Clear

A Novel

De: Carys Davies

Narrado por: Russ Bain

“Tender, riveting, and inventive is Clear, the newest offering and masterpiece from the brilliant Carys Davies. It will take your breath away…What a thrill.” —Sarah Jessica Parker

*Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and NPR*

Winner of the 2024 Bookmark Festival Book of Year
Shortlisted for the 2024 Books Are My Bag Award and the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award
Longlisted for Blackwell’s Book of the Year and the 2024 Saltire Society Literary Award

A “daring and necessary…sophisticated and playful” (The New York Times) novel from an award-winning writer, Clear is the story of a minister dispatched to a remote island to “clear” its last remaining inhabitant—an unforgettable tale of resilience, change, and hope.

John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.

Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. “Clear chronicles the surprising bond that develops between these two men…pack[ing] a great deal of power into a compact tale” (The Wall Street Journal) about connection, home, and hope—in which John begins to learn Ivar’s language, and Ivar sees himself reflected through the eyes of another person for the first time in decades.

Unfolding during the final stages of the infamous Scottish Clearances—a period of the 19th century which saw whole communities of the rural poor driven off the land in a relentless program of forced evictions—this singular novel explores what binds us together in the face of insurmountable difference, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can endure despite all odds. Moving and unpredictable, “a love letter to the scorching power of language” (The Guardian), Clear is “a jewel of a novel” (The Washington Post)—a profound and unforgettable listen.

©2024 Carys Davies (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Perhaps too wishful

Lovely writing and historical details, but I didn’t find the ending credible. The characters act and speak according to current mores, which makes the book feel political rather than literary.

Clear is foreshadowing and irony

Unique book with great characters that leaves you wanting more. We want to know how this looks in a year! Can I be more clear?!?

A tender expression of people struggling against government's decisions to remove tenants from the land

I loved that it showed peoples' true feelings. In spite of government laws and mandates, people find ways to be themselves.

Yes, Another Island Book

This is a short review about a short book. A page-turner of a book that broke my reading slump this November.

Set on a remote island in the North Sea, during a month in the lives of three main characters in 19th century Scotland, Clear has a both a political and an ecumenical background. Scottish law in the mid 19th century allowed for the forced return of small rented plots of land to the landlords, similar to the enclosure laws of England. Of the two main male characters in the novel, John is a minister of a break-away movement from the Church of Scotland. The other is the tenant, Iver. The female is John’s wife. She’s a well-educated empathetic writer who married John in her middle age.

John has been sent to a tiny island in order to prepare tenant Iver - the island’s sole inhabitant - for his upcoming forced eviction. John is doing this short-term project for money, in order to rent a building for the New Scottish church where he plans to have his ministry.

There’s a bit of back and forth about the characters’ lives before the island for the three people whose lives are affected by John’s short project, but the main tug of the book centers on the bond that grows between the two men.

I really enjoyed Clear up to around chapter 30 of 42 short chapters when the denouement begins. It was around that chapter that I felt that the story lost its course. I was spellbound as the two men learned each other’s languages. Iver has never left the island and is the sole survivor of the island’s language. John knows a bit of Scottish but his first language is English. Together John and Iver spend time working out each others’ languages, using gestures and pointing, and eventually John builds up a basic vocabulary. In doing so he develops subtle feelings of betrayal, as he’s learning Iver’s language knowing he’s acquiring it in order to prime Iver for eviction.

What is to become of all this? Mary was against John’s trip from the get-go. She is against the monetary motive but is tolerant of her husband’s aims, even though she’s not particularly religious. Iver has seen a daguerreotype of Mary and has hidden it from John. I read on.

It’s a tale that can have no ending. Or can it? Obviously I can’t say. I found the book to be a much-needed distraction at a time when I needed it. The characters are well-drawn - if - and it’s a big if - you can accept 21st century values as being acceptable to 19th century Victorians. It’s well-crafted, and the reader gets a feel of the island’s environment and how a people’s vocabulary is formed by their unique environments - such as the Inuit’s having seven words for snow, sort-of-thing.

Despite misgivings about the 21st century values, particularly in regard to Mary, for lovers of linguistics and stories of semi-deserted islands this is a book well-worth reading.

Beautiful but Slow

This book is beautifully written and brilliantly narrated. My only issue is how slow the story was. It felt like the conflict in the description was secondary to descriptions and inner thoughts. At points it dragged. I recommend this book if you are very invested in character studies but not if you are one who anticipates plot.

Unusual and touching

Definitely an unusual story. Unique setting and time period, a bit of history, but mostly very touching characters.

Poetic language

Beautiful figurative language makes you feel the sea and hear the birds. Very tight plot. Memorable characters.

Narration is superb

This is the first book I have listened to by this narrator and he did an amazing job right from the start I couldn’t stop listening. Nice touch as well using a Scottish narrator for this book. The story itself isn’t really anything you haven’t seen before, two unlikely people forming an unlikely friendship/bond. However it is really well written and shines a light on a part of history that isn’t very well taught or understood, at least in the US.

Stunning narrative and performance

What a surprising, strange, glorious story. Small and large, large and small. Captivating. If you love northern coastal places, language, and landscape, this is for you.

Exquisite, lovely, moving

Every time I paused this book, it felt like I had to extract myself from a remote cabin on a remote island in 19th century Scotland; the characters and the landscape were that vivid. The language was exquisite and pleasurable to experience. And the arc of the story was affecting and life-affirming. I’m grateful to have learned about The Scottish Clearances, an important and unlovely period of history, in the loveliest possible way.