“I have the cliffs and the skerries and the birds. I have the white hill and the round hill and the peaked hill. I have the clear spring water and the rich good pasture that covers the tilted top of the island like a blanket. I have the old black cow and the sweet grass that grows between the rocks, I have my great chair and my sturdy house. I have my spinning wheel and I have the teapot and I have Pegi, and now, amazingly, I have John Ferguson too.”
A stark and beautiful exploration of solitude, repression, and religion, "Clear" is a masterpiece of understated intensity. Carys Davies channels inner emotion and turmoil with little to no reliance on dialogue, employing the Scottish isle as another character.
“In the old days, the minister had read to them from the Bible in a language they didn’t understand, and then shouted at them in a terrible approximation of their own tongue.”
The travails of John Ferguson, his wife, and island hermit Ivar are absorbing, ushered along by Davies's mastery of flow and rhythm. The cloistered atmosphere becomes nearly claustrophobic, as the emotional tension becomes nearly unbearable at times.
“He wanted urgently, suddenly, to know the answer, to be able to describe things as they were instead of only guessing at them.”
I will admit that I did find myself wondering why John never went back to the Barries house for supplies, food, or clues. Outside of that nit, this book was one of my top reads of the year, even though much of it took place while waiting at my son's soccer practice.
"Clear" uses few words to pack an emotional punch you'll feel for a long time after reading.
“It was as if all three were carrying inside themselves the delicate balance of what they were doing, and were afraid to disturb it in any way.”
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