(no subject)

[skygiants]

genarti and I were in Scotland recently -- I was there primarily for a work event, but we managed to snatch a little bit of time around the edges to do some extracurricular activities, including really extremely delightful meetups with raven and happydork and such_heights and innerbrat!

We also had one stolen day to ourselves to ourselves in which we drove up into the Highlands and scoped out a castle with extensive grounds, which contained a really perfect beautifully-low-branched tree, perfect for perching in and reading.

ME: okay the gates do shut in an hour so perhaps we can't stay here in the tree and read long but I did get Flight of the Heron out of the library SPECIFICALLY to read descriptions of Beautiful Scottish Highlands and if I don't get to at least start it in this tree in the middle of the Highlands it truly will seem like a waste --
genarti: no you are right, this is so necessary. Also it's even better than that because one of the protags is English and so all his descriptions of the Highlands are "I hate these miserable hills, why is everything so steep, why can't land just be FLAT --"

Anyway, so Flight of the Heron! Which many of you know about already as a solid chunk of my dwlist went absolutely ham for this book over the past few years, but for those who don't, it's a Highly Romantic and Pleasingly Homoerotic Narrative from the 1920s about two Opponents whose Fates Become Intertwined during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion -- cheerful, heroic, devastatingly handsome Highlander Ewen Cameron takes snippy and cynical Englishman Keith Windham prisoner in the early days of the war when everything is going well for Bonnie Prince Charlie and his troops, and treats him so charmingly that Keith develops an immediate snippy crush, and then they go through a period of variously outwitting each other on High-Spirited Escapades. Then as everything about the war gets worse their interactions become increasingly serious and fraught with risk and potential betrayal and the unparalleled high of defying unprincipled superior officers in order to race through the night and nurse an enemy prisoner that you're obsessed with back to health in a frozen shack For The Sake Of Honour. Extremely enjoyable, absolutely recommended if you enjoy a.) the bits of the Scarlet Pimpernel books where Chauvelin obsesses about Percy Blakeney's shoulders while Percy is outwitting him and/or b.) the bits of Kidnapped where they're on the run and Alan has to carry a sick David through the heather.

Comments

[lirazel]

That trip sounds lovely!!! And of course you had to take advantage of the tree!

so all his descriptions of the Highlands are "I hate these miserable hills, why is everything so steep, why can't land just be FLAT --"

Lol, the exact opposite of my feelings on life. (Flat land freaks me out!)

[zero_pixel_count]

Re: flatlands - there is definitely such a thing as 'too much sky' imo... :)

[flemmings]

Auden had a take on this:

I cannot see a plain without a shudder: "Oh God, please, please don't ever make me live there."

Prairies of course are even worse.

[genarti]

I love and respect a prairie as an ecosystem, but emotionally I... it's not that it's too big or that I get acrophobic or anything, but I just keep going, "Who did this weird photoshopping to the horizon??? What kind of weird optical illusion is making it look FLAT?" I've always lived among hills except when I lived among mountains, so my hindbrain doesn't quite believe it's possible to have a horizon that doesn't rumple up and down in geologically dramatic layers.

[genarti]

I loved his cranky comments on the hills because they were so absolutely unfathomable to me! I understand that if I were trying to march a column of men through hostile territory in the Scottish Highlands I too would be grumpy about the difficulties of the landscape, but nonetheless, it was such a hilarious moment of alien mindset to me, lol.

[skygiants]

genarti is absolutely right that the flipping POVs in the book from "MY SOUL LONGS FOR THE LOCHS AND MOUNTAINS OF MY HEART" to "ugh. topography. disgusting" is extremely, extremely funny

(I personally am very pleased with a hill ... I don't know that I've ever been anywhere flat enough to be unnerved by it but conceptually I can easily see that it might happen!)

[lirazel]

the flipping POVs in the book from "MY SOUL LONGS FOR THE LOCHS AND MOUNTAINS OF MY HEART" to "ugh. topography. disgusting" is extremely, extremely funny

Just this description is extremely funny! I am delighted!