regshoe

Three very different books from three very different centuries.

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (1814—subtitled 'Tis Sixty Years Since, although it was actually 69 by then). Despite my mixed opinion of the other Scott novels I've read, I enjoyed this one very much. It's interesting how often, when you take a now-established trope and go back to the early stories that established it, they often turn out not to be particularly straightforward examples of the later stereotype—like how Lord of the Rings isn't at all stereotypical high fantasy. Waverley felt a little like that in relation to romantic depictions of the Highlands and the Jacobites—I've definitely heard how Scott was an important influence on those views as they developed in the nineteenth century, but the portrayal here is more complicated and interesting. The main Highland character, Fergus MacIvor, is far more scheming and pragmatic than nobly romantic in his Jacobitism (although his sister Flora is a different matter), and the English protagonist Edward Waverley, who is stationed in Scotland after joining the army and gets drawn into the centre of the Jacobite rising almost by accident, is repeatedly shown to be naive and ignorant of the real political situation in the Highlands in a way that isn't exactly mocking but certainly seemed to be making some kind of point. I thought Scott did a better job here than in the other books I've read of balancing the story he's chosen to tell with the exciting historical drama he sets it against, and of concentrating on the interesting parts of that drama. The romance was kind of boring, but that's not really a surprise. Definitely my favourite of his books so far.

(I think I've done very well to get this far without mentioning Flight of the Heron, so here goes: I was greatly entertained by how Fergus and Waverley are the almost perfect opposites of Ewen Cameron and Keith Windham. I kind of shipped them anyway, but it would be a very different sort of ship).

Doreen by Barbara Noble (1946). During the Blitz, Mrs Rawlings, a single mother who works as a cleaner in London, decides to send her nine-year-old daughter Doreen to live in the countryside with the Osbornes, a wealthy couple who have no children of their own. The book follows Doreen's new life with the Osbornes, how both sides deal with the new situation, the tensions that arise and the conflict Mrs Rawlings goes through over sending her daughter away from her. Or: my goodness, evacuation was certainly A Thing and Barbara Noble is very good indeed at showing it. This book is a well-drawn portrait of a heartbreaking situation in which there are no easy answers, and where the characters cause each other an awful lot of pain without anyone's intentions really being other than good. Not an uplifting read, but very good.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764). OK, now this is how you write a novel. Within just the first few pages we have a giant helmet falling from the sky and crushing to death the heir to the castle of the title; an evil, scheming prince threatening to force a virtuous young maiden to marry him; an ominous prophecy concerning the fate of this prince and his castle; a mysterious and handsome young peasant who seems to know more about the situation than he's letting on; etc. etc. Even before we get to all this, there's a preface in which Walpole very earnestly presents the novel that follows as his translation of a mysterious Italian manuscript, and praises and criticises various elements of his own writing in the character of the 'translator'. Things only get wackier. I mean, I could make fun of the book, but it's honestly delightful how Walpole just keeps on throwing out over-the-top melodramatic plot twists and completely bonkers situations with such joyful abandon. Great fun! The eighteenth century was certainly a time to be a reader.