All this is hinted at. It is not stated. That does not matter. It does not detract from the storytelling in any way.
It is just that I like to know the chronology and setting of novels of this kind. The narrator clearly is Scots. She tells her story in Scots. But her name is Deirdre, which is a Gaelic name. She also has a friend called Grainne, another Gaelic name. There is no definite location given for the setting of this story. There are indications that the story is set in the west of Scotland, but we are not told where. It is probable however that it is set somewhere near Glasgow and the boundary between the Gaelic-speaking world and the Sassenachs.
That has too many connotations which would be wrong in the context of this book.
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The wife of the local Lord is French, and this is something that has political consequences. She has a very rich relative, the Master, who is heirless and she wishes to make an advantageous marriage for her daughter in order to secure the inheritance. The narrator, Deirdre, gets caught up in these machinations, when she falls pregnant. Her lover, Fielamort, is a boy soprano who is then castrated to preserve his voice.
A single word sends Anne Donovan into the past
That is the engine for the whole plot, and to give any more away would be to spoil the story. There is however one more thing that needs to be said. The writing is beautiful. Do not let the fact that it is written in Scots put you off. You will understand it. If it was not written in Scots, it would not be poetic, lyrical language. It would not have the ring of the Border Ballads.
It would not have the simplicity and power of Robert Burns. This is a book that will sweep you away with the power of its storytelling. As the wind takes the leaves, let yourself be carried along by this story. Jul 28, Kai rated it it was amazing Shelves: Marple Book Club read. Once I stopped obsessing about that though, the story came to life and the language was so musical and lyrical.
I still found parts a little hard, but overall, this was an amazing book. I loved the young couple and felt so much for their plight and separate journeys. They are amazing characters and they come to life on the pages. I am so glad I persevered with this and I would recommend it to anyone.
Mar 13, Sally rated it really liked it. Thoroughly enjoyed this book - different to other Anne Donovan but thought provoking and masterful in its storytelling. Apr 25, Sandra Danby rated it liked it Shelves: I had a shaky start with this book. The thought of reading a whole book in this language was intimidating so when I got to the first, short section in the voice of the music master I welcomed it with relief. I kept having to stop and re-read a sentence, to work out what it said. I persevered, and the voice slowly started to settle in my ear.
I fear a lot of readers will be lost along the way. A young French boy meets a young Scottish girl.
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Feilamort is an orphan who can sing like an angel. Both must make difficult decisions about their futures. Deirdre on the other hand celebrates the countryside, seeing beyond the dullness to the beauty and recognising the signs of life in death. She sees a fallen tree, the wood torn and splintered. The buds on other trees were pink and green but these were greeny-grey, like sage leaves, ghostly and unhealthy looking, drab and straggly as if unlike tae live, but living. By some miracle, a deid tree deprived of roots and water, had put forth shoots and, in its dying breath, desired tae pour out life.
And some, like the clow that grows on the rocks above the sea, need space, they maun be in the open and feel the wind and rain and sun on them. And that is like you, Deirdre. Action is not in the nature of Father Anthony, the priest who is such a significant influence on the lives of both children. The lighting was above us noo, shooting lang witchy fingers of siller across the sky, a gowtsie sky, the green of a sick plant, violet-edged. Mar 27, Juli Rahel rated it really liked it.
I saw this book on Netgalley and was enraptured by the blurb, so I was really happy when I got accepted for it. There are not a lot of authors who dare to write in dialect because it often alienates readers who are not familiar with the dialect and therefore can't get into the narrative. I really enjoyed the writing in dialect.
A lot of the time, especially when reading contemporary novels, I feel the voices of the characters are too put on and seem unnatural. My internal dialogue is a jumble of I saw this book on Netgalley and was enraptured by the blurb, so I was really happy when I got accepted for it.
Gone are the Leaves
My internal dialogue is a jumble of thoughts and is hardly ever, let's be honest: I do understand that authors need to make their characters feelings clear but often they go a little bit too far. What the dialect did for this novel is that it made it all the more intimate.
It genuinely feels like you're reading someone else's thoughts because some words are so different. Somehow, and this might be weird, it felt very comforting because there is a melodic quality to how the language flows. This goes very well with the description of Deirdre's surroundings, a taste of which you can get from the synopsis above. Donovan seems to have a genuine passion for the nature and setting in which her characters move and this really comes across in her writing.
However, it's not just dialect.
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Although most of the story is written from Deirdre's perspective, there are occasionally chapters from the perspective of other characters. Things to do with certain kinds of clouds that presage certain kind of weather conditions, because it was so important what the weather was. In my contemporary books there are references to films or a pop star, so there's nothing like that You're really looking at what is their life concerned with, and a lot of that came from the thesaurus rather than specific history books. Among her finds was "mortfundyit", meaning cold as death.
Her eyes light up as she recalls another favourite. It's that thing, it's so specific. There's no English word for it. Certainly, her mining of the thesaurus for archaic words makes Gone Are The Leaves stand out as very different from most Scottish historical novels, catching a sense of the period, as well as her characters. At its densest, it feels as if one is reading a foreign language, and yet it is completely and rather poetically intelligible.
Apart from grappling with obsolete words, were there any pitfalls she had to avoid, when writing about the past? For a writer who has drawn so many plaudits for a relatively small body of work, Donovan is surprisingly, and engagingly, self-deprecating. She embarked on this novel when writing another, which was put to one side while she explored where this new book was going.
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When finally it was written, she sent it to her agent, telling her it was strange, and that if she didn't like it after a few pages, not to worry. The agent replied, saying she thought the novel "otherworldly", and that they should send it immediately to her publisher Canongate, who snapped it up, much to Donovan's surprise. I've always been quite clear about the difference between those two things. I never think that because I've been published in the past, I'll necessarily You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly.
We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments. Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. A single word sends Anne Donovan into the past. Read the new rules here. RWA-WF defines women's fiction as, a commercial novel about a woman on the brink of life change and personal growth. A Central Love Story: The main plot centres around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work. An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love.
The same goes for the events on the continent when the action moves there. So it is a love story but a surprisingly passionless one. For starters Deidre is the same age as Juliet. When we were told at school we were going to be studying Romeo and Juliet we all moaned: Not a love story! It was all about politics and intrigue, bickering families and far more bloodshed than I ever expected. Froths of hair trail frae the cowl; grey-brown silk glisks in the weak November sun. The fabric of his cloak was raugh and coorse: Bitter needles of cauld must have penetrated his soft skin on the journey; his airms pricked wi gooseflesh when I helped him doon frae the pony.
I mind his een that day, feartness drownt in the brown, grummlin their beauty. Last nicht he sang and the sound of angels rang through the great hall, like flocht of siller birds swooping and diving. Lintie and throstle, feltie and laverock, cheetle and chirm and chirpie. He seemed transparent, as though you could see through his skin: Silence was the only fit response.
A music teacher is hired, one Signor Carlo, who sees great things in Feilamort and a ticket to the good life for himself through Feilamort. Deirdre—conveniently why would a seamstress be assigned this task? And it is a friendship rather than a romance.
What pushes things on faster than nature might have preferred left to its own devices is the intervention of the unnatural.
Gone are the Leaves by Anne Donovan
Unless something radical is done about it. The term used in the book was a new one on me: The first male soprano employed in the pontifical chapel was actually not until but the practices of castration and emasculation—there is a difference—date back centuries and the various methods employed make uncomfortable reading. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, before he allows himself to be mutilated, he has a request and Deidre requires very little persuasion.
Her only precondition is that they handfast: She acquiesces for much the same reason as Feilamort makes his choice.