But—will you e'er forget the scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?
D. K. Broster's The Flight of the Heron (1925) is indeed a more complex novel than The Wounded Name (1922) and almost as damn-the-subtext slashy—it's not difficult to see one as a dry run for the other, although they differ substantially in the ending and I am not getting over the incredibly gay string of classical allusions in the earlier novel any time soon. This one piles on not just the loyalty and the hurt/comfort but the conflicted pursuit of honor between heart and duty in ways that occasionally and unexpectedly gave me flashbacks to some elements of Turn (2014–2017). The latter were not unwelcome, but I don't consider them statistically significant; they may be a side effect of emotionally twisty narratives set between rebellion and empire. Conversely, I am indebted to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nineweaving for confirming the lineage between Broster and Rosemary Sutcliff with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, since after one novel of Broster's I was suspicious, but after two I was willing to buy a hat to eat if Sutcliff hadn't read her. I have found myself saying recently that Broster feels like a bright body in a constellation of writers I was raised on, but it took me until now to see her. I feel like I could end up with a research project on my hands if I'm not careful.
It was strange, it was alarming, to feel, as by this time he did, how strongly their intimacy had progressed in two months of absence and, on his side, of deliberate abstention from communication—like the roots of two trees growing secretly towards each other in darkness.
(Slash goggles continue to be superfluous.)
nineweaving for confirming the lineage between Broster and Rosemary Sutcliff with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, since after one novel of Broster's I was suspicious, but after two I was willing to buy a hat to eat if Sutcliff hadn't read her. I have found myself saying recently that Broster feels like a bright body in a constellation of writers I was raised on, but it took me until now to see her. I feel like I could end up with a research project on my hands if I'm not careful.It was strange, it was alarming, to feel, as by this time he did, how strongly their intimacy had progressed in two months of absence and, on his side, of deliberate abstention from communication—like the roots of two trees growing secretly towards each other in darkness.
(Slash goggles continue to be superfluous.)
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Ah, so Sutcliff did read Broster! That similarity had also occurred to me, and it's great to have it confirmed. (And, returning to the 'did they mean it like that' question, it's certainly a possibility Sutcliff was aware of for her characters, given the canon m/m relationship in Sword at Sunset).
I feel like I could end up with a research project on my hands if I'm not careful.
Sounds like a great idea :D
And that line about the trees is one of my favourites—aww, Keith...
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It's more equal in complication on both sides; the idtastic is more subordinated to the story; the political research is still meticulous, but the cast of characters is wider and the sense of place is much stronger. Also the main female character still exists as a point of mediation between the two men, but she has a lot more of a personality and I personally appreciate the absence of jealousy regarding her bond with one of the men, which in The Wounded Name was valuable as a gauge of Laurent's emotions and otherwise I could have done without.
Ah, so Sutcliff did read Broster! That similarity had also occurred to me, and it's great to have it confirmed.
Sutcliff feels like the closest descendant of my acquaintance, although it is very likely that there are others, especially since it's been more than a half-century since she started publishing, this sentence derailed by my remembrance of Megan Whalen Turner, who not only nicked the dolphin ring for her own classically-inspired worldbuilding, she has acknowledged The Eagle of the Ninth as the model for one of her later novels, in which the m/m is textual. I don't remember her citing Broster among her influences, but she got her at least secondhand, and she did cite writers like Orczy, MacLean, Dunnett, so she's in the right vicinity. Huh. I really need to read the conclusion to that series. I have been following it for literally twenty-five years now.
(And, returning to the 'did they mean it like that' question, it's certainly a possibility Sutcliff was aware of for her characters, given the canon m/m relationship in Sword at Sunset).
Agreed. Also, she is another writer where in some instances I don't see how they couldn't.
And that line about the trees is one of my favourites—aww, Keith...
It feels characteristic of both Keith and the novel that that simile ends with him deciding that the roots of their intimacy must be severed and the scene ends with him cutting a lock of Ewen's hair.
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It feels characteristic of both Keith and the novel that that simile ends with him deciding that the roots of their intimacy must be severed and the scene ends with him cutting a lock of Ewen's hair.
Aargh—oh dear, you're right. </3
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The first novel is effectively a YA caper with some wider implications set in a well-drawn secondary world influenced by classical and late antique history. The series took a serious level in emotional and political complexity with the second novel—I have traditionally classed these books with the fiction of Elizabeth E. Wein, if that helps as a reference—and nothing I have heard about the final volume suggests it dropped back. The Sutcliff-inspired one is Thick as Thieves (2017). I have no idea how it would read on its own, as it picks up characters from previous books and turned out to be the penultimate in the series, but I loved it.
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That's it! I admit to being curious what the author will do next, but really should read the last book before I start speculating.