Clear by Carys Davies

Clear, Carys Davies

Read by the Book Club, March 2025

A short novel about communication, education (academic vs skills) and love - with a very odd ending.

Carys Davies first novel, ‘West’, won a host of prizes so I was very excited to be offered her second novel ‘Clear’ set in 1843 around the Highland Clearances and inspired by Jakob Jakobsen’s Norn dictionary, a now extinct Scottish dialect. There was absolutely masses to talk about in this short novella.

The three main characters are John Ferguson, a Minister who has moved to the newly formed Free Church, an idealist movement which wanted Ministers to be appointed by the Church and not by the big landowners. Ferguson is therefore broke and accepts a position via his wife Mary’s brother-in-law to go to a remote island and remove the remaining inhabitant so the land can be turned to sheep farming. He is offered a gun to take with him. The third character is Ivar, the sole remaining inhabitant of the island.

The novel begins when Ferguson arrives on the island and the chapters are told turn and turn about contrasting the ineptitude of the highly educated Ferguson with the competence of the completely uneducated Ivar. Book Clubbers found a real interest in the use of language as Ferguson and Ivar struggle to communicate. Ferguson’s life work was to be a translation of the gospels into Scots, however the ink washes off the paper when he falls into the sea. He writes the new language which he is learning from Ivar over the top of these now blank pages, perhaps rather a clunky metaphor to mark his new beginning. The language was also interesting in questioning whether language defines what we see or how we speak? Ivar has words which are minutely tuned to island living, able to describe seasonal changes to the smallest plants and remotest places reminding us how fine-tuned the islanders must have been in order to survive.

The character of Mary develops towards the end of the book, and I loved having such a feisty Victorian woman appearing through the pages, again in contrast to her shallow and hypocritical husband.

Davies is very interested in writing in short form, both West and Clear are novellas. This one is also short in it’s setting, spanning a period of only four weeks. Everyone felt that this was far too short a time for everything which happened – and the ending was slightly farcical. In fact there were many farcical moments in ‘Clear’ and I briefly wondered whether this was intentional? One bookclubber criticised the writing as being full of meaningless sentences, but most of us quite enjoyed the first half of the book which was almost nature-writing, roothed to the earth through the language - but felt the ending ran out of steam.

Everyone enjoyed reading a bit more about the Highland Clearances, and it was interesting to be offered a scenario in which these could be seen as a positive by getting the last, lonely islander off the island. The move into a menage-a-trois was perhaps a bit far fetched?

Over all score? Another seven – albeit a low one (6.6).

Helen Scott