An utterly beautiful, heart-wrenching, emotive novel that will stay with me for a long time. Carys Davies has produced a work of art with her latest novel 'Clear'. It's a slight book, but it packs a huge punch. Told through the eyes of two men, whose paths cross when one of them is sent to evict the other from a remote Scottish island, as part of the 19th Century Clearances. Ivar has lived a solitary, peaceful existence for years, dreading the time when he will be forced from the only home he's ever known. John is desperate to make a home for himself and his new wife, and believes he has no choice but to follow the orders he's been given. But when John and Ivar meet, the two strike up a close friendship that changes both their lives. A truly extraordinary historical novel, remembering a vanished way of life.

This is such a moving story. It is set in 1843, the year of the Great Disruption when roughly one third of Scottish ministers left their church to form the new Free Church of Scotland. John Ferguson is one of those ministers. He finds himself impoverished as he’s given up his living and the home he shares with his wife to establish this new church. To earn money, he accepts an offer from a landowner’s factor to travel to a remote island in Shetland where he will inform the remaining tenant that he must leave his home forever. Until now, despite reading a great deal about the Lowland and Highland Clearances, I don’t believe I knew that their reach extended to Shetland.

Ivar is the one remaining tenant on the island. The factor hasn’t visited for years. His family have all either died at the fishing or left for Canada. He has been on his own for a long time. His life is harsh but he counts his blessings -

“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” his horse)…..He would soon have John Ferguson too.

This is a beautifully woven story. It introduces us to Norn, a now extinct language that was once widely spoken in the Shetlands, the last known speaker dying in 1850. Ivar speaks only Norn and John speaks only English with a smattering of Scots. Over the weeks they are together, as their relationship deepens so does their knowledge of each other’s languages.

The end of the book comes suddenly and took me by surprise. We don’t know what becomes of any of the characters, Ivar, John and his wife, Mary, but we can suppose. This is a reflective, moving, gentle, well written book that will stay with me for a long time.

With thanks to NetGalley and Granta Publications for a review copy.

Here's a story set during harsh times in a bleak and desolate land, yet written in delicate and beautiful prose. It's hard to tear yourself away from Ivar and John Ferguson; this short book is best to be savoured in one sitting. Many things are left unspoken, maybe that's why it resonates so powerfully with me.
A memorable read, and it reminded me of Claire Keegan.

Clear by Carys Davies tells the story of John Ferguson, a preacher struggling to make ends meet, who is tasked with evicting the last resident of a remote Scottish island—a farmer named Ivar. Set against the backdrop of the Highland Clearances, a dark chapter in Scottish history during the 1700s and 1800s when families were forcibly removed to make way for sheep farming, this novel introduced me to a period of history I was unfamiliar with, yet found fascinating to read.

Ivar has lived in isolation for years, his only companions being his sheep, a horse, and a blind cow. As John hits a barrier in to carrying out his mission, both men gradually pick up words and phrases in each other's language and forge a unique way to understand each other. Anyone learning a language or the art of translation will appreciate the intricacies of their exchange and the process in which they try to communicate.

<I>Not knowing the right words made him feel as far away and separate from Ivar as he had ever felt since the day he'd arrived.</I>

Clear is a short but striking novel, where every word feels deliberate and meaningful. Excited to read more by Carys Davies!

4.5 stars

Have you ever wished that Burial Rites had been written by Claire Keegan? If yes, you are in the right place. If no, you can give this one a miss.

It is mid-19th century, and John, a minister of the new Free Church of Scotland, is struggling financially due to the recent break with the established church. He takes a commission from a local landowner to go and persuade the last inhabitant of a remote Shetland island to give up his land, giving us a glimpse into the realities of the Highland and Island clearances. Ivar, the said last inhabitant, buried his entire family on the island, and his solace is disturbed by the arrival of John. As it is a book written by a white woman in the year of our lord 2025, homoromantic longing ensues. Meanwhile, John's plucky wife Mary is on a quest to rescue her husband from the island ...

Told in three narrative voices (Ivar, John and Mary), this novel excels at creating a sense of place and atmosphere. If you enjoy playing Dear Esther or The Long Dark, you might like the brooding bleak beauty of the island, and the glimpses of urban Scotland we get in Mary's chapters. The novel is reserved and full of half-tones. I felt that Mary's chapters were the most engaging, and her perspective opens up the otherwise insular world of the book. We see snippets of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and other Scottish cities, and learn what life might have been like for a middle-aged and quietly strong-minded bride. The fact that we learn much more of Mary's backstory (compared to John and Ivar) helps her chapters stand out. I wish the entire novel was just about Mary, or at least told entirely from her perspective, it would have made for a more innovative story structure.

Instead, more than two thirds of the narrative follow the non-events on the island. John gets a concussion, and Ivar nurses him back to health. Ivar does not know that John is a landlord's agent; neither is he aware of his mission to dispossess Ivar. Ivar is one of the last speakers of Norn, a Nordic Shetland language, and he slowly teaches John the language. They slowly develop feelings for each other (never descending into open sexual longing, mind you). It is all quite dreary and dull. The gay narrative bears all the signs of being written by a (straight?) cis woman, if you know what I mean. The language is not very exciting; the whole novel is written in standard English (despite making a point of John's complicated relationship with his mother tongue, Scots), and we get occasional words in Norn when John learns them. Ivar was the most disappointing and cliche character for me, often descending into the word type of 'magic minority' (in this case, marginalised islander) trope. He is a gentle giant, untouched and unspoilt by civilization. He is not allowed to have three-dimensional feelings or a personality beyond slowly falling for John. He has few thoughts about his vanished community, or the world beyond his island. He loves his land, and then he loves John. Yawn.

Although the novel is quite well-researched, I felt a hint of exoticisation of 'wild' Scotland (the power dynamic here is complex, as the author is Welsh).

Good prose and sense of place don't compensate for a well-trotted plot and themes.

A short and quiet story, that I found beautiful and atmospheric. The characters were complex and interesting. The afterword filled in the history and language used - which was helpful.

I didn't think this was the sort of book I'd really like, it sounded a bit 'historical' and rather worthy in the description, but it took me totally by surprise when it was such a page turner from about half way through when the wife starts to make her way to the remote island where her husband has been isolated for months. The setting is very darkly atmospheric and I enjoyed the island setting much more than I expected. The harsh poverty of the life there, living with almost no contact with the outside world was fascinating and the cold and the harsh weather was palpably present throughout. But the transformational quality of the experience was what makes the book and makes you want to know more about what happens next to the unique trio and their relationships. It's rare to read a book where you really don't know what will happen next, but where the inevitability of the next series of events seem obvious once you've had them laid out for you. It's hard to explain how good this book is without including a load of spoilers but it's uplifting by the end and it leaves you feeling you know more about something, which is quite a rare quality in a book. Loved it.

*A big thank-you to Carys Davis, Granta Publications, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
Set in 1840s on a remote Scottish island, in the background the novel depicts most complicated fate of people who were forcibly evicted from their farms and had them destroyed in order to make space for sheep to graze. That was a tragic moment in histroy which prompted forced migration and more poverty added to already existing problems.
The novel is short but intense and one of those in which every word counts. Ms Davies knows how to give each sentence a meaning and draw a reader to her prose and characters. This work of fiction was perfectly edited and, to quote a classic, there are just as many words as there should be.