4.5/5 What stunned me most about this book was Davies' writing. So much was said with so few words--which simulates what happened in this novel. Ivar, a man living in solitude for years on a remote Scottish island, meets John, the hired minister who's going to tell him he has to leave due to the Highland Clearances. Both learn to communicate in sparse language and discover companionship in one another. Davies' sparse prose captures the lush and isolated landscape as well as the need for human connection. I will carry this story with me for a while. ( )

Davies gives her readers a stark fairy tale that pits religiosity and greed against goodness and morality. Reverend John Ferguson’s principled split from the Church of Scotland puts him in financial straits. Working for a greedy landowner who wants to evict a crofter from his land for better profits forces Ferguson to compromise his moral beliefs. John is ill-equipped for the task in a number of ways. He is not used to roughing it. He has no common language. And his nature is just too empathetic for the cruelty that would be required. He has a one month deadline to get the job done .

Ever since his family either died off or left, Ivar has been living alone on an isolated rock somewhere between Shetland and Norway. He has not been making his required payments to the landowner and essentially seems to have been forgotten. He is a shy and gentle man who is both thoughtful and quite resourceful. The need to nurse John following his accident seems to relieve Ivar’s suppressed need for human contact. Davies provides a powerful example of this need with Ivar’s unusually strong attraction to the image of John’s wife, Mary, that he finds among his possessions.

Notwithstanding their desperate financial situation, Mary is reluctant to see John take the treacherous journey to the island. In the end, she also succumbs to a fear that he may be injured by an irate crofter and thus embarks on a rescue mission.

Tension ratchets up when John begins to face the eviction deadline. Unknown to him, Mary also is on her way and will insist on their leaving. During their time together, Ivar has shown John nothing but kindness and understanding. Their efforts to communicate without a common language draws them closer and represents a major achievements in Davies’ storytelling.

The narrative is quite lovely. Davies captures the austere, but stunning setting with evocative language and images. Using very short chapters with voices alternating between the two men works well to show how their relationship flowers. These are interspersed with chapters depicting John and Mary’s backstories as well as her challenging voyage from Aberdeen to the island. Although some might find the ending both rushed and unusual for the times, others may see it as an uplifting resolution to what would otherwise be the type of grim outcome that often accompanies corporate greed. Clearly, it is in keeping with John’s persona. ( )

John Ferguson is a newlywed minister without a congregation. He was part of the 1843 split with the Church of Scotland in which ministers opposed the patronage system That allowed landowners to appoint local pastors. They formed the Free Church of Scotland, but most of them also lost their livings, at least until they could rally a congregation. Short on cash, John accepts as assignment from a local land broker: sail to an island in the far north Hebrides and remove the last human resident. This was part of a wide-ranging plan to move longtime leaseholders off the land and free it up for other uses, mainly sheep. The journey is hard, and John is left on the island with a dilapidated house that has no furnishings except a small table and a three-legged stool. In the box he brings are a cake his wife made, a few assorted cans of food, and a gun and ammunition. He has been told that the local inhabitant, a large man who is not too bright, will resist being taken from his home.

The land is rugged and uneven, and as he bathes in a river, John takes a steep fall. When Ivar, the local man, makes his daily rounds, he finds bits and pieces: a torn jacket, a woman's likeness in a carved frame, and a battered, naked, unconscious man. He takes John home and tends to him, unaware that this is the man sent by the land broker. Ivar becomes fascinated with the woman in the picture frame: he knows this must be the man's wife, but he hides the picture behind a teapot on a high shelf. Ivar knows only a few words of English, so when John awakens, he begins writing down words in Ivar's almost-extinct language, learned by gestures and pantomimes. There comes a moment when, Ivar loses interest in the woman in the portrait because, he realizes unexpectedly, something has happened between himself and John.

The book alternates between the points of view of John, Ivar, and Mary, John's wife. I found the descriptions of the island and Ivar's simple way of life interesting, but I have to admit that the ever-growing list of Ivar's words got a bit tedious. The author made a great choice in focusing some chapters on Mary, a rather independent woman who was satisfied with her pastimes and never expected to marry. She plays an important role in the story, particularly its ending. I quite enjoyed this book and will be looking for more by Carys Davies. ( )

Poor preacher John Ferguson decides to make some money by helping a landlord evict Ivar from the island he’s lived on his entire life. When John is shipwrecked and injured, Ivar nurses him back to health and teaches John his language. Meanwhile John’s wife decides something has gone wrong, sells her wedding ring, and sets out to fetch him. There are many ways this book could have gone and I wasn’t keen on the direction it took. I also struggled with the audiobook and the sequence of events being mixed up. Normally it doesn’t bother me, but sometimes I struggled with the narrator’s accent causing me to struggle more with the sequence. Once I got used to the narrator, whose accent was lovely even if I didn’t always understand him, it was fine. Lovely descriptions and Mary was so sweet. I also loved Peggy the horse, the blind cow, and even the sheep. ( )

An externally stark but internally rich, lovely short tale set against the backdrop of the Clearances in nineteenth-century Scotland. Clear is a story about upheaval, where sustenance is found on both common and uncommon ground, and it navigates themes of comfort, change, and the search for fulfillment in the most remote expanses of place and spirit. It is also a compact love letter to lost language and communication across physical, emotional, regional, and socio-economic boundaries. A tightly-knit opus that needs no further introduction or conclusion; Davies guides us over the crest of but one perfectly-formed, undulating whitecap in a fathomless northern sea. ( )