, was proud of never even having met an unchaste one, and addressed himself at least as much to a female as a male audience. Fielding, by contrast, was an Etonian gentleman and lawyer, the son of a libertine, the near relation of powerful aristocrats and courtiers. As a young man, he lived the rakish, promiscuous existence of a West End playwright; in middle age, he impregnated (and ended up marrying) his maid; towards the end of his life, as a magistrate, he immersed himself daily in the sordid circumstances of bawdry and sexual trade. His was an upper-class, libertine, masculine world -reflected, his contemporary critics thought, in the character of his writing. Richardson himself, Samuel Johnson, and Charles Burney all deplored Fielding’s ‘loose life, and the profligacy of almost all his male characters. Who would venture to read one of his novels aloud to modest women? His novels are male amusements.’ It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the two writers have long been held up as moral opposites. At first sight, Fielding’s ethics do look quite different. On the surface, his work conveyed a worldly acceptance of male sexual freedom that enraged pious readers. It also featured sexually experienced women who were ardent, seductive, and dangerous to men. [...] Yet, for all his levity and bawdy banter, Fielding’s underlying attitudes towards lust and seduction were remarkably close to those of his great rival. He shared their culture’s basic presumptions that, in general, men pursued women; that female innocence was constantly under threat from masculine wiles; and that fallen women were the victims of libertine seducers."
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I laughed aloud when I got to that detail, because very much yes.