DeepSummary
The podcast episode is about a novel called 'Clear' by Charis Davies. In the novel, set in the 1840s, a Scottish reverend named John Ferguson travels to a remote island to evict the lone inhabitant, Ivar, who speaks an extinct language called Norn. When Ferguson falls from a cliff, Ivar saves him, and the two begin to communicate through gestures and a rudimentary shared language.
Davies discusses how she discovered Norn, a real-life extinct language spoken in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and how it inspired her to write the novel. She also talks about the historical context of the 'Highland Clearances', where Scottish landowners forcibly evicted tenants from their lands to make way for sheep farming.
The excerpt Davies reads from the novel demonstrates how Ferguson and Ivar gradually develop a form of pidgin communication, blending English words with words from Norn. Davies reflects on how the isolation of the island allows her characters to confront aspects of themselves they might otherwise avoid.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The novel 'Clear' explores the theme of communication across language barriers through the story of a Scottish reverend and the last speaker of an extinct language called Norn.
- The novel is set against the backdrop of the 19th century Highland Clearances, when Scottish landowners forcibly evicted tenants from their lands.
- The author, Charis Davies, was inspired to write the novel after discovering the real-life extinct language Norn in a dictionary.
- Davies uses the isolation of the island setting to allow her characters to confront deeper truths about themselves that they might otherwise avoid.
- The excerpt read by Davies demonstrates the gradual development of a pidgin language between the two characters as they attempt to communicate.
- The novel explores themes of language, isolation, and human connection across cultural divides.
- Davies is interested in exploring how remote, desolate settings can strip away the distractions of everyday life and force characters to confront aspects of themselves they might otherwise ignore.
- The historical context of the Highland Clearances provides a backdrop of social upheaval and forced displacement that informs the novel's themes.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “They begin by ivery pointing at things wildly, gesticulating, and John writing down the names of objects, the names of animals, the names of colors that the words Ivor has in his language are so many and so specific for very slightly differentiated things, like, you know, a cloud with a bit of light shining on the top is a different word from a cloud with a bit of light shining underneath.“ by Charis Davies
- “So we're in the 1840s now. So these are the last brutally, most brutally coercive years of the clearances which have been going on since the middle of the previous century. Scottish landowners began clearing their estates of poor, unprofitable tenants and replacing them with sheep. And this sheep frontier, if you like, has been moving gradually further and further north as the landowners seek to make more money out of their estates than they can with their poorer, smaller tenants.“ by Charis Davies
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Episode Information
NPR's Book of the Day
NPR
6/27/24
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