G. R. Grove

54/59. [The Druid's Son] by G. R. Grove (2012, 273 pages, read Oct 3-13 & reread Oct 16 – Nov 7)

What confuses me in trying to review this is the contradiction between that place our imagination takes us when we read Tacitus's description of Roman destruction of the Druid stronghold on Anglesey in AD 61 and that place just afterward, where GR Grove takes us. History has just happened; the next is the inevitable, at least from our perception, looking backward. "The harvest was over." opens show more The Druid's Son, a story that is built more on the reconstructed lifestyle and landscape of the Wales of this period, then the striking history it's wrapped in.

Here is Tacitus.

“On the coastline, a line of warriors of the opposition was stationed, mainly made up of armed men, amongst them women, with their hair blowing in the wind, while they were carrying torches. Druids were amongst them, shouting terrifying spells, their hands raised towards the heavens, which scared our soldiers so much that their limbs became paralyzed. As a result, they remained stationary and were injured. At the end of the battle, the Romans were victorious, and the holy oaks of the druids were destroyed.”

The Celts in future Wales are silent in history, leaving only foreigners descriptions like this, and a curious archeology to document them.

Grove creates her version of this Celtic world though the story of the son of last Archdruid on Anglesey, conceived shortly after these holy oaks were destroyed and shortly before this last Druid in Wales has himself ritually sacrificed. This story works quietly, keeping close the annual cycles, the Celtic festivals and the everyday focus on agriculture that just barely sustains the tribes. Year by year the druid's son grows and learns and the book accumulates through dialogue and relationships, the interweaving of the even more ancient history, the mysterious megalithic ruins, and through the magic and religion he is able to find and fully wrap himself within. She reconstructs her own version of a druidic and bardic context of thought and learning and philosophy.

This is fourth book I've read by Grove. In each book she works between or even after some dramatic events, crafting quiet tensions based often on everyday concerns about survival. Her version of druidic religion and magic are worked strongly into the stories, but these things can be taken two ways. The reader is left to decide how much should be taken as real and how much as artifact of the characters perceptions; and then to wonder about what this may tell about the psychological make of these characters. Thorough research goes into these, and is part of what makes these stories special. Historically darker eras, Grove excels in using her knowledge of the landscape and the known practices and then reconstructing her versions of these worlds to build her stories.

2012
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138560#3727175 show less

Wales, the 6th century, not so long after King Arthur’s reign (if you believe that King Arthur was Welsh, but that’s another story…).
Gwernin is a storyteller, a young one as the hero of his adventures, an older one as the narrator. And he tells his stories as one of those storytellers that we could imagine, more than one thousand years ago or just a few decades ago, telling a story, while the household members are gathered around he fireplace on a dark, cold and wet winter evening.
Each show more chapter of the book is like one of those evenings, when Gwernin, now a seasoned storyteller, recalls an episode of his debut as a young want-to-be storyteller. The recalling goes in chronological order, but is in the form of vignettes, the storyteller only concentrating on the eventful moments that are worth telling a story… At the end of the evening (sorry, I meant the chapter…), Gwernin closes the story with the same sentences, ”But that, O my children, is a story for another day”, as a gate between the time (and reality) of the story and the time (and reality) of going to bed and wondering about next evening telling. This ritual in storytelling is an integral part of telling as practised by many traditional storytellers. It has helped me in getting into the story and listen to it rather than reading it…
And it is probably important to listen, as the author has done a great work in trying to use Welsh grammatical structures despite writing in English. This gives its very own melody to the book. Similarly, the use of Welsh words, just the right quantity to give a local colour to the story while not hampering the understanding, is nice, and I was always pleased to recognise some of those words!
A book to read for its gentle and quaint melody, and to remember of a time that we recollect through our imagination, filling in the gaps of a highly mythical and un-self-documented era that is still such an important part of our collective memory. show less

The early 1st century Celts are an incredibly mysterious bunch. They left no written record for themselves, and what little archeological evidence that can be found only provides the slimmest of glimpse into these people’s daily lives. What little has been recorded comes from foreigner invaders or was passed down through oral tradition. This to me seems like the perfect environment for an imaginative writer to thrive in, and G. R. Grove does with her fourth novel The Druid’s Son.

At its show more heart, The Druid’s Son is the coming of age story of a young man during the turbulent early years of Roman occupation. Togi, the protagonist of this story, is a member of the proud Ordovices a not yet totally defeated tribe of the Anglesey (Wales). Togi unlike most boys his age is not only taught the ways of warfare and sheep herding, but he is also taught the rituals and the spirituality of the Druids by his stepfather one of the last remaining Druid priest of the Anglesey. The result is that Togi is a well balanced character with all the necessary skills to transition from a skirmish with a Roman Legion to the politics of the King’s court, making his story all that more compelling. Togi’s ability to go from warrior to priest, combined with a natural intelligence/intuition, gives him a serious edge in the ever exalting battle to save his people and religion from destruction. For Rome the Ordovices are pain that must be dealt with swiftly so they can get back to expanding the empire. But for the Ordovices it’s a matter of survival and the preservation of a way of life not accepted by their new rulers. Togi’s destiny is closely aligned with fate of his people and slow building tension culminates in a final showdown with the Romans that test Togi to his limits.

What makes The Druid’s Son special is Grove’s sense of history. She manages to fill in the gaps of our knowledge with the something that not only seems plausible, but with something that rings true with the time and place. Another great aspect of her writing style is that the reader is able to decide if the Druidic magic is tangibly real or just a matter of perception. At no point is the reader asked to take the stories religious and magical aspects to be literally true, instead, we are left just enough space to draw our own conclusions. Another real treat is that Grove has a real eye for geography, and her descriptions of the lush landscape and topography make the scenes in the novel feel like real places and are a physical part of Wales and Ireland. A really terrific historical novel for a time period we know so little about. show less

The story told from the pov of Gwernin, an OC meeting a cast of historical personages during his travels through 6th century Britain and Ireland. The plot is neglibile and serves as a framing device for a re-telling of myths and stories, Some of the events I had already read in the "The King's Druid", that work quoting them verbatim (read: copy-paste) from this one.

The author clearly knows her topic and shows herself to have meticulously researched the mythology and history of her timeframe, show more from historic events down to mundane details of everyday life.

Two things that struck me unfavourably about the main character was at the unconcerned attitude shown by Gwernin and his companions - a priviledged lot who use their status as bards and poets to benefit from apparently boundless hospitality and to finagle valuable gifts from their hosts - show on the occasion of two young boys being killed successively on the same day. Are they shocked, concerned, saddened by the tragic accidents? Afraid, worried, anxious about what might come of Colum Cille’s cursing the High King Diarmait? Nope, they just shrug and go back to business as usual, which is: idling, laughing and joking and, in Gwernin's case, ogling the girls. Who, being a husband and father, jumps at the first opportunity that comes "like a holiday to me, recalling my carefree wandering as a lad" to leave his family behind, not sparing them a single thought, except when missing company in his bed. Not exactly Mr Nice Guy, this. I would have minded more had he not failed to come across as a real person in the first place.

Lastly, as with "The King's Druid", I can't help griping about the incongruous mix of languages: Old Irish, Welsh and modern Irish place names are jumbled into the narrative along with their modern English equivalents. Characters speak Hiberno-English to signify their switch from British to Irish, unless they forget. The dialogue is peppered with snippets of Irish, as often as not out of context, misspelled, misunderstood or just plain wrong.

To sum up: This is not a novel, but a short story collecction that may be best enjoyed not by reading cover-to-cover in one sitting but by dipping into on a more random basis. Could do with a spot of editing. show less