Carys Davies

Beautiful and masterfully crafted; Carys Davies delivers a unique and moving novel about a minister tasked with evicting the lone inhabitant from a small distant island. During the 1840s the Scottish Clearances were in full effect, removing thousands of poor residents through mandatory evictions. John, a poor Scottish minister desperate to earn some income, takes the job of removing Ivar from a remote island. When John finally arrives at the island, he immediately falls off a cliff and is nursed back to health by Ivar, who has no idea what John's arrival means for him. Used to being solitary, with only his animals and the ocean for company; he quickly takes to John. Together they work past their language barriers and begin to understand each other; forging a much deeper companionship and outlook on life. Impeccably narrated by Russ Bain whose Scottish timbre effuses the story with authenticity and soul. Short and simple; Clear is a thought-provoking historical novel that showcases the nuance of words, the complexity of relationships, and hauntingly beautiful atmospheric writing.… (más)

Clear by Carys Davies is a beautiful little book that can be read in a few hours. In 1840s Scotland, John Ferguson needs to make money, so he heads to a small island out in the middle of the ocean to tell the single tenant he needs to leave. Ivar has been living alone on the island for years, and his encounter with John reminds him of what he has lost. Clear is a story about loneliness, survival, and belief. I wish Davies had taken some time and more length to wrap things up a little better, but still a great choice for readers of literary fiction looking for a quick and satisfying book.… (más)

Clear by Carys Davies takes us to 1843, Scotland in the final stages of the Scottish Clearances during which rural inhabitants from the Scottish Highlands were forcefully evicted to clear the lands for sheep pastoralism. 1843 also saw the Disruption of the Church of Scotland which saw a large number of evangelical misters walk away from their jobs and their income to form the Free Church of Scotland that would be free of patronage and interference from the British Government.

As the story begins, we meet Reverend John Ferguson, an impoverished minister struggling to raise funds for his congregation, who has accepted a well-paying “temporary factoring” assignment. His task entails surveying the terrain of a remote island north of Scotland for its adequacy to meet the requirements landowners have planned and “clear” the island of its sole inhabitant, a man by the name of Ivar whose remaining family has long since left the island. Along with his papers and a calotype of his wife Mary, John also carries a pistol given to him by the landowner’s factor who assigned him to this task. Ivar lives in solitude in a stone hut with only his animals for company. Within the course of a month, John is to persuade him to leave the island. But when an accident lands him in Ivar’s care and he spends more time with Ivar connecting with him on a deep personal level despite not sharing a common language, John is conflicted over his mission. Ivar, who had been craving companionship, develops a strong attachment to John, unaware of his true reasons for being on the island. Miles away, when Mary is made aware of the potential perils John may face in his task, concerned for his safety, she takes it upon herself to travel to the island. The narrative follows these characters as their paths converge.

Clear by Carys Davies is a stunning novella that transports you to the Scottish Highlands with its vividly described settings and into the hearts of its characters in sparse yet lyrical prose. The author deftly weaves the three threads of this novel into a cohesive narrative. Please note that the pacing of the narrative is slow, which I thought suited the nature of the story and allowed a deeper and an intimate exploration of the thoughts and emotions of its characters - Ivar’s loneliness and his kindness and compassion; John’s internal conflict as he ponders over his duty, the beliefs that have governed his life and vocation and his emotions; and Mary’s determination, loyalty and sacrifice. The narrative is presented from the perspectives of John, Ivar and Mary and touches upon themes of solitude, isolation and how human connection can be forged in mysterious ways. To bear witness to two characters learning to communicate with one another despite the lack of a common language was truly humbling. The author’s use of Norn words lends authenticity to Ivar’s character and the time and place in which the novel is set. Please read the Author’s note, where she discusses the historical context of this novel and provides a brief glossary of Norn words found in the narrative. There were certain aspects that I wish would have been developed further, but this in no way detracted from my overall reading experience.

This is my second time reading Carys Davies ( my first Carys Davies novel was The Mission House, which I also enjoyed) and I was not disappointed. With its vividly described atmospheric setting, rich historical context, exquisite writing and memorable characters Clear by Carys Davies is a compelling read – the kind of story that stays with you long after you have turned the final page.

Many thanks to Scribner for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.… (más)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In The Mission House, Hilary Byrd flees his demons and the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in England for a former British hill station in south India. Charmed by the foreignness of his new surroundings and by the familiarity of everything the British have left behind, he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where, after a chance meeting, the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla take Hilary under their wing.

The Padre is concerned for Priscilla’s future, and as Hilary’s friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder whether his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious tensions are brewing and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Hilary Byrd is coming unglued. He's in the early stages of a mental breakdown, he's fast departing the middle-aged years with their gradual loss of the pleasant illusion of a limitless future, and he's at odds with modern England at every turn. His rock of a sister can't seem to save him from this sense of being cut off, so for once in his life he takes a decision. He decides, about his own life's direction, that he will go Find Himself in India.

She disapproves of this, really for quite sensible reasons, but the time to be sensible is past.

I was ready, at that point, to stop reading for good. After all, I liked—a lot—but didn't love Author Carys's novella West, with its gorgeous sentences and its superbly concentrated plotting. I thought this read would be a similar exercise. So I put it down at this rather mundane point, and didn't pick it up until I read this year's glorious paean to Love, and lovingkindness, Clear.

This turbocharged my willingness to look further into this take on self-discovery through travel to "exotic" locale...a drearily bourgeois genre that I really, really do not like. Elizabeth Gilbert and Peter Mayles ruined it for me with their icky Othering search for "Authenticity" which comes across to me in this elder stage of my life as "authentoxicity." I am shocked at anyone, in the twenty-first century, who can make it all the way through a story like those without thinking, "interrogate your privilege, or at the very least recognize it!" That is, of course, the person of the Twenties talking to people of the Nineties...societal advances do not travel against time's arrow.

But this story isn't of its time...its time is now...nor is it about another time, it's set now. Just not here. Ooty, the old British "hill station" where the book is set, is in South India. Are your feelies itching as much as mine right now? I mean...hill station! That really übercolonial concept of "place the colonizers go to escape the commonfolk when it gets too hot." And a British guy rents a mission house, where the imperialists of the spirit retired from their efforts to screw up the indigenous population's relationship to their own souls with the caustic bleach of christiainty!

The icks are building steadily.

This, then, was not the most satifying of follow-up reads to my joyously absorbed Clear. I'm not revealing my dark corners when I say that all things christian leave me coldly hostile. Hilary isn't much of a christian, demonstrating a glancing awareness of but no familiarity with the mythos. His occupancy of a younger colonialist man's living quarters that were built as, and still serve as, a locus for slopping this terrible blighting thought pollution all over poor India (which, not coincidentally, has its own history of exporting religious intolerance). That young man's rush home to Canada is, permaybehaps, intended to serve as a kind of Divine Will's invitation for void-of-course Hilary to come be a white savior. I got that vibe as his relationship with Priscilla deepened, mostly because of "the Padre," who I took against from giddy-up to whoa.

Nonetheless, I can say that my tonal twangs where I was likely meant to thrum instead, were idiosyncratic to me. I think a person less repulsed by christian overtones might not even see them in this story. My discomfort with the ableist misogyny, the colonialist-Finding-Himself in the former colony, and that really terrible Padre, means all my stars are for the beautiful sentences, unfolded with the inevitability of flower petals obeying Bernoulli's spiral.

Not my most resounding recommendation, I fear.… (más)