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Outcast, by Rosemary Sutcliff
Jul. 21st, 2022 12:01 pmI still endlessly love Rosemary Sutcliff's writing. And this is a book by her that I THOUGHT I hadn't read, but the further I got into it the more I was like.... this is weirdly very familiar. So maybe I have read it before? Either in the last 14 years I read it but forgot to write it down, or I read it prior to starting to keep lists? At any rate it was great to revisit!
This one features a boy named Beric, whose birth parents were Romans who died in a shipwreck and resulted in Beric being raised in a British family. But because of his origins he's always just a little bit an outsider to others in his village, and eventually when he's 15 he's cast out due to fears that his presence is causing bad luck.
The rest of the book is his attempts to find a place for himself in Roman society, given that the British people he felt he belonged with no longer want him, ( cut for thematic spoilers but not the specifics of what happens )
Anyway Sutcliff continues to be great at the nature descriptions as always, and it was a pleasure to read a Sutcliff for the first time since getting into birds and being able to appreciate how she approaches birds with far more care and attention than most authors I read! Specific bird species are mentioned, of a wide variety of types, that are suitable to the time and place they are found! And also a particular species of bird is thematically relevant! It's great.
This one features a boy named Beric, whose birth parents were Romans who died in a shipwreck and resulted in Beric being raised in a British family. But because of his origins he's always just a little bit an outsider to others in his village, and eventually when he's 15 he's cast out due to fears that his presence is causing bad luck.
The rest of the book is his attempts to find a place for himself in Roman society, given that the British people he felt he belonged with no longer want him, ( cut for thematic spoilers but not the specifics of what happens )
Anyway Sutcliff continues to be great at the nature descriptions as always, and it was a pleasure to read a Sutcliff for the first time since getting into birds and being able to appreciate how she approaches birds with far more care and attention than most authors I read! Specific bird species are mentioned, of a wide variety of types, that are suitable to the time and place they are found! And also a particular species of bird is thematically relevant! It's great.
