The Eagle of the Ninth (Sutcliff)

So first: I am reading the Aeneid! Slowly, but I am totally doing it. I plan to post on three (or so) of the subbooks (there are twelve) per week, which will make me actually read it. So far, I quite like it, although it's definitely, umm, quite different from Les Miserables.

And now for something completely different... I have never read any Sutcliff, unless you count probably having read one of her Arthurian retellings (but if so, it was so long ago I'm actually not sure!) So sineala posted a review of Frontier Wolf that made me decide I had to read it! (Note: review has massive spoilers which I did not read; I just read the first part, which only has spoilers for Bujold's Memory and Diane Duane's Deep Wizardry, both of which I've already read.) But since it was in transit, I went to the library and got Eagle of the Ninth while I was waiting.

Reading this book was a very odd experience. It was as if someone took basically all my most-loved tropes ever (friendship-partnership, family, gruff relative with heart of gold, honor, sacrifice, setting what you love free, have I mentioned friendship? that instant when you connect with someone and know you're going to be friends) and wrapped it in language that both reminded me of all the books I loved as a child and all the books that have moved me since, and set it in Roman Britain, which also, you know, is one of Those Things in my life due to a misspent youth of reading Arthuriana...

That is to say, I adored this book and found myself getting all emotional every chapter or so and I am not sure I could even tell you why. D walked by near the end, when my face was all screwed up with intense emotion, and he said, "Sad book, eh?" and I said, "No... no... not exactly..."

"Really bad book?"

"No! It's really good! If it were really bad, I'd be laughing..."