A widely appealing story with a Celtic Christian element at its heart
Kenneth Steven is a poet and children's book author. He grew upin Highland Perthshire in the heart of Scotland, and now lives in Argyllon the country’s west coast. He is the author of Blessings for Your Baptism, The Biggest Thing in the World, Imagining Things, and Stories for a Fragile Planet.
Steven’s first novel robustly and sensitively explores the
debilitating consequences of abuse, violence and the lack of love.
It promises even greater things to follow
*Scotland on Sunday*
There is honesty in the novel about the nature of love . . .
gripping
*The Lochaber News*
This is no ordinary love story but a complex tale of two people
feeling their way towards each other […] wonderful descriptions of
a landscape and weather unique to Scotland
*Scottish Home and Country*
It’s not every day that you read a book that strikes you as
something completely new. When I was offered the chance to read a
review copy of Kenneth Steven’s The Well of the North Wind, I was
pleased to have the opportunity, but unsure of what to expect. What
I found was a book that was a million miles away from my standard
reading list of fantasy, sci-fi, Christian non-fiction and
‘classic’ literature.
This short novel (coming in at around 150 pages) is set in 6th
century Britain, taking place predominantly in Ireland and islands
around Ireland and Scotland, so already, it’s not a commonly used
setting. The novel itself follows the early life of Fian, a boy
born in an Irish village and then raised through later childhood
and adolescence in monastic communities that have settled the area
and begun to spread the message of Christianity. In the course of
his childhood, Fian is taken to one such community where he meets
Colum, who is actually the historical St Columba, and in this
location undertakes work as a scribe. This is the background for a
story that follows Fian’s relationships with the local people,
particularly a girl named Mara, with the monks, and with the God
that the monks believe in.
This is not a novel that appears overly driven by the plot. There
is a progression from event to event, but those events seemed to me
to have more importance in themselves, rather than simply
functioning to drive on some bigger plot. The language of the book
is simple, childlike in places, and, for me, served to ground the
narrative more clearly in the consciousness of Fian and, to a
lesser extent, those around him. Though this is a novel narrated in
the third person, Stevens creates a closeness to the characters
that not all third person narratives achieve.
This is essential to the book because it leans so heavily on the
experiences of those characters, Fian especially. It is a novel
that invites you into their most private thoughts, doubts and fear,
and carries a lot of emotional weight because of that. At times,
I’ll admit, I got a bit lost with where the narrative was trying to
take me, or what was going on in certain bits, but on reflection,
those kind of details are really much less important than the
emotional journey that you are invited to join Fian on.
In fact, some of the vagueness of details that did, at times,
frustrate me, serve to further that experience of being inside
Fian’s head. Your knowledge is largely limited to his knowledge,
and those limits are very real in the book. He is not a main
character who has it all sorted; he is not necessarily there as an
archetype or an example, as some main characters in novels by
Christians are. He is there as a lens through which you can view
his world, and maybe reflect on your own life in the light of that.
His view of the world is refreshingly unsure and honest. He doesn’t
know if he believes in the God of the monks, and Steven doesn’t shy
away from that. He develops the character and allows him to be
real.
The Well of the North Wind was an excellent book. It was not
necessarily the easiest read, despite its length, but those
features that made it more difficult in places put in fantastic
work elsewhere, drawing you in to the very real lives of the
characters. It is an emotionally sensitive, refreshingly honest
book, and brings a little known period of British history vividly
to life.
*Ben Garry blog*
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