Book Review – Clear by Carys Davies

About the Book

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep.

Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them.

Meanwhile on the mainland, John’s wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission.

Format: ebook (149 pages) Publisher: Granta
Publication date: 7th March 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Clear is set on a remote Scottish island during the Highland Clearances, a period in which much of the rural population of the Scottish Highlands and Islands was forcibly evicted from the land to make way for the much more profitable large scale grazing of sheep.

John Ferguson accepts the task of travelling to the island to evict (‘clear’) its sole inhabitant, Ivar, who has lived alone there for many years. For John the task is borne out of financial necessity in order to earn the funds to establish a new church.

His wife, Mary, has doubts about the morality of the mission, mindful of the human impact of what John has been tasked to do. ‘Into her mind a picture came of this vast emptying-out – a long grey and never-ending procession of tiny figures snaking their way like a river through the country. She saw them moving away with quiet resignation, leading animals and small children, carrying tools and furniture and differently sized bundles, and when at last they disappeared she saw the low houses they’d left behind, roofless hearths open to the rain and the wind and the ghosts of the departed while sheep nosed between the stonework, quietly grazing’. She also worries for John’s safety, prompting her to embark on her own journey. I loved the little details the author gives us about her life, meaning she never feels like a character on the periphery.

When John is injured shortly after reaching the island and rendered unconscious, Ivar takes in what is a complete stranger and tends to him. There are moments of great intimacy as Ivar, who seems to sleep only rarely, keeps watch over John and cares for his bodily needs. Close proximity born out of necessity becomes companionship as John recovers his bodily strength, and then develops into something more for both men. John, though, is plagued with guilt that Ivar does not know his true reason for coming to the island, a mission that will uproot Ivar from everything he has known.

I loved the role that language plays in the book. Initially, John and Ivar cannot communicate; Ivar speaks little if no English and John knows nothing of the language Ivar speaks. (The author has based this on Norn, a long extinct language once spoken on the islands of Orkney and Shetland.) They have to communicate in gestures until, little by little, John begins to learn some words. He marvels at how, in Ivar’s language, a word can often have more than one meaning. It’s an immensely descriptive language with many words for different weather conditions, for example.

The writing is simply beautiful, especially the descriptions of the island. ‘There were days when the mist fell like a cloak on to the island’s shoulders; when rain fell in big, coarse drops, melting the soil into a soft brown soup; when a cold, light wind blew over the ground, making the bogs shiver.’

The author resists the temptation to provide an unambiguous resolution to the story, instead leaving the reader to imagine the future lives of the three characters.

Clear is a tender love story, a hymn to a lost way of life and to the raw beauty of the natural world.

I received a review copy courtesy of Granta Books via NetGalley.

In three words: Poetic, intimate, moving
Try something similar: The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford

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About the Author

Carys Davies’s debut novel, West, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner-up for the McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel, The Mission House, was first published in the UK in 2020 where it was The Sunday Times Novel of the Year.

She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and is a member of the Folio Academy. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.

Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.

Connect with Carys
Website | Goodreads