CLEAR by Carys Davies Pub. Scribner 2024, 208 pages
This is a book not to be missed. The story is a beautiful one in many ways, though its ending, which catches the reader by surprise, is poignant. It is not a long book–fewer than 200 pages–but it is powerful, in an understated sort of way. The language is more than fine: never verbose, never rambling, never pretentious. The three main characters are carefully depicted and convincing. The author knows how to convey information indirectly, so the reader has to pay attention, and even then, some re-reading may be necessary to find the nuances.
John Ferguson is a minister of a Scottish Presbyterian sect of the 1840s, a conservative offshoot of Scotland’s national Protestantism. The sect is opposed to the control held over Scottish ministers by wealthy landowners, and to the “clearance” of peasant land by the usurping property owners, so there is a political angle to the plot. Because he is penniless, with a new wife to support, Ferguson accepts a distasteful job which requires him to sail to a remote island in the North Atlantic, and there to inform a local resident that he is to be ousted from his land so that it can be converted to accommodate the sheep industry.
Shortly after his arrival on the island, Ferguson has an accident which renders him unconscious for a few days and unable to care for himself in the weeks following. He is rescued by the only local resident, Ivar, a sort of hermit whom Ferguson has been hired to remove from the island. Overwhelmed by guilt at what he has to do, and grateful for the care he has received, he cannot confess to Ivar what the future holds. Instead, the two men, neither of whom can speak the other’s language, manage to communicate. They establish a kind of clumsy relationship as they try to solve the language issue.
Most of the interaction between the two has to do with this struggle, which is interesting in itself and apparently entirely accurate, as the author explains in her notes at the end of the book. Toward the end of the month, when Ferguson’s stay is about to end, his wife manages to get to the island, in order to rescue him from whatever forces might have laid him low. Even though the author’s tone remains calm and controlled, things are changing. Look for hints.
The author is Welsh, but the story is set in Scotland, where she now lives. Somehow her direct, unadorned, seemingly simple style feels appropriate for the setting: a Scottish island battered by the sea, almost uninhabited, in a state of decay but still beautiful. The sea itself is both powerful and threatening. All three characters are afraid of it, and for good reason: frequent drownings are almost casually mentioned. The poverty of Ivar’s life is extreme, and the difference between his background and the rather scholarly and somewhat pedantic world view of the Fergusons is an interesting one.
At the end of the book, it is not clear what will happen next– no cheerful resolutions here. What is clear is that there is love and affection on all sides; will it be strong enough to defy the rigidity of the new church that Ferguson cares so much about, and which is itself struggling against overwhelming odds for survival? Will the marriage survive the pressures that are about to be brought to bear?? The omniscient author is not giving away the end results. The outcome is definitely not altogether CLEAR.