50 Book Challenge: book 47
The Eagle of the Ninth – Rosemary Sutcliff
Phew. Straight from Marcus Didius Falco’s pre-Olympic adventures, set in AD78 or so, to the tale of a lost legion commander’s son, stationed in gloomy British Isca Dumnoniorum (that’s Exeter to you, mate) round about AD130. And, like the Falco series, this is seriously good writing packaged as something else. That is, if you happen to be narrow-minded enough to think that reading things like genre fiction and children’s fiction are somehow beneath you. There’s another connection apart from the fact that both heroes are called Marcus – Falco’s unlucky regiment, the Second Augusta, appears to have once been stationed at the very fort that the 18-year-old Marcus Flavius Aquila is busy defending at the start of this story. It’s a small world, that of Romano-British fiction, innit? Anyway, I digress. On to the book.
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It’s a remarkable book, actually; another one that leaves you struggling to understand how it got classified as exclusively children’s literature in the first place. Most distinctive is the visual, descriptive style of the writing with a powerful emphasis on colour. Rosemary Sutcliff was an artist, a painter of miniatures, as well as a novelist and this quality in her writing is usually ascribed to her being an artist. As well as the visual nature of her writing there is a powerful sense of place and a very well-crafted, absorbing story with an incredible depth of character and a marvellous exploration of the relationship between the protagonists – an injured soldier who will never march with the legions again and a captive British slave who’s got himself sent to the arena. The plot is very nicely judged – a long, slow build-up through the first half and then a race to the finish that’s fraught with suspense. Sutcliffe has the ability to bring history to life in a way that not many authors can boast. This is excellent stuff and it’s helped along nicely by the fact that much of the story takes place in Calleva Atrebatum, the Roman city of not-quite-Reading (well, Silchester, if you want to be strictly accurate). I’ve attended several digs, sat through many lectures and peered at mosaics and other artefacts in Reading Museum in the service of learning more about this fascinating settlement and have walked round the walls many times – so it was pleasingly easy to visualise these sections of the book.
But I have a confession. I chose not to read the last chapter, so ten pages of this book remain uncompleted. The reason? I’m very glad I picked it up – but I felt I could see the way the story was going to be tied up – it was fairly well-telegraphed – and I hated it. I found it so contrived and unconvincing in comparison with the rest of the tale that I preferred not to spoil my enjoyment by reading it. I chose to let the story lie where I felt it finished, with the fate of the lost Eagle resolved. Since I am free to apply my own rules to the 50 Book Challenge I intend to think about the 206 pages I did read, and not the 10 I didn’t, and count it towards the total. This comes strongly recommended whether or not you feel you’d choose to do the same as me. Whether this means I don’t read the rest of the series is something I shall now have to think about.
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