Book Review: The Gleam in the North
Jan. 9th, 2022 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI intended to wait till the Flight of the Heron readalong was over to read The Gleam in the North, but Friday was SO COLD that I ended up reading all day in the attic (inexplicably the warmest room in House?), and what I felt like reading was The Continuing Adventures of the Ill-Starred Jacobites.
It’s impossible to discuss this book without spoilers for both it and The Flight of the Heron, so
We start with Ewen again at Ardroy, where he lives with his wife Alison and their sons Donald and Keith, named after Donald Cameron of Lochiel and Keith Windham respectively, which more or less sums up the emotional geography of Ewen’s life.
In fact, one of the ongoing threads of the book involves Ewen learning more about Keith: there’s a poignant moment when he reflects how little he actually knows about Keith, even though Keith remains so important to him that Ewen continues to wear Keith’s signet ring years after his death. Ewen meets first Keith’s younger half-brother Aveling, and then Keith’s mother (both of whom take one look at Ewen and go “YES” before they even know of his connection to Keith), although unfortunately Ewen’s friendship with Aveling is nearly nipped in the bud when he realizes that Aveling happens to have a letter with some information about an attempt to arrest Ewen’s cousin Dr. Archibald Cameron… which means Ewen has to steal the letter… which unfortunately proves to be a love letter from General Churchill’s daughter. AWKWARD.
(Fortuitously, however, fate throws them together later, and they make up their quarrel.)
This brings us to the main throughline of the book, which is Ewen’s increasingly desperate attempts to protect Dr. Cameron, a spy for Bonnie Prince Charlie whom the English government would like to swat like a fly. In The Flight of the Heron, Broster already alluded briefly to Dr. Cameron’s eventual fate (executed for treason), so even a reader such as myself with the vaguest possible grounding in Jacobite history knows what is coming. Nonetheless, I spent the book desperately hoping right alongside Ewen that Dr. Cameron might be saved. After all, I spent much of The Flight of the Heron convinced of Ewen’s impending doom, and he survived! (Admittedly, only because Keith died instead, but STILL.) Couldn’t Dr. Cameron…?
In Flight of the Heron, the prophecy of Ewen and Keith’s five meetings provides a lot of the tension for the narrative, and I wondered how Broster would replicate this in a second book. Of course one could have a second prophecy, but it seems to me that prophecies are a literary device with swiftly diminishing returns… But as it turns out, the historical inevitability of a character who was a real person who really was executed provides a similar “I know this is going nowhere good but I’m hoping against hope that I’m wrong!” tension.
It’s impossible to discuss this book without spoilers for both it and The Flight of the Heron, so
We start with Ewen again at Ardroy, where he lives with his wife Alison and their sons Donald and Keith, named after Donald Cameron of Lochiel and Keith Windham respectively, which more or less sums up the emotional geography of Ewen’s life.
In fact, one of the ongoing threads of the book involves Ewen learning more about Keith: there’s a poignant moment when he reflects how little he actually knows about Keith, even though Keith remains so important to him that Ewen continues to wear Keith’s signet ring years after his death. Ewen meets first Keith’s younger half-brother Aveling, and then Keith’s mother (both of whom take one look at Ewen and go “YES” before they even know of his connection to Keith), although unfortunately Ewen’s friendship with Aveling is nearly nipped in the bud when he realizes that Aveling happens to have a letter with some information about an attempt to arrest Ewen’s cousin Dr. Archibald Cameron… which means Ewen has to steal the letter… which unfortunately proves to be a love letter from General Churchill’s daughter. AWKWARD.
(Fortuitously, however, fate throws them together later, and they make up their quarrel.)
This brings us to the main throughline of the book, which is Ewen’s increasingly desperate attempts to protect Dr. Cameron, a spy for Bonnie Prince Charlie whom the English government would like to swat like a fly. In The Flight of the Heron, Broster already alluded briefly to Dr. Cameron’s eventual fate (executed for treason), so even a reader such as myself with the vaguest possible grounding in Jacobite history knows what is coming. Nonetheless, I spent the book desperately hoping right alongside Ewen that Dr. Cameron might be saved. After all, I spent much of The Flight of the Heron convinced of Ewen’s impending doom, and he survived! (Admittedly, only because Keith died instead, but STILL.) Couldn’t Dr. Cameron…?
In Flight of the Heron, the prophecy of Ewen and Keith’s five meetings provides a lot of the tension for the narrative, and I wondered how Broster would replicate this in a second book. Of course one could have a second prophecy, but it seems to me that prophecies are a literary device with swiftly diminishing returns… But as it turns out, the historical inevitability of a character who was a real person who really was executed provides a similar “I know this is going nowhere good but I’m hoping against hope that I’m wrong!” tension.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 06:57 pm (UTC)I adore all the encounters with Ewen and Aveling. Everything about the ring is just amazing <3
no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 07:41 pm (UTC)The part where Aveling is all "I'm going to have my lackeys REMOVE THAT RING FROM YOUR FINGER AND TOSS YOU INTO THE STREET!" And then he changes his mind because Ewen doesn't try to bodily remove him from the bell-pull to summon the lackeys... Clearly Aveling, like Keith, has an instinctive soft spot toward Ewen. He's glad to have an excuse to like and trust him again!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-09 08:07 pm (UTC)Yes, it's a very good use of history as a sort of fate. I thought the framing of the big historical tragedy, with Ewen's perspective as someone deeply involved in Archie's story but not really the main character, was an especially interesting way of presenting it.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-10 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-12 07:09 pm (UTC)I'm looking forward to when I can record it for Librivox, which alas won't be until 2023.
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Date: 2022-01-12 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 05:45 pm (UTC)And fortunately Ewen doesn't seem fully conscious that Keith's mom is hitting on him. I think in combination with her clear lack of interest in Keith, it would wound his finer feelings.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-14 03:14 pm (UTC)Yes, fortunately Ewen never really notices. Although I have in fact written AU fic where KEITH notices what his mom is doing and is absolutely mortified. *g*
no subject
Date: 2022-01-14 03:59 pm (UTC)Also OMG POOR KEITH can you imagine. He brings his boyfriend home to meet the parents and not only is his mother STILL wildly uninterested in him, but she starts hitting on Ewen...