"The Proud Servant", Margaret Irwin

What I admire about this book is first of all how — as in any good historical novel — the author has managed to put us into the viewpoint of the past with a sense of 'now', rather than with quaint customs and costumes as viewed through the lens of the present day. And not just any 'now', but the contrasting views of Scotland and England and Italy all in the seventeenth century, all seen as foreign to one another but never for one moment old-fashioned; it is *their* recent past, to us almost equally long ago, that is very clearly felt to be out of date to the point of nostalgia — the days of the old queen and the Border reivers, and the age-old conflict between England and Scotland so recently and unaccustomedly stifled. The writing vividly evokes the conviction, common to all ages, that we, here, now, are on the threshold of modernity, with all the latest technology that man can dream: with bows and arrows passing over within living memory from a weapon of war to a sport for idle hours, as gunpowder takes their place.( Read more... )