A small nifty novel by last year's Booker finalist Fiona Mosley opens with a quote from the poet Ted Hughes, in which Elmet is called the last independent Celtic kingdom in England. This image is the key to understanding the entire book, once again, but in a completely new way, addressing the topic “what country have you lost” that is close to almost every Russian reader.
Fiona Mozley grew up in York and went to King's College, Cambridge, after which she lived in Buenos Aires and London. She is studying for a PhD in medieval history. Elmet is her first novel and it has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.
14-year-old Daniel, his 15-year-old sister Katie and their stern father (all the heroes here call him "Dad"), who make a living by participating in underground boxing matches, move to the forests of Yorkshire after the death of their grandmother, with whom the children lived before. Father with his own hands builds a house on no man's land, and there, in the heart of an ancient thicket, they settle away from the world, free, proud, poor and carefree. A stay-at-home and dreamer Daniel takes on some simple household chores, while Katie, who has inherited her father's unbridled disposition, hunts or simply rushes through the fields like a wild animal.
The mighty Pope makes friends among local farmers and tenants, who more than once come in handy for his physical strength, fearlessness and natural intolerance to any injustice, and one of the neighbors is the red-haired Vivienne (this name unambiguously refers to perhaps the most mysterious character of the Arturian cycle - the Lady of the Lake Lady Vivian) - becomes Daniel's friend and mentor. However, the peaceful life of Daniel and his family comes to an end when a local moneybag named Price invades their possessions, wanting not so much to seize the insignificant property of the Pope and his children, but to break their will to independence.
Fiona Mosley's debut novel is literally permeated with nostalgic motives of Celtic mythology - from the already mentioned Arturiana and the legends of the Hills inhabitants to the legends of Robin Hood (of course, the black-bearded Pope looks like a noble robber from Sherwood Forest). A completely realistic and modern story of a doomed, tragic and therefore truly magnificent confrontation between a self-willed outsider on the one hand and a prosaic modern world on the other becomes a way for Moseley to remember, honor and mourn "good old England", which disappeared under the waves of modernization like the land of Lioness from the ancient ballads. And although such a technique can hardly be called truly original, the author of "Elmet" finds for his nostalgia and romantic longing for the past some surprisingly poetic, aching, and harmonious form.
This article was sponsored by Robert Sutherland
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