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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I am not getting over the incredibly gay string of classical allusions in the earlier novel any time soon
I wish I was better at classical allusions and Latin citations, I feel it's a limitation in my fic-writing. Ah well.
One writer who I feel is not in the Jacob/Broster/Renault/Sutcliff lineage (if one can call it that), despite living in the same time period and writing historical books that have same-sex relationships in them, is Naomi Mitchison. I mean, I love her books dearly, but despite occasionally portraying same-sex relationships, they are not at all slashy IMO. Some of the differences in writing may be because Mitchison was a socialist (not that one can't combine socialism and slashiness). I mean, I don't explicitly know Broster's political opinions, but I am 110% sure she was not a socialist. All those French royalists probably do say something about her opinions, even if she probably also wrote them because they offered tragic and honour-laden storylines. And Renault was, um, definitely not a socialist. No idea about Sutcliff.
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It had just been so long, I'd gotten out of the habit of having my favorite characters die!
One thing I really like about the book is how it offers both sides of the historical conflict--there's Keith being less than impressed by the Jacobites, Ewen's loyalty and idealism, Keith's horror at what his own side is doing at the end even as he still doesn't sympathize with the other side politically...it's just a really good set-up for the enemies-to-lovers plot and offers a lot of opportunity for fic.
Yes. And pleasantly nuanced after the ride-or-die royalism of The Wounded Name, which offers one honorable enemy in the person of Colonel Richard and otherwise has little in favor of the Imperalists. Ewen is never less than whole-heartedly for the Jacobite cause, but the narrative can be critical of the Bonnie Prince he dedicates himself to. It's another level in characterization that makes the world feel more real.
I wish I was better at classical allusions and Latin citations, I feel it's a limitation in my fic-writing. Ah well.
I am happy to supply classical allusions if you'd find it useful. I have done it professionally.
One writer who I feel is not in the Jacob/Broster/Renault/Sutcliff lineage (if one can call it that), despite living in the same time period and writing historical books that have same-sex relationships in them, is Naomi Mitchison.
I have been considering Naomi Mitchison! Sylvia Townsend Warner, too, who was again queer and wrote historical novels with queer relationships. (Jill Paton Walsh feels too late to be considered as part of the same constellation; on the other hand, her publication dates overlap Sutcliff's and her ancient world owed a visible debt to Renault. If you have not read Farewell, Great King (1972), I apologize for the ten-year-old style of my review, but it shouldn't reflect on the novel, which I still need to own a copy of.) I feel less inclined to chalk it up to differences in politics than differences in id, or perhaps what each was using the historical form for. Mitchison was a lot more interested in women, as characters and historically, than Sutcliff or Renault or, so far for me, Broster.
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Oh, cool. Thanks for the offer!
Yes, I like Sylvia Townsend Warner, too (in fact for Yuletide this year I wrote a crossover between a Mitchison book and a Townsend Warner book). But I've never read Jill Paton Walsh, so thanks for the rec! I do agree that slashiness or otherwise is id, not politics, though politics can of course influence what one writes about otherwise.
Mitchison was a lot more interested in women, as characters and historically, than Sutcliff or Renault or, so far for me, Broster.
Yes, definitely! Broster has some books with stronger female characters than the ones you've read, but overall she's a lot more interested in men.
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I trained as a classicist. I try to use my powers for good.
(in fact for Yuletide this year I wrote a crossover between a Mitchison book and a Townsend Warner book)
AAAAAAAAAAH.
But I've never read Jill Paton Walsh, so thanks for the rec!
You're welcome! She was a prolific author of contemporary and historical fiction in multiple periods and turned out to have written a pair of formative picture books from my childhood; I gravitated mostly toward her classical work, but everything I have read of hers—aside from the Sayers continuations, of which I found the first an interesting experiment and noped hard out of the second and the rest—has been well-done and worthwhile. Skip A Parcel of Patterns (1983) if you are not feeling up for a retelling of the self-quarantine of Eyam during the Great Plague of London in 1665, though.
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I loved it when I read it, and in ten years I've still never seen it in a used book store. I hope you can find it readily and enjoy!
(I understand the experiment of completing Thrones, Dominations, since Sayers had at least left the ending of that one, but I wouldn't have tapped Paton Walsh for it and I wouldn't have gone on afterward. She should be better known for everything else.)