A review by robinwalter
Smouldering Fire by D.E. Stevenson

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 This book took my breath away — and that is not a compliment. I read this book as part of Dean Street December 2023 and as an exercise in satisfying my curiosity. There were reviews here at the Storygraph which made it sound bad, and I wanted to see if it really was that bad. It was not. 

It was much, much worse. 

 The introduction to this Dean Street Press edition was written by Alexander McCall Smith. I gave up on his Mma Ramotswe series after about a dozen books having reached my limit of cloyingly twee. If there is one thing no one could accuse this book of being it's "cloyingly twee". At the very end of his intro Smith says of Stevenson's books in general 

 These are gentle books, very fitting for times of uncertainty and conflict. Some books can be prescribed for anxiety – these are in that category. 

 There is definitely plenty of uncertainty and conflict in this book; enough to make it clear that he and I have very different views of what constitutes "gentle". As for being prescribed for anxiety, I would prescribe this book only if someone were looking to increase their anxiety levels. 

 There is some truly beautiful writing in this book, and it is crystal clear that Stevenson really, truly loved her  Scotland. This is the first of her books that I've read which is set in the Highlands as opposed to the Scottish Borders where most of her middlebrow books are set. It was a big plus for me that there is a lot of Gaelic in the story and a not insignificant amount of it is left untranslated. Kudos for that. Her descriptions of the setting are as lyrically beautiful as ever. That is where my plaudits end. 

 In one of his "Hitch-Hiker's Guide" books Douglas Adams wrote of a particularly stupid species of bird that it "had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it". This book suggests very strongly that Stevenson "had heard of the notion of subtlety but wanted no truck with it." 

 One of the other books I read for Dean Street December 2023 was "Love Comes Home" by Molly Clavering, who was for a long time Stevenson's neighbour. I did not finish that book because I found its feudally right-wing politics difficult to swallow. That book was written in 1938. This one was written in 1935 and makes "Love Comes Home" look like the work of a loony left-wing liberal. The rest of this review will explain why I feel that way, and because it contains spoilers for what happens in the story it will be hidden behind spoiler tags 

I know better than to assume that an author shares the viewpoint of all the characters they write about. I put this in as a disclaimer because  I've read many stories in which people did horrific things and it was clear that the author was nothing like the character. What I found unconscionable about this book is both the brazenness and frequency with which troubling views were expressed and even more so the way those views were applauded by every single character who readers were presumably expected to admire support and cheer for. The "happy ending" in this book is indeed breathtaking in its savagery and its contempt for the rule of law. 
 
Clavering's book had repeatedly insisted that the hereditary landed gentry in Scotland were cruelly maligned and grossly misunderstood. This book says that their serfs adored them and knew that underlying feudal allegiance was the natural order of things. This book does not imply that, it states it. Exhibit A: 
 
****To-night his heart sang... because MacAslan had asked for his help. It was foolishness, of course, MacAslan had no need to ask. Did MacAslan doubt him that he should ask his help? Did he not know that Donald would lay down his life in the service of MacAslan? What could this thing be—this thing that MacAslan had done and already regretted? If it were that he had killed a man, Donald would hide him until the danger was past **** 
 
I was flabbergasted when I read that  but she was just warming up. After the laird had manipulated someone into doing what he wanted (to win a bet),  this was Donald's reaction 
 
 **** Calum had been wiled from his thicket and was now MacAslan’s slave. Where had all Calum’s ideas of Socialism gone? Those crazy ideas that he got out of a weekly paper and insisted on expounding to all who would listen to him, ideas that had no sense in them, to Donald’s way of thinking—that a man was just as good as his master, if not better—Sheer foolishness, Donald thought, Calum Mor would learn sense as he grew older.  **** 
 
The hero of the story is the Laird, and it is very clear that readers are supposed to love his story of falling in love. For me, his anger issues were horrifying. After meeting the boy who would eventually become his stepson and arranging to take on a boat trip, this is reaction when the young boy turns up for the trip the next day, with his mother 
 
 **** She said, “I wanted to thank you for being kind to Richard.” 
... He was angry, angry and ashamed. He felt it a kind of insult that he should thus be taken at a disadvantage. He would not look at the woman. How dared she invade his solitude, discover him in such an invidious position—dirty and untidy, a pariah on his own land? His Highland blood boiled in his veins. 
She said a trifle diffidently, “I hope—I hope Richard wasn’t a nuisance—” 
... 
“Richard was very useful,” said Iain quickly. He was not going to hurt the child. Even if he were angry, and justly so, the child should not suffer.  **** 
 
The idea that he was "boiling" with rage and considered himself to be "justly" angry when a young boy he had met just the day before brought his mother along rather than travel unaccompanied with a complete stranger said a lot about the "hero" and his view of his place in the world. He expressed that view much more clearly as the book progressed. For example, after he and the boys mother started developing a relationship, this is what he said about life in the modern world: 
 
 **** “Life is awfully complicated now,” he said, trying to express his thoughts; “you have got to conform to laws that your instinct tells you are false laws—it makes me angry sometimes.” 
 
He doubled down on that in the next paragraph when looking back fondly on the good old days of his ancestors and the "laws" by which they lived. 
 
“Natural laws, dictated to them by their own consciences, by their honour, by their own feeling of what was right for themselves. If the chief ... had naturally fine instincts, the thing worked admirably. Everybody was happy and prosperous. Laws are made for bad people, really. They are made for people who have no decent instincts. " **** 
 
Like any good romance there is an impediment to the two lovers getting together. In the case of these two lovebirds the minor hitch is that she's already hitched. Her husband is a brute and a bully, of course, but what makes him especially contemptible in the eyes of our lovable laird? 
 
 **** “He’s afraid of the law?” Iain said doubtfully. It seemed to him a queer thing for a man to fear the law.  **** 
 
When it becomes clear that the love of his life will not be free of her horrible husband without drastic action, that is exactly what he proposes. 
 
 **** "I shall have to kill Medworth,” said Iain quietly.  **** 
 
Not surprisingly, his beloved, born and raised in 20th-century civilisation, is horrified 
 
The following passage REALLY made me glad I never have to worry about upsetting Stevenson
(character names added for clarity)
 **** Linda: "Murder is wrong—it’s unthinkable—it’s the most dreadful wickedness. Promise me, promise me faithfully that you won’t think of it any more.”
Ian: “It’s the only way, Linda. I don’t think of it as wickedness—the man is bad all through, you know it as well as I do—” 
Linda: “I know, but you mustn’t,” she cried. “You can’t take the law into your own hands like that. You can’t kill a man, even if he is bad—it’s murder.” 
Ian: “It would be worse than murder to let him have Richard—think of it—” 
Linda: “I have thought,” she cried. “Do you think I don’t see how frightful it would be? I see it more clearly than you—” 
Ian: “He’s a bad man,” Iain urged. “A dangerous man—a man without any decent instincts.”  **** 
 
The nobility of his "this bad man needs killing" is exposed for sheer selfishness when he later says to his loyal serf Donald 
 
 **** "would to God I had lived in the days when a man took what he wanted by force and held it"  **** 
 
Which at least has the virtue of being much more honest. At many places throughout the story our hard done by hero had railed internally at the gross injustice of living in a world where he was expected to pay taxes, and bemoaned the unfairness evident in the fact that other people could be rich and he wasn't, for no other reason than that he knew nothing about land management or how to run a business. 
 
The story has what we are supposed to accept is a happy ending. The bad husband gets what's come in to him, and the lovable laird doesn't have to do it. The closing paragraphs of the book are unalloyed praise and compliments for the person who did do it— whose identity one does not have to be Hercule Poirot to figure out.

In conclusion, I stress again that the reason I couldn't stomach this book was the way it made it VERY difficult to believe that Stevenson did not herself share the sentiments expressed and applaud the actions to which those sentiments led.