pickA beautifully written story of the heart wrenching history of the Highland Clearances in Scotland. The story is written from a lonely old woman‘s point of view.
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Consider the Lilies | 
pickA beautifully written story of the heart wrenching history of the Highland Clearances in Scotland. The story is written from a lonely old woman‘s point of view.
pickWhile set during the Highland Clearances, this isn't really about them, rather it's a character portrait of 70 year-old Mary Scott, and the family and cultural influences that lead her to be living a lonely, embittered existence. The Clearances are a shock, causing Mary to confront her assumptions about social and religious authority, to re-evaluate her life relationships, and her moral judgements about her neighbours. A resounding 5/5 🌟
"The truth? What's that? Don't you know that the day has come when the truth is what we care to make it?"
The quote is from the tagged book, written in 1968 about events in the 1820s, which resonate with a book written in 1948 about the 1980s, all of which feels relevant to 2019 ☹
Next up - elderly Scottish woman reminisces about her life as she struggles to understand the cruel eviction of the crofters from their homes and livelihoods during the Highland Clearances of the early nineteenth century. According to the introduction, Smith denied it is an historical novel as he knowingly takes liberties with what actually happened in order to serve his poetic vision. Something to keep in mind as I read.
