Once Around the Sun - Book review

What an unusual book; compelling storytelling at its best, handling a theme that spans centuries. Published as a paperback original in 1978, D.G. Finlay’s magical novel Once Around the Sun proved doubly fascinating for me as it was not only well-written and evocative, it also featured Gosport in Hampshire, where my wife Jennifer and I with our daughter Hannah lived for many years.

 

Though labelled as 'general fiction' Finlay is considered to be a horror writer.

There are four parts, each about a different period, all set in and around Gosport, each prefaced with a relevant map.

The first concerns about thirty Scandinavian conquerors who settle by the Solent around early 400s AD. Their chieftain was ‘a hard man, but weary of the restless years behind him.’  Though they found peace and rich land to till, there was the occasional conflict, notably with the Meonwara (present-day Meon Valley, I guess).

Young virile Stoc became the new chieftain in 480. Throughout the writing is never less than eloquent, with good imagery, for example at the chieftain’s funeral pyre: ‘The call to Woden died in the throats of the men and they listened, the hair rising on their skin and the blood standing cold in their bodies.’ (p18) And: ‘When the sun crept out of the mantle of morning mist, there remained only the funeral guards, still as stone in their trance-like vigil over the little hill with its crown of smoking, sweet-smelling ash.’ (p19) Stock took to wife Moanh who gave him much pleasure and two sons: ‘The joy of lying with Moanh and basking in the warmth and strength of hr response to him filled his waking thoughts.’ (p21)

One day Stoc joined the hunt of a wounded wild boar which finally put up a tremendous fight, killing one of the hunters. Stoc took a tusk from the dead boar and carved an pendant resembling two boars and presented it to his wife.

The pendant seems to possess a dark power which subsequently affects the two sons… Brigid weds Bran, one of the boys, so the genes will be passed on…Ultimately, tragedy stalks them, and the pendant survives…

The second part is set in the time of the English Civil War. Polycarpus Miller and his wife Elizabeth had twin daughters, Becky and Biddy, and on their tenth birthday they were presented with a pendant each, one a copy of the original. Becky owned the original and sensed its fell influence on her… And Biddy’s beautiful daughter Prue becomes involved in spying on the governor of neighbouring Portsmouth, for he was loyal to the king while Gosport was allied with Cromwell. When villagers suspect Becky of witchcraft, she is sent abroad to America with her beau Richard Gardenar (in readiness for the sequel, The Edge of Tomorrow, 1979).

The third part takes place in 1783 when American and French prisoners are being held in floating hulks in Portsmouth Harbour. The conditions in the hulks are grim. One of those incarcerated on the vessel Royal Oak is Richard Gardenar. Tom Long works on Gardenar’s hulk and recognises the likeness of their ancestor from a portrait of the 1600s. He determines to arrange for an escape… The night trek across the mudflats is tense and well told. Daughter Brigid wears the handed-down boar pendant and coincidentally the rescued Richard possesses the other, passed on from Becky…

The fourth part is set during the Second World War. Two elderly brothers, Bran and Wayland, live together. This is a particularly dark episode. Wayland is not a pleasant man, a follower of the satanist Aleister Crowley. The area is suffering from frequent rape-murders of local women. Wayland is jealous of Bran’s attachment Mavis. And they both possess the pendant heirlooms… for a final reckoning…

D. G. Finlay set herself a mammoth task and has done a great deal of research and supplies two pages of reference works. She manages to evoke each time period and cleverly names of characters are reinvented for later generations.

The local references are many: the sinking of Henry VIII’s ship the Mary Rose; Titchfield; Privett Farm; St Mary’s Church, Stoke – our church in the 1980s; Fareham; Southsea Castle; Peel Common; Stokes Bay – where we often walked; the Five Alls pub – which I frequented often in the mid-1960s; Spring Garden Lane; Grove Road; the Queen Charlotte pub – where we played skittles; HMS St Vincent, a training brick ship, my first draft in the RN; Brickwood’s Best Bitter; the Gosport War Memorial Hospital – which has been in the news a lot recently; ‘the Asylum out in the country near Wickham’ – presumably Netley, which is now a newish housing complex.

A thought-provoking read with, be warned, a down-beat ending.

Coincidence: there is an uncanny echo from the previous book I read, Deep Purple: ‘... let the bitter-sweet melody of “Deep Purple” flow through him…’ (p256) The book also features a Harry Gardener, a close spelling to Gardenar!

Another coincidence: Dione Gordon Finlay was living in Malta when she wrote this book and its sequel. Jennifer and I lived in Malta a few years earlier, 1974-75.