Clear is a beautifully written story about two strangers who come together with no obvious means of communication. One is a poor Scottish minister who takes a job to remove the one remaining occupant of a remote northern island. If not for this intersection of events in Scotland, these men would never have met. The book is a fascinating and mesmerizing read.

What a simple, joyful story. A pair of souls are separated and so each is dissatisfied with Life. Neither knows the other exists. As the wheels of Fate catch and shudder away in the eternal darkness of chimrie (Heaven in Norn), bringing Ivar the endling of his people, and John the prodigal son of the Presbyterian faith, into their close communion, the story moves its calm inexorable way forward. Every time Ivar speaks in his dying tongue (Norn went extinct around 1850 in reality), John strains to learn what his words mean, what they describe and therefore come to form in John's mind.

The fact that John, clergyman, does this work is very telling. That he does it with the man he's been sent to dispossess of his lifelong home is...crucial. That he does this work with this man after taking this job to support Mary, his newly-wed wife, left behind on mainland Scotland; that he has sided with the anti-capitalists in the Disruption of 1843 and reluctantly took this job anyway; all these details add up to an ending that I found deeply moving, satisfying, and intensely soothing. I'm not going to spoil it for you because Author Carys makes it into quite the reveal.

I do not for a second believe it could have ended this way. I am sure it could have happened this way, though. But...well...1843, Presbyterians, human jealousy...it was a huge stretch for me to get over even one of those hurdles to accept that situation as presented as the ending of the story.

I will not downgrade this beautifully written fairy tale for lacking verisimilitude. I will go with the logic that Author Carys employs, and recommend the same course to you in your own read of the story.

Which, it being a short, fast read with the kind of language use that makes me wish this is what y'all called poetry, should be done soonest.

*NB: the blogged review has links to sources of more information

Thank you to Scribner, Net Galley and the author for the ARC.

My Goodreads rating can be found here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6380420592

I am so conflicted about rating this book. I planned on giving it 5 stars up until the 85% mark when things took a major turn. However, I can’t say that I regret reading it because the sense of place and the beautiful prose were so good that I can almost forgive the ending. In fact, I am going to make up my own ending and pretend that’s how it went - it just means that I’ll have to give a disclaimer when recommending this book so that no one thinks I enjoyed that left turn.

I love the way this book explored language and the delight of digging deeper into how words come to be, as well as the role that one’s surroundings play in shaping their language. This passage stood out to me especially:
“He wondered, looking at the columns of words, none of which he could read—neither the ones on the left in John Ferguson’s tongue nor the ones on the right in his own—if there was a word in John Ferguson’s language for the excitement he felt when he ran his finger down the line between the two columns of words, which seemed to him to connect their lives in the strongest possible way—words for “milk” and “stream” and the flightless blue-winged beetle that lived in the hill pasture; words for “halibut” and “byre” and the overhand knot he used in the cow’s tether; words for “house” and “butter,” for “heather” and “whey,” for “sea wrack” and “chicken.”

A recent episode of @whatshouldireadnext discussed quiet novels — how fitting, as the entire time I was reading CLEAR I was stuck by the quietness of it all. Literally (the only two inhabitants on the island don’t speak the other’s language), tonally (quiet, quietly are used a whopping 21 times in a book less than 200 pages!), visually (foggy shores, misty sea spray), as the girlies say ✨ the vibes are vibin’ ✨

Set in 1843 near the end of the Scottish Clearances (a part of history I hadn’t heard about until this book), CLEAR follows two men, a minister tasked with evicting a farmer from the remote island he calls home. Shortly after arriving, John suffers a nasty fall and in being nursed back to health by Ivar, the pair form a surprising bond.

Ivar spends his days at his spinning wheel, weeding his garden, roaming the island with his old horse. John has his wife and his church. As John’s strength returns, the two men find themselves in a comfortable existence, going for walks, crafting a simple dictionary and slowly learn to communicate.

The men take turns cooking dinner, dancing around the fire. Were it not for the reasons behind John’s arrival on the island, this would make for a cozy read. Even the ending, a scene that in the hands of another author would be action-packed and loud, had a hopeful quality to it.

Despite its tiny size, CLEAR was a powerful, beautiful tale — you’re doing something right if you get cover blurbs from Claire Fuller, Hernan Diaz, Anthony Doerr, and Annie Proulx! While I’m shocked it took this long for Davies to fall under my radar, I’m thrilled to have a ready-made backlist to dive into; she sounds very much like an author who would write specifically for *me*. Sometimes it’s the quiet novels that speak the loudest — do yourself a favor and grab a copy!

Carys Davies' Clear is one of those deceptively brief, simple reads that can leave readers thinking that nothing much is going on. In fact, all kinds of things are going on, but they're presented on a human, rather than an epic, scale. So, things going on: the split in the Church of Scotland, when a significant proportion of ministers left the established church to form a new church in which clerical livings were not dependent on the whims of rich land owners; the clearing of public lands and small holdings in order to capitalize on the much-less-labor-intensive and much-more-profitable (for a small number of landowners) grazing of sheep; and the loss of small, localized languages and the cultures they represented, particularly on islands off of Scotland that had isolated populations.

Davies brings these issues into intersection with one another in a novel set in the mid-19th Century that focuses on a Scots minister who has left the established church and the last crofter on a North Sea island. John Ferguson, the minister, is anxious about money having left the established church. He takes an unusually well-paying job—removing Ivar from the only home he's ever known—without really thinking through the implications of his actions. When John is badly injured shortly after arriving on the island, and before he has made his purpose clear to Ivar, Ivar takes on John's care, nurturing John over a period of months as he heals.

The two build an unusual and deep friendship, despite their lack of a common language. John begins work on a dictionary of the language Ivar speaks, and the two gradually become able to communicate increasingly complex and subtle ideas. But John knows that eventually a ship will be landing at the island assuming John has prepared Ivar for his relocation—which is much more an exile than a change of setting.

Davies' novel moves slowly, with much of the action being interior—the thoughts John and Ivar have that they cannot or do not want to communicate to one another. This is a book that can be read in an evening, but will stick with readers for a long, long time. Read it when you're ready for careful observation and alert to nuance.

If you're so inclined, you can use Clear as a lens to consider the growing wealth gaps in the present day. Davies doesn't address this theme directly, but I felt it rising again and again as I worked my way through Clear. How does a society get to a point where a very few can dispossess the great many? What are the myriad losses we suffer as a result?

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I truly enjoyed living in the world of this book while I read. It feels so cinematic and so tender. The end felt a bit jumbled together in some ways, I think it could have ended a tiny bit more abruptly OR had more substance and context (as far as the decision of the wife in regards to the relationship she stumbles upon). Regardless, what a worthwhile read!

I had never heard of the Scottish Clearances and also didn’t know about the contention between the different church denominations in 1840 Scotland. As I understand, because of the contention, John, a minister, has little money because he has few members in his church. To supplement his income he takes on the job of evicting a remaining solitary tenant, Ivar, from a landlords island. This task is made almost impossible when John has a terrible accident and additionally can’t understand Ivan’s language.

I enjoyed seeing the island through John’s eyes. The descriptions are written beautifully. I could “see” the island and “feel” the atmosphere. The descriptions of Ivar’s food and daily activities were very interesting. I was drawn in by this gentle story and couldn’t wait to find out the ending.

That’s where I had to suspend my belief. It seemed very contrived and out of character for a staunch, religious man who felt that even dancing was a sin. The addition of the wife coming to find her beloved husband and delightfully accepting the situation seemed unreal.

If it weren’t for the ending I would have given the book 5 stars but it just didn’t seem real. Especially in the 1840’s.

Many thanks to Carys Davies and Scribner for the ARC via NetGalley.

Wow. Davies does and says SO much about so many things in the quietest little way. In under 200 pages, I deeply got to know two men despite very little happening or being said. What a rarity and credit to Davies. This is spectacular.

The title related and really explained this book. Very well, but as you read it, you can see why the author picked this title.. This was an interesting part of Scotland's history.How the wealthy people were forcing these people off because they wanted to have sheep farms. John the minister was part of this and he lived on a manner but he wanted to be part of the freedom so he joined the other ministers and so he had to find a way to live. He traveled all over Scotland to preach.Andy had a wife named mary. Mary was a very interesting character because she married very late in life and she had a lot of opinions. John's family really do not like her because she did not have children and she chose not to stay home. She struggled with john all the time. John accepted this job job to make money to go to the island to invict JV.A c. He lived on.
This island by himself and he had no family nobody.He was old and cantankerous. The Manor house. Was always Vacant because the owners never lived there. They wanted the land for sheep farming.So they wanted this man off the island. So john shows up and things went really S o u t h. He fell off a cliff barely survived but this man bought him back to life. I v a c really liked his company and they got along really well. Ivan went into the manor house and he found out what john was really up to. He liked Mary's picture which John had done before he left for the island.. Things got very tense after that. It has a different type of ending you will not believe. This is part history and part love story. How people to this day you can go to scotland and see the Homes where people related live and they were forced off the lamp.

Clear by Carys Davies is a short little novel about an isolated man who comes in contact with a desperate minister who must remove him from his island. It's set in 1843 on a fictional island north of the Shetland Islands, and takes place during two events in Scotland's history: the break of about 400 Presbyterian ministers from Scotland's system of patronage, and the Clearances, when rural poor families were removed from their homes by landowners for crops, cattle, and sheep.

Ivar, the last man standing on this island, speaks a different language (the book has a glossary) than the minister John Ferguson. The minister leaves his wife, Mary, behind on the mainland. We follow these three people through the month that this story takes place, and I thought it was intriguing. It felt, as I saw another reviewer say, like this would be a book you'd read for a literature class and discuss. The way the title of the book makes itself a theme in many ways throughout is interesting, whether it's referring to the weather, the ocean, the communication, or the emotions. The building tension and isolation, and the ways they presented themselves, were also really interesting as I read it.

It ended a bit abruptly, and it wasn't as shocking or exciting as I was bracing myself for it to be, so that's why it didn't hit that five-star read mark. But I could easily see myself re-reading this and getting something different from it again and again.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for giving me advanced reader access to this title in exchange for an honest review. It publishes tomorrow!! April 2, 2024.

Davies's delivers an unforgettable novel in a small package in Clear, her latest offering. Set in 1843 on a remote island similar to those found in the Orkneys and Shetlands, the novel focuses on the story of impoverished minister John Fergusen, who has joined the Free Church movement that broke from the Church of Scotland. Out of desperation, having no money with which to build a church, or indeed, with which to support himself and his wife, Mary, John accepts a paying job to travel to the island to clear it of its last inhabitant. This job flies in the face of his basic morals and requires him to confront the unknown inhabitant and to take a gun along. Once on the island he quickly loses his way - in many ways - and ends up being rescued by Ivar, the island's remaining inhabitant. Ivar nurses him back to health, during which time John learns and records in his journal, many basic words of the unique dying language Ivar uses; the two build a close relationship. Back at home, Mary's worry about John's safety feeds into her own growing desperation; she sells her wedding ring and undertakes a journey that brings her to the island and the climax of this engrossing story. The story is told through the perspectives of each of its three characters. Davies writes with confident mastery. The language she uses to describe the setting is absolutely gorgeous and mesmerizing; the language she uses to advance the plot works with equal effect as the reader experiences the moral dilemma that John faces as if it were their own. Readers who appreciate excellent literary fiction, readers who are fans of historical fiction, and readers in search of an offbeat yet very rewarding novel will all be more than satisfied with Clear. Highly recommended.

"Clear" by Carys Davies is an unforgettable exploration of human connection and the transformative power of unexpected bonds. Set against the backdrop of the final stages of the Scottish Clearances in the 1840s, the novel follows John, a minister struggling to support him and himself and his wife Mary. When John accepts a job to travel to a remote island north of Scotland and evict its last occupant, he embarks on a life-changing journey.

Upon arriving on the island, John suffers an accident, and Ivar, the sole inhabitant, nurses him back to health despite their inability to communicate due to language barriers. Over time, they forge a deep bond that transcends language and their differences, all while John grapples with the guilt of his true purpose on the island.

Davies masterfully explores connection, love, and the transformative power of empathy. This has been the easiest 5 stars I’ve given so far this year — “Clear” and it’s characters will not be easy to forget.

Clear tells the story of two men, one that lives alone in a Scottish island in the 1800s, and a minister who gets paid to evict him. Despite his wife's reluctance, John accepts the job to clear the island as an easy task that is going to be well paid. When he gets there, he discovers that it will be actually hard to communicate with Ivar, who speaks a language that is practically now extinct. Even before the two men properly meet, John falls down a cliff and gets badly injured, knocking him out unconscious for a few days. Ivar takes care of him until John gets better, even though he already deduced what this stranger came to do to the island. He wouldn't be the first one.

We also get to know John's wife's point of view, Mary. She is left by her husband to deal with their impoverished situation, that drives her to takes some desperate decisions, and ultimately, take the journey to the island to get John home.

The writing was decent, I struggled a bit to get into the first part of the book since it was a bit slow. It really picks up around the second half, and that plot twist in the end was worth the whole reading experience for me. This book is also short so you can actually get through it on one seating. I would recommend.

In her new novel Clear, Carys Davies paints a vivid, multifaceted picture of 1843 Scotland. Three pieces of history converge to form one story: the Great Disruption in the Scottish church when approximately a third of the ministers left the Scottish church to form a new church, the Clearances of the rural poor from Scottish islands to make room for huge flocks of sheep to line the pockets of large landowners, and the impending extinction of the native language spoken only in the Orkney and Shetland islands.

Middle-aged John Ferguson has joined the rebellion against the Scottish church, leaving him and his wife Mary in desperate need of money as he tries to establish a new church with no building and no ready-made congregation. When his wife’s brother-in-law offers an opportunity to earn money by traveling to a remote island to remove Ivar, the sole resident, to the mainland, John accepts the job against his wife Mary’s wishes. Shortly after arrival, an accident seriously injures John, who is found along with some belongings, and gradually nursed back to health by Ivar, who has little idea where he came from or who he is. To complicate matters, the two men have no shared language but each harbors a secret. Meanwhile, Mary learns something frightening that leads her to make a dangerous decision.

Most immediately important for the two men is finding a way to communicate as John heals from his injuries and as Ivar goes about the daily work of surviving on an island where he has lived alone for several decades after losing everyone he ever loved. As time passes, John knows the ship will soon return to take him, along with Ivar, back to the mainland. But how does he break this news to Ivar, a much larger, stronger man with no intention of leaving the only home he has ever known?

Clear is not only historical fiction but also character study, a story of three diverse people—John, Ivar, and Mary—and of their changing lives and relationships. It’s a story of coping with sometimes enjoying the present and of perhaps finding a way to face the future.
While John Ferguson was sent to clear the island of its last human inhabitant, thus giving one obvious historical meaning to the title, to my mind, the title takes on deeper, more personal meanings pertaining to language and human feelings and perceptions. Although outstanding historical fiction, Carys Davies’ latest novel may be more for the contemplative reader interested in character studies than for the seeker of fast-paced entertaining plots. That said, I found it difficult to put down and completed it in two sessions.

Although early portions provide the most essential historical background, readers should not overlook Davies’ extensive notes at the back, for they fill in more historical fact and shed light on her research.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for an advance reader copy of this impressive new novel.

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I was really excited for this book based on the synopsis and while it was intriguing it, overall, fell flat. The characters have a lot of potential to be interesting and to grip a reader's emotions but they don’t. While it was an interesting story to learn about a piece of history I was previously unfamiliar with, not once was I emotionally involved. I didn’t particularly care about any of the characters besides the old horse and the blind cow. It was very surface level, what you got was what you got. The story was told rather than shown through anything which made it kind of boring especially as the initial shock and interest of their meeting wore off and they settled into a routine. I wish the language barrier had been shown more through their failures to communicate rather than their successes as it made it seem very easy and took away the only active conflict (for most of the story the threat of eviction is passive). Overall it just wasn’t grabbing me or making me care about the outcome of most of these characters. It is an interesting look at a piece of history but that’s about it.

This started off slow and felt bogged down at first, but it really picked up at a fast pace. I loved the writing in the end. The story was woven neatly and I enjoyed the use of the Norn language. The island setting was appropriately dismal. Read through in one sitting.

I enjoyed this little story about humanity, human connection, faith, and loneliness. The writing is very atmospheric and beautiful; especially the passages about nature transport you to the setting very well. John and Ivar develop a tender and unique relationship that I enjoyed learning about, but definitely wanted more. I also wanted more of John's wife. I liked learning about Scottish history and language. I feel there wasn't enough for me to absolutely love it, but I would recommend!

This is a beautiful, short book, set during the Scottish Clearances. A minister has accepted a wealthy landowner's assignment to remove the last tenant from a remote island so the land can be grazed by sheep. After being injured and nursed by Ivar, he begins to learn the language and form a connection to the man, to whom he hasn't revealed his mission. The story gives every indication of a terrible outcome for Ivar, John, and John's wife Mary - but ends up making a beautiful pivot to an inclusive, optimistic ending (whose only flaw, maybe, is leaving readers with warm feelings in connection with a cruel and greedy period of time that caused much suffering). It's a lovely study of characters and place; in this it makes a nice thematic pairing with 'Elizabeth O'Connor's Whale Fall.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

It’s 1840s Scotland, John is a minister married to Mary. Ivan lives alone on an island and the landlord wants him removed. John needs the money and agrees to evict Ivar. When John falls off a cliff, Ivar finds him and their relationship begins by learning a common language.

This is a very different book. It is a smooth story with three characters and not a lot of plot. The short chapters and the differing views help to propel the story along. It’s a story of connection and people taking care of each other. I wasn’t a fan of the ending; however I found the setting and writing very interesting.


Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Clocking in at only 208 pages, this is a short but very unique book. While the story itself is fiction it takes place during the Scottish Clearances in the 1840s when wealthy landowners forcibly evicted poor rural folk inhibiting their more remote acres to replace them with crops and livestock. I admit my knowledge of world history is very limited so I enjoyed learning a bit about this time period.

The protagonist John Ferguson is a minister who has just split from the Church of Scotland. Needing a way to make some money to support himself and his wife Mary he volunteers to travel to a remote island north of Scotland to evict its lone inhabitant.

John ends up injuring himself shortly after he lands on the island and Ivar, the island's one resident, takes care of him. As time goes on, Ivar and John end up forging a bond despite their many differences.

I found this novel to be atmospheric mainly due to the descriptions of the damp, foggy, gray, misty, craggy island. While I don't feel that I got to know either of the main characters very well, I found myself endeared to both, especially Ivar. As always, I would've liked more character development. The ending was surprising to me but pleasantly so. I can only imagine what would go on to occur after the plot of the book ends. I really enjoyed the relationship that grew between Ivar and John as well.

If you like atmospheric novels, historical fiction, or are looking for a quick read, this one's for you!