Category: Readers

For those parents out there who want their children to move on from J K Rowling

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Robin Rowland used to write a blog about his writing life (he was a TV journalist) called The Garret Tree. Some eight years ago he posted “When I waited for Rosemary Sutcliff”. 

When I was a kid, Rosemary Sutcliff was my J. K. Rowling. In the early 1960s, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next Sutcliff. I lived in northern British Columbia and the waiting involved finding out when the book would arrive in the public library. In Kitimat, British Columbia, a town carved out of the bush, there were no bookstores. The local variety store and the stationary store both carried popular paperbacks delivered at the same time as magazines. 

For me, Rosemary Sutcliff created a world just as magic as Rowling’s. Somewhat like Hogwarts and Harry it was an alternative British universe. Many of her books followed one scattered family for a millennium or more, through the history of Britain from the ancient Celts through the Roman conquest and occupation, the collapse of the empire, the Saxon invasion and into the Middle Ages. It was both familiar (especially since my parents were British) and  Read More »

Re-discovering Rosemary Sutcliff

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Reader Angela Roemelt posted at the You Write! tab on this blog a few days back – sorry I missed it, caught up with work demands :

I can totally relate to …  experience of rediscovery . I have read many of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books as a child and teenager. I started re-reading them a couple of years ago as a ‘mid-fortyager’ and it was like meeting old friends. visiting old places, but seeing them now from a different perspective. Read More »

Facebook commenters on Rosemary Sutcliff books | What read? | Why loved?

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

In September last year I posted at my parallel Rosemary Sutcliff Facebook page:

…a warm welcome to all who have ‘liked’ here in recent weeks …. I want to collect comments from people here about Rosemary, her books, what you have read, and why you love it…Comment away here and please do share this request.

People wrote as follows: Read More »

Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth | A source of ‘enjoyment and provocation’

Anthony Lawton4 Comments

I am not persuaded that this commentator correctly characterises Esca’s relationship with Marcus in Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth. Rosemary’s view of the slave-master relationship is not a ‘romantic’ one. Nor did the film The Eagle ‘fail’, although it was not as successful in the eyes of all the critics and with audiences as was intended by the makers! But there is ‘a lot of … provocation’ to be gained from the comments as well as the book!

I love ancient Roman history but Sutcliff writes so clearly and articulately that I don’t think a young reader, without knowledge of this period, is at a real disadvantage, except maybe in terms of their interest. Americans are predominantly interested in American history, of course, and there is a long and very rich tradition of children’s American historical fiction. A lot of it focuses on the slave experience, but Eagle takes the opposite view. Here, perhaps, is where the book might run into trouble with a non-British readership: Esca, Marcus’ slave, is written quite romantically, as a devoted indentured servant who would follow his owner to the ends of the earth. This is very out of sync with most modern literature (for obvious reasons) and really dates the book. It is a unique challenge for young readers to imagine this story from Esca’s perspective, and I think a really valuable exercise. The somewhat-recent film version starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell is decidedly not child-friendly but at the same time works to rectify these elements.

I truly believe that this element of the book should not stop modern readers from enjoying this text. Maybe it’s a bit optimistic of me, but I really do think that there’s a lot of enjoyment and provocation to be gained from this book and I hope that the failure of the film (well… I liked it… no one else did) doesn’t dissuade you from enjoying it. ★ ★ ★ ★ /5

Source: presenting… books!

There is a noble dog in many Rosemary Sutcliff books

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Katherine Langrish, a fantasy author, wrote at her   Seven Miles of Steel Thistles about dogs in the work of Rosemary Sutcliff. Indeed  she wondered in a note to me if perhaps Rosemary wrote about dogs as a way of owning them … I think not, at least not in the absence of any  ‘real’ ones of her own, because Rosemary did own beloved dogs, including Sophie who we looked after for ten years after Rosemary’s death.

Historical fiction and dogs make me think immediately of Rosemary Sutcliff, whose books I devoured as a child. Sutcliff – who must easily win the title of Britain’s most loved writer of junior historical fiction – loved dogs, and there is a noble dog in many of her books – Whitethroat in Warrior Scarlet, Argos in Brother Dusty Feet – but for me the most iconic is Dog (Dawn Wind, 1961), the young war-hound that the boy Owain finds by moonlight on the ruins of the battlefield:

…it was something alive in the cold echoing emptiness of a dead world. It stood with one paw raised, looking at him, and Owain called, hoarsely, with stiff lips and aching throat: ‘Dog! Hai! Dog!’ … [It] came, slowly and uncertainly… once it stopped altogether; then it finished at the run and next instant was trembling against his legs. He was a young dog; the beautiful creamy hair of his breast-patch was stained and draggled, and his muzzle bloody in the moonlight… ‘Dog, aiee, dog, we are alone then. There’s no one else. We will go together, you and I.’