The Blackhouse: The Lewis Trilogy by Peter May

I’m going to do this a bit differently than previous posts. I will choose some of my favorite passages and then describe how they made the book interesting.

 “It’s odd how people can get locked into a kind of time warp.  There’s a time in their lives that defines them, and they hang on to it for all the subsequent decades; the same hair, the same style of clothes, the same music, even though the world around has changed beyond recognition.”

This passage set the premise for the entire book.  He had moved on but was called back to Lewis and had to deal with folks there whom he had not seen in many years.  Most were doing the same thing they had done when he left.  This could have been my hometown—without the rain and wind!

“A sepia world. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, and my childhood was purple.”

I liked the idea that the main character, Fin Macleod, referenced colors  and also included music to go with much that occurs in the story.  I would have added that in this case he might also have added in Bon Jovi’s You Can Go Home Again as that was exactly how he managed to solve his life’s mixtures of pain, grief and living.  Purple could have been Hendrix’s Purple haze but in this case I think it meant more than the color of the house he grew up in. I think it refers to the deep underlying issues that had remained unresolved from his past. What might have appeared pretty, even a royal color was actually years of hurt.

“Life went past you in a flash, like a bus on a rainy night in the Ness. You had to be sure it saw you and stopped to let you on, otherwise it was gone without you, and you would be left with a miserable walk home in the wind and the wet.”

Too many of the characters in the book forgot to get on the bus.  They harbored resentment, carried secrets and spent their lives amidst the wind and the wet.

It was no good looking backward, even if you had no notion of where it was you were going.

When Fin left the island he did not look back.  He had no idea where he was going and even when he returned as a policeman, he was still undecided where he wanted to end up in life.  He was taking classes to give him more options.

“The trouble with jealous revenge is that while you might inflict hurt on the other party, it does not lessen the effect of the hurt you are feeling.”

Artair, Marsaili, Angel—so many did things to others because they wanted revenge. In the end it did none of them any good. It led to death, destruction and both emotional and physical harm to those who did not deserve such treatment.

The world is like the weather, Marsaili. You can’t change it. And you can’t shape it. But it’ll shape you.

Weather was such an integral part of the book.  Wind, rain, wet, high seas and storms were everywhere.  If I lived there I would probably be in a bad mood most days.  Bad things happened in bad weather and each event definitely shaped the lives of all involved.

I liked the book but was happy when it ended.  It held many surprises that I look forward to discussing with you.  What were your favorite passages? What surprised you most?