Her characters are so vividly alive, so full of feeling, that you can almost hear their hearts pounding
Historical fact can often lack tangible emotion, but here Carys Davies fills in great swathes of it with the most minimalist of brushstrokesThe Welsh writer Carys Davies has, over the course of three impeccably elegant novels to date, revealed herself as a model of restraint. Each book has been short and concise, with as much happening off the page as on. For her, less is more. Her 2018 debutwas set in a former hill station in southern India.
The two men do not share a common tongue, Ivar speaking in what was already, by the mid 19th century, the mostly lost language of Norn. As he helps Ferguson to convalesce, he teaches him rudimentary words – “gylom” for dense fog, “syora” for black mist, “skerpin” for wind-dried coalfish – and in this way a tentative, and unlikely, bond is formed.
Ivar finds himself overcome by the sudden companionship. “He was not garrulous,” Davies tells us. “He did not speak often, and when he did his sentences were short.” He knew, too, that he’d become increasingly lonely. “He would stand inside the thick stone walls of the house and try to summon the sensation of being surrounded by people he loved.”As each comes to rely increasingly upon the other’s presence, Ferguson’s purpose for being on the island is deferred, and then deferred again.
Historical fact can often lack tangible emotion, but here Davies fills in great swathes of it with the most minimalist of brushstrokes. What she’s produced is an atmospheric marvel, really, because as spare and pared-down asis, it overflows with all the fundamentals of humanity: life, love, connection, empathy. away in their wracked and fragile chests.
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