Beloved Exile by Alexander Cordell. (Can't find an image sorry)
Thanks to Jethro, I have read this book in just over twenty four hours. Bad idea really as it is quite intense. It was written in the 90's, a long time after the Welsh Trilogy but it is centred on Iestyn, the storyteller in Rape of the Fair Country. It tells of the retreat from Afghanistan in1842 and every politician should be made to read it. I knew a little of the history as a great uncle of mine was shattered in Afghanistan just after WW1, but that's another story. Britain has crashed up against this rock time and again and we still haven't learned.
This book is not for the sensitive, it has all the casual brutality of some of the later Sharpe novels. The horrors are not described in lavish language, but the very starkness of the words allows the reader license to dwell where more florid images would deter. Anyway, it is a very fine book but I cared more about the characters in the Welsh Trilogy because they are my people: I know people like Hywel, Iolo, Morfydd and Mari. Durrani left me cold and the Royal messenger was a royal pain more like.
However the book had a different purpose for a different time. Our poor blood soaked little planet, mans inhumanity, luxury and poverty, perversion and beauty and against all odds and rather unexpectedly for Cordell, Iestyn ends up safe. He must have got fed up with bleak endings and lands our hero in safe haven in the end. At least one Mortymer ends happily. Thank goodness!
Thanks to Jethro, I have read this book in just over twenty four hours. Bad idea really as it is quite intense. It was written in the 90's, a long time after the Welsh Trilogy but it is centred on Iestyn, the storyteller in Rape of the Fair Country. It tells of the retreat from Afghanistan in1842 and every politician should be made to read it. I knew a little of the history as a great uncle of mine was shattered in Afghanistan just after WW1, but that's another story. Britain has crashed up against this rock time and again and we still haven't learned.
This book is not for the sensitive, it has all the casual brutality of some of the later Sharpe novels. The horrors are not described in lavish language, but the very starkness of the words allows the reader license to dwell where more florid images would deter. Anyway, it is a very fine book but I cared more about the characters in the Welsh Trilogy because they are my people: I know people like Hywel, Iolo, Morfydd and Mari. Durrani left me cold and the Royal messenger was a royal pain more like.
However the book had a different purpose for a different time. Our poor blood soaked little planet, mans inhumanity, luxury and poverty, perversion and beauty and against all odds and rather unexpectedly for Cordell, Iestyn ends up safe. He must have got fed up with bleak endings and lands our hero in safe haven in the end. At least one Mortymer ends happily. Thank goodness!
3 comments:
"Beloved Exile" sounds like a really interesting book and one that I would like to read. And you write a really good book review!
It does have a great ending.
Won't talk too much about it because it could be classed as a plot spoiler.
24 Hours is prety impressive (and intense) I guess you will be wanting the other books? You will have to come and pick them up as I have no idea when our paths cross next. (Probably September?)
Also it is worth noting that I am presently responsible for helping you achieve several of your 100 goals in 1000 days. (and that your comment that Iestyn lives happily ever after isn't quite true)...(but thats another book)
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