• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: Sutton Hoo

Dead Reckoning: The Dig

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1939, archaeology, book review, burial mound, East Anglia, emotional connection, England, excavation, historical fiction, John Preston, literary fiction, mortality, Second World War, Sutton Hoo

Review: The Dig, by John Preston
Other Press, 2007. 259 pp. $17

Edith Pretty, a sickly, grieving widow, has long wondered what, if anything, lies hidden in the burial mounds that dot her East Anglia property. Since it’s spring 1939, and Britain is belatedly preparing for the war that everyone expects, Mrs. Pretty decides to seize the moment. She hires Basil Brown, a taciturn, self-effacing “soil expert” recommended by a local museum, to dig where he thinks most likely. He receives room, board, and little more than a pound a week.

Even if you don’t read the publisher’s description, which tells you in its first words about an archaeological treasure, you know that Basil will unearth something special. And even if you’ve never heard of Sutton Hoo, the celebrated find to which the summary also refers, you know that the splendor of the result will stand in strong contrast to the unassuming man. Further, because he is so unassuming — and because he’s a low-paid nobody — there will be plenty of somebodies, or would-be somebodies, queuing up to thrust him aside.

Sutton Hoo, where archaeologists unearthed priceless clues to sixth- and seventh-century life in England (2011, courtesy amitchell125 at English Wikipedia)

So the story of this slim, engaging novel isn’t about the find as much as what it means. The Dig explores connection, mostly the lack of it, and how people try to compensate. For instance, Edith Pretty misses her late husband deeply and feels her age and ill health overtaking her. So for her, the excavation evokes death, of course, but also a last project affirming her existence and a dream she shared with the man she loved. She also worries about her young son, Robert, a lonely, energetic child, and what his future will be; it’s unspoken, but she’s thinking firstly of the war, and her own mortality. As for Basil, he seems not to mind spending several weeks away from his quarrelsome, emotionally distant wife. The excavation excites him, if anything does, but it’s as if he’s on a working holiday, and the money talks.

Preston’s storytelling varies in quality. He starts with one of those infernal, useless prologues (which then reappears, word for word, later on). There’s little plot to speak of, except the gradual progress toward discovery, and the power plays that ensue. But Preston’s narrators — Edith, Basil, and Peggy Piggott, an archaeologist whose husband was her professor at university — carry the day. You see the characters’ yearnings, which they seldom voice; the vicious social snobbery that everyone seems to accept as the natural order; and the oncoming war, whose tension simmers in the story’s peripheral vision, occasionally intruding, only to glide away.

The prose takes few flights of fancy and, perhaps like the novel’s most sympathetic character, is humble and workmanlike, even in Edith’s class-conscious voice:

I sat on the window seat, staring out. Trying to ward off thoughts that came towards me like flocks of angry birds. One memory in particular kept returning: Robert running across the grass with his arms stretched out and his cheeks full of air. And then my pushing him away. I know that I am failing him. The awareness sits there, like a weight on my shoulders, pressing down. Constantly reminding me that whatever capacity I once possessed for motherhood is disappearing.

All that seems left is this ever-widening gap between the scale of my devotion and my ability to succor him. To protect him.

Yet The Dig possesses a quiet eloquence, at times. I particularly like the scenes in Peggy’s narration in which, without exactly saying or thinking so, she realizes that her husband can’t or won’t offer her the warmth she craves. It’s especially poignant because they’re newlyweds, having shortened their honeymoon to join the dig. The way the men talk to her, husband included, is worse than condescending, though the reader understands that better than Peggy does.

Operating under the surface, if you will, The Dig may not seem weighty or significant. But I find it memorable nonetheless, for its small moments and large themes uncovered with a light hand, much as with the pastry brush that Basil uses gently to avoid damaging ancient artifacts.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Recent Posts

  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain
  • Good, Evil, and Hope: Deacon King Kong
  • The Marsh Girl: Where the Crawdads Sing
  • No Quarter: Wolves of Eden
  • Heresies: The King at the Edge of the World

Recent Comments

2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Mila on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Novelhistorian on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…
Juxtabook on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Comment
  • Reviews and Columns
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogs I Follow

  • Rewriting History
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction
  • Suzy Henderson
  • Flashlight Commentary
  • Diary of an Eccentric

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 154 other followers

Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • Controlling the Heavens: Jade Dragon Mountain
  • Good, Evil, and Hope: Deacon King Kong
  • The Marsh Girl: Where the Crawdads Sing
  • No Quarter: Wolves of Eden
  • Heresies: The King at the Edge of the World

Recent Comments

2020 – A Year… on Missing, Presumed: The Poppy…
Novelhistorian on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Mila on Hard Life Lessons: Domini…
Novelhistorian on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…
Juxtabook on Tormented Souls: The White Fea…

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Contents

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Rewriting History

How writers turn history into story, and story into history

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, writing, travel, humanity

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction

Suzy Henderson

What's new and old in historical fiction

Flashlight Commentary

What's new and old in historical fiction

Diary of an Eccentric

writings of an eccentric bookworm

Cancel