posted on 11 May 2016

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

I’ve never been much of a fan of historical fiction. The few examples of it that I’ve tried to read leave me feeling that the authors are just trying too hard – all that research and the careful use of appropriate language and imagery to studiously avoid the anachronistic just feels way too contrived. I find myself unable to suspend my disbelief and I end up with the same set of emotions I get from historical re-enactment society events – no matter how hard they try I just don’t see anything other than people in fancy dress.

I realise, however, that there are plenty of people who do love novels set in a historical context  (although I’m never quite sure how far back you have to go to be deemed ‘historical’ )  and that the failing is probably mine rather than that of a whole literary genre. So I picked up Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth expecting that I would again abandon the enterprise pretty quickly. Why, I can hear you ask quite legitimately, did I even bother? Good question.

Well, for a start, I picked up a very nice edition of Sutcliff’s book with an introduction by the redoubtable Kevin Crossley-Holland whose short essay at the front of the book piqued my interest. I realised that although I was entirely familiar with her name, Rosemary Sutcliff was actually pretty much a mystery to me.  Born in 1920 her reputation is almost entirely as a children’s writer but she resolutely refused to accept that and insisted that her books were for anyone ‘from nine to ninety’ . Sutcliff spent the majority of her life as a wheelchair user because of Still’s Disease which she contracted as a child and which would be a key factor in making her the writer she became. Often, as in The Eagle of the Ninth,  characters have a physical disability or impairment that reflects her own personal experiences. She was a prolific author producing  fiction, plays, autobiography and biographies and by the time she died in 1992 she was a multi-award winner and hugely popular.

I should say from the outset that despite my poor record with historical fiction, I did read this particular example from start to finish – although it wasn’t until a good third of the way in that I found myself really able to relax with it. The book is actually quite a simple story of a young man in search of identity, family honour and, ultimately, what it means to be human. Central to the plot is the issue of friendship, trust and loyalty – all issues that will have resonance for readers of any age.

Marcus Aquila is a young Roman centurion on his first posting to command a small fort in Britain. The posting is significant to him because this is where his father disappeared without trace and where the Ninth Spanish Legion he commanded vanished mysteriously somewhere in what is now Scotland. All sorts of rumours attend the disappearance which was not only significant for Marcus personally but also because the iconic Roman Eagle standard was lost – which was, in terms of honour, a major disgrace that needs to be rectified if the whole issue is to be laid to rest.

Marcus is savagely injured in the leg during a skirmish with a native tribe and is retired from the army as a result. He is slowly rehabilitated while living with his kindly uncle, during which time he takes a slave who will become his closet friend and inseparable side-kick. As his leg gets better (but always remains twisted and painful) he hatches a plan to head north and find the fate of the doomed Ninth and recover the Eagle. And what follows is pretty much a straight adventure story of how that quest unfolds.

For me the first half of the book seemed to be quite a rich and complex mix of character development and the building of some core ideas – what is friendship, how do we deal with disappointment, how can lives and reputations be rebuilt. This is genuinely complicated material that would not be out of place in any adult novel but, it doesn’t really seem to last. The second half is much more what I’d associate with an adventure novel aimed at younger readers and courage and derring-do take the place of the complex and nuanced.

It’s not an overly long read and so the second half races to an end and those ends get rather too neatly tied-up for my liking – the story didn’t feel like it needed ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ to round it off and maybe a children’s author today would go down that route. But it’s undeniably well done and she writes a very engaging adventure story – ultimately though on this limited example I don’t think I’m a convert to the pleasures of the historical novel just yet.

 

Terry Potter

May 2016