Nataliya's Reviews > Clear

“At this time of year, when it is light for so much of the night, the island feels like an unsleeping place, as if it is only ever dozing through the small hours and nothing could happen anywhere on it, or around it, without it noticing.”

Set in 1843, Clear by Carys Davies gives us a glimpse of Scottish Highland Clearances, with landlords evicting their tenants to turn the lands into more profitable sheep pastures, disregarding the lives and livelihoods of those whose lives meant less than money. Ivar is one of those tenants set to be forcibly evicted, living in solitude as the lone human inhabitant of a small island, speaking a language that is going extinct. The language barrier prevents him initially from realizing that a man he found unconscious and half-dead on the island, Reverend John Ferguson, was sent there to serve the news of the eviction by his landlord. John is a minister of newly established Free Church of Scotland, forced on this errand by poverty and desire to support his wife, Mary, who eventually sets out for the island herself after realizing the danger that may befall John when he confronts Ivar. The story is told in very short chapters through the three perspectives — Ivar, John and Mary — in a novella that is quite brief but somehow doesn’t feel too short.

I can see how it enchanted so many readers. The prose is lovely, simple and yet evocative, wonderfully conveying the feeling of the place, the lonely island in the middle of the unfriendly sea, harsh but beautiful. The story unfolds slowly, unhurriedly, making you feel like you’re right there, on that cold remote bit of land and cliffs among the waves. John Ferguson’s fascination with Ivar’s language, Norn, is portrayed very well. And Ivar’s loneliness stemming from isolation and solitude, and his love blossoming at the first connection with another human being in years is quite poignant.

“There was a word in Ivar’s language for the moment before something happens; for the state of being on the brink of something.
He’d tried several times to explain it using words John Ferguson already knew—with mimes and charades involving the water and the weather—but John Ferguson had never been able to grasp what it was he was trying to tell him.
In due course, John Ferguson will understand it.
In due course, after a fair amount of back-and-forth and to-ing and fro-ing, he will arrive at a precise and succinct definition of it—a definition in which he will give, as examples of the sort of moment it describes, “the last moment before the tide turns; the last moment of day before night begins.”

But — as much as I loved Davies bring the harsh beauty of the island to life, I kept feeling strangely removed from the emotional journey of the two men, especially John. I understood it cerebrally, but the connection to them remained at arm’s length despite me loving the time spent on the island itself and the language musings. It does all the heartstrings-tugging, but doesn’t quite fully get there, maybe because it’s trying so hard.

“It was as if he’d never fully understood his solitude until now—as if, with the arrival of John Ferguson, he had been turned into something he’d never been or hadn’t been for a long time: part brother and part sister, part son and part daughter, part mother and part father, part husband and part wife.”

And another “but” — that ending. That was, by comparison with the book’s slow dreamy pace, unnecessarily abrupt and rushed — and a bit of a cop-out, completely smoothing out the roughness of the pain that any way this story were to unfold otherwise would have brought. It may be hopeful, but the abruptness made it feel unearned, just a way to wrap up the story in a way that could have greatly benefitted from much more bittersweetness or emotional weight of decision. I don’t want a tragic ending; life needs happiness — but the story needed at least a few more pages to help it develop and not ring false.

3.5 stars. Not perfect but sometimes it’s the atmosphere that is needed for a flu-fogged brain.

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