It's such a long time since I read this book for the first time that I'd almost forgotten just how heavily Broster foreshadows Ewen's death, only to give us Keith's death at the end.
The Lachlan->Ewen->Lochiel thing was one of the things that delighted me most in the book. They are both so passionately OTT devoted! Lochiel is rather kinder to Ewen than Ewen is to Lachlan, too: there's the bit after Ewen throws himself in front of the cannonball that isn't going to hit Lochiel anyway, when he comes round in Lochiel's arms. Broster had a direct line to my id there. And I love how Alison is just like 'yes you love me but I do realise I have to share you with Lochiel and that it's not even a choice which of us you'd put first'. Lachlan presumably did plenty of tender nursing of Ewen in the shieling before Keith shows up, but Ewen seems to take that very much for granted. (Thinking on it, the Lachlan->Ewen relationship is not unlike Hugh->Dundee, it's the same imbalanced and doglike relationship, though Hugh gets a much better deal from the narrative.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2021-09-03 08:15 am (UTC)The Lachlan->Ewen->Lochiel thing was one of the things that delighted me most in the book. They are both so passionately OTT devoted! Lochiel is rather kinder to Ewen than Ewen is to Lachlan, too: there's the bit after Ewen throws himself in front of the cannonball that isn't going to hit Lochiel anyway, when he comes round in Lochiel's arms. Broster had a direct line to my id there. And I love how Alison is just like 'yes you love me but I do realise I have to share you with Lochiel and that it's not even a choice which of us you'd put first'. Lachlan presumably did plenty of tender nursing of Ewen in the shieling before Keith shows up, but Ewen seems to take that very much for granted. (Thinking on it, the Lachlan->Ewen relationship is not unlike Hugh->Dundee, it's the same imbalanced and doglike relationship, though Hugh gets a much better deal from the narrative.)