Corrag

Title: Corrag
Author: Susan Fletcher
ISBN: 978-2-00-732159-9
Published: Fourth Estate (HarperCollins)
Date: 2010

Book quote:


“I walked. I made my way further down into the dusky glen. My skirts dragged their branches, which dragged their own branches now. It was a noisy load to pull which grew louder with each step as it gathered more leaves, more peat and stones. I looked back on my trail. It was tatters and cow muck, and I turned to rid myself of it but by turning so did my skirts, and I turned like a dog that seeks its own tail. I could not reach the branches. I stretched, but they moved away as I stretched. For a moment or two I turned, and turned.

I stopped, considered this.

A spider hung down from my hair on its thread.”
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Corrag, having been condemned as a witch, is in prison awaiting her execution. The setting is Scotland, 1692. Charles Leslie, a clergyman from Ireland, interviews her regarding the events at the historical Glencoe massacre of 38 members of the McDonald clan just prior to this. Charles has Jacobite sympathies and is gathering information to incriminate the reigning Dutch king, William of Orange, with an aim of re-instating James 2nd exiled in France (William is thought to be ultimately behind the massacre). Corrag agrees to tell him of the event, with the proviso that he listen to the story of her life as well – which he consents to. For about two weeks he visits her daily to listen to her story, the transcript of which forms the bulk of the text. Interspersed amongst these are his own letters to his wife back in Ireland, which describe his own, increasingly sympathetic, reactions to Corrag’s narration.


Corrag describes her own life as being in four parts – her early life with her mother, (Cora), her ‘running life’ with her mare as she travelled north, her life in Glencoe and her life in the prison. While the description of life on the margins of village life in England is engaging enough, the second chunk describing the journey north is the point at which the novel starts to become tedious. It is in severe need of editing. Just how many times do we need to be told how her hair flies out behind her, or how her skirts billow out, or how her mare gallops on? An originally effective passage is rendered dull by the time it’s been recycled so many times. Even the exchanges and interactions that occur are more noted for their (much-discussed) emotional impact on the narrator than being simply laid out and described adequately.


Luckily, there’s a marked change in the quality of writing as Corrag settles down in Glencoe, and Fletcher feels free to do what she seems to be best at – minute observation of sensory input: olfactory, auditory and visual. It’s noticeable that tactile and gustatory senses are barely represented, and indeed this can be seen as appropriate for a character who lives on the very remotest margins of society and whose interaction with others is a strictly non-contact sport. The stillness of the life in the glen seems to allow for some very good passages, which are mercifully free of reflection on emotional effects they induce in the narrator. The colour of a buttercup, if described well enough, is more than sufficient to keep the reader engaged. The passage I picked for the book quote almost marks the start of this phase.


Unfortunately, just as we’re being lulled into appreciation, in pops Charles Leslie with his letters to his wife. They would be a fine (indeed much-needed) alternative perspective, were it not that so much of their bulk is filled with his appreciation of ‘how well she speaks’. In effect, how well the passage preceding was written. One gets a terrible image of the author jumping up and down every now and then saying ‘look, didn’t I do that well, did you like that bit, are you sure you saw it?’ which is annoying, to say the least.


The other major problem I had with it was the anachronistic diction. 17th century diction verbatim would be hard on the modern reader for the duration of a novel, so I understand the need to update and simplify. However, certain very modern usages should really be eschewed. For example the use of ‘like’ as a conjunction in the place of ‘as’ (a modern American import to British English) leaped off the page and slapped me at some point. On a different level, the word ‘hag’ (much-repeated in the book) had, even by Spencer’s time, aligned itself with the connotation of ‘old’ and ‘ugly’ as well as Devil-inspired, so to imply that it was applied frequently to both Corrag and her mother (a child and an apparently very attractive woman) is not convincing.


There are also gross anachronisms in concepts. Corrag says of herself settling down in the highlands:


“I think, also that I healed. (…) I felt myself soften and tend to myself. I don’t think I had grieved, till Glencoe, or been kind to myself. I don’t think I had sat down and thought of Cora, and truly allowed myself to be sad.”


While the spiritually restorative virtues of the admission of grief were without doubt evident to people in the 17th century, they would never have phrased it like that, much less an unlettered herbalist. This is straight out of a 21st century self-help manual.


Which leads on to the lack of differentiation between the characters’ reported speech. Corrag has a vocabulary that far exceeds what might reasonably be expected. (What 17th century peasant would have a lexicon including Latin-derived ‘mucus’ and ‘grandeur’?) Mostly it’s not noticeable, but when she sits down with the McDonald woman Sarah and we have a rare moment of sustained dialogue, they more resemble a couple of college girls discussing ‘life n’ stuff’ than a witch who is so uncivilised she laps water from the lake like a cat, and a wild Highland lass. Discussing ‘politics?’ the term ‘politic’ might have been in relatively common usage (though as its meaning was different it wouldn’t have featured much in the oeuvre of the two women concerned) but ‘polyticks’ in its roughly modern sense had only really been around for about 30 years prior to this - and that in lettered circles. (There are mentions as far back as 1529 but very rare). This is not just quibbling on the use of a single word – it’s the concept, and the appropriateness of the subject’s consideration by the characters, which is disturbing.


All this is sounding like a very negative review, and indeed this was not a book I enjoyed myself. It does however have its good points, and I know that a lot of readers will like it and want more of the same. The sensory descriptive passages are genuinely effective and well-rendered. Overall, the tension is kept up more or less via the ever-present question of whether Corrag will really be burned at the stake – you can always tell whether you’re really intrigued by whether you’re tempted to flick forward (which I was). Sympathy for the character is created, we do care. I also found the images from the novel lingering in my imagination after closing the book, which is always a good sign.


I think this novel would in particular appeal to young females, who enjoy a good romantic read. If, however, you tend to be a bit of a nit-picker with semantics, or have much knowledge of realistic 17th century prose, or are much given to textual analysis, or indeed if you’re an editor, this book might well annoy you. Susan Fletcher won the Whitbread 2004 First Novel Award for her first novel Eva Green, as well as the 2005 Betty Trask Prize. Alas, I don’t think there will be many awards for Corrag, but the potential is definitely there for future works.