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lonemagpie4) WARRIOR SCARLET by Rosemary Sutcliffe
This is a tricky one to judge. It’s flowing and poetic in its descriptions, and utterly Engrossing in its events and actions as you Drem grows from boyhood to warrior on the South Downs in the Bronze Age. On the other hand its pacing is all over the place (We’re led to prepare, like Drem, for the rigours of his three years training in the Boys’ House, only to be conned with a “two and a half years later” next chapter opening), and there’s odd fantastical elements in the form of the three races- the Golden People, the Dark People, and the Half People.
Is this meant to indicate neanderthals, Picts, Celts, Nordics…? Or a modern view of a more diverse set of visitors? If the latter, it’s only so Drem can be racist towards them anyway, so it doesn’t help much. Drem’s a bit of a dick, actually, even if having a disabled protagonist is a nice change.
From the outset it annoyed me with unexpected uses of Scots words that were out of place, but the biggest problem it has is the unavoidable one that so much more has been discovered about Bronze Age Britain in the past 60 years or so since it was written. Since there was less known at the time, Sutcliffe has brought in all sorts of bits from Bronze Age civilisations around Europe. She might sell this to us as being about the South Downs, but the whole Boys House thing with the requirement to slay a wolf in order to earn a warrior’s scarlet robe has me going “THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!”
Shame, really, cos much of it is really good. It does actually deserve a proper screen adaptation taking more recent archaeological discoveries into account. Oh, there are distinctive illustrations here and there too.
This is a tricky one to judge. It’s flowing and poetic in its descriptions, and utterly Engrossing in its events and actions as you Drem grows from boyhood to warrior on the South Downs in the Bronze Age. On the other hand its pacing is all over the place (We’re led to prepare, like Drem, for the rigours of his three years training in the Boys’ House, only to be conned with a “two and a half years later” next chapter opening), and there’s odd fantastical elements in the form of the three races- the Golden People, the Dark People, and the Half People.
Is this meant to indicate neanderthals, Picts, Celts, Nordics…? Or a modern view of a more diverse set of visitors? If the latter, it’s only so Drem can be racist towards them anyway, so it doesn’t help much. Drem’s a bit of a dick, actually, even if having a disabled protagonist is a nice change.
From the outset it annoyed me with unexpected uses of Scots words that were out of place, but the biggest problem it has is the unavoidable one that so much more has been discovered about Bronze Age Britain in the past 60 years or so since it was written. Since there was less known at the time, Sutcliffe has brought in all sorts of bits from Bronze Age civilisations around Europe. She might sell this to us as being about the South Downs, but the whole Boys House thing with the requirement to slay a wolf in order to earn a warrior’s scarlet robe has me going “THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!”
Shame, really, cos much of it is really good. It does actually deserve a proper screen adaptation taking more recent archaeological discoveries into account. Oh, there are distinctive illustrations here and there too.