Flight of the Heron read-along: Part V chapter 5 and Epilogue

[regshoe]

Better loved ye cannae be...

The final chapter.

I'm planning to do a sort of wrap-up post in a couple of days' time for any last thoughts, and to recommend some Flight of the Heron fic and some other books that may be of interest. I will say goodbye and thank you properly then!

Comments

[philomytha]

Keith and Lachlan working together to save Ewen - OMG! I don't have a strong impulse towards fic for FotH, the book's one of my favourite books ever but I don't really feel that fic urge about it, but for Keith & Lachlan as two points of a triangle with Ewen, I could definitely be persuaded otherwise... thinking about it, that's how you save Keith from his fate at the end of the book, first you have to save Lachlan. Because that's the fundamental tragedy: he worships Ewen, but Ewen takes him for granted. I mean, there's a hierarchical chain of loyalty, Lachlan -> Ewen -> Lochiel, but we see Lochiel reciprocating that affection towards Ewen and looking after him in return in a way that we don't really see Ewen doing for Lachlan.

In other words, yes, I like this idea a lot!

[osprey_archer]

I'm sure Lachlan's greatest dream in life is some kind of echo of that scene where Ewen jumps in front of a projectile to save Lochiel (even though it wasn't going to hit him, oh my God Ewen) and then Lochiel cradles an injured Ewen in his arms. Lachlan wishes he could get injured and then Ewen would cradle Lachlan and then INSTEAD Ewen's cradling Keith and cursing Lachlan and it's just TOO MUCH.

[philomytha]

Exactly! And it's so surprising that when Ewen is EXTRA in precisely this way, he still has no insight into the fact that Lachlan wants exactly the same thing from him as he wants from Lochiel.

[hyarrowen]

I think my problem with Lachlan is that his love is so possessive. Ewen acknowledges that Lochiel has other people in his life - Archie for one - but Lachlan is positively jealous. He's just met Alison for the first time, too, surely? So he's already one step away from being Ewen's other half. And then along comes Captain Windham.

[osprey_archer]

He seems less bothered about Alison, maybe because he doesn't see her as usurping HIS particular place? She's Ewen's soon-to-be wife, he (wants to be) Ewen's righthand man. They can coexist.

But yes, he's jealous as hell of Captain Windham! Keith just comes waltzing in and in a matter of days becomes more emotionally important to Ewen than Lachlan ever was, and Lachlan's clearly eating his heart out over it. And of course ultimately it leads him down this bitterly destructive vengeful path.

Re: Ewen and Lochiel, not only does Ewen acknowledge that Lochiel has other people in his life, but he himself also has other people; his loyalty to Lochiel is intense, but it doesn't have the fixed, obsessive quality of Lachlan's loyalty to Ewen. If Lochiel ever cursed Ewen the way Ewen cursed Lachlan (although it's hard to imagine Ewen doing something quite as curse-worthy!), I think the thought of Aunt Margaret, Alison, Keith, all the people who love him, would keep Ewen from running off in a suicidal frenzy like Lachlan.

[hyarrowen]

Keith is the last straw, I think. Lachlan's been waiting for Ewen to come back all this time, but now he's got a fiancée, which is - as you say, he can live with that. But she's a part of a more sophisticated world which Lachlan can never enter. And then there's this redcoat, who first attacks Ewen and then is invited to dinner with him and the whole family and gets a guest bedroom and clearly they understand each other on a level which Lachlan just isn't included in. It's like Ewen and Keith are part of the Enlightenment and Lachlan is a part of a much older way of life. So no wonder he's so jealous.

I'd say a lot of it is class envy, except that class doesn't seem to be a factor in Highland relationships. A dislike of being excluded, understandably, but he's blaming the wrong person. Like you say, it's an obsessive loyalty. Poor Lachlan.

[osprey_archer]

He's also had more time to get used to the idea that Ewen will one day have a wife. (I am imagining youth Lachlan sobbing a la Anne of Green Gables at the realization that Ewen will get married someday. Angus, like Marilla, has to step outside to laugh uncontrollably at his OTT emo son.) But NO ONE prepared him for Ewen to get a redcoat BFF!

[hyarrowen]

I bet Lachlan did exactly that! He must've been quite exhausting to be around at times, glowering at anyone Ewen got friendly with.

[regshoe]

It's like Ewen and Keith are part of the Enlightenment and Lachlan is a part of a much older way of life.

I think that's a very good observation, as well as the class angle. So much of what makes Ewen and Keith's relationship work is how, despite their very different backgrounds and opposed allegiances, they do have a shared culture and shared values (as Keith is so surprised to learn at the beginning!)—and those are those of Enlightenment gentlemen. Hmmm.

[luzula]

except that class doesn't seem to be a factor in Highland relationships

Not class the way we think of it, maybe, but their society was very hierarchical and unequal! Which of course you know--maybe I'm misunderstanding you?

I am minded of a story I read in (probably) Duffy, about how some English officer said he would only surrender to a gentleman, which mightily offended the clansmen who had taken him prisoner. They all considered themselves gentlemen, because they were descended/related at some far remove to the clan elite--primogeniture kept pushing the younger sons downward, becoming eventually ordinary clansmen. Of course there's a social level below the clansmen, as well.

I guess there's something here as well about the Highland titles, Alison being considered a lady where she wouldn't be in England.

[owl]

Doesn't Davie meet someone similar in Kidnapped? One of Cluny Macpherson's men, iirc, who tells Davie he's a 'Hieland shentleman'.

[sanguinity]

Neil Roy Macrob, on the ferry at Kinlochaline:

"But if ye will pardon me to speak plainly,” says he, “there is a name that you should never take into your mouth, and that is the name of Alan Breck; and there is a thing that ye would never do, and that is to offer your dirty money to a Hieland shentleman.”

It was not very easy to apologise; for I could scarce tell him (what was the truth) that I had never dreamed he would set up to be a gentleman until he told me so.

[owl]

Yes, exactly, thank you!