On the Bright Road
N.P. Figgis Book Review

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Plot Summary of On the Bright Road

"Intensly dense and full of descriptions of nature and self, this book studies a dying man from the point of view of the dying man. The book narrates the man's attempt to reach the past. Cathal Kerr begins his journey by trying to figure out how he wants to spend his last days. After learning he has a terminal disease, he runs away from "cash and nooky land", leaving his wife so he can live alone in their summer cottage among the back woods in Wales. Here he becomes obsessed with trying to penetrate time and enter a land dominated by King Arthur's sixth century Celtic war against the invading Anglo and Saxon tribes.

The narrative structure shifts between Cathal's introspective or sometimes physical journey into the past and the past itself. Cathal's tenuous connection to prehistoric time is a tracker who's caer (a welsh fortified village) once lay near where Cathal's cottage would later be built. The tracker lives just before the battle of Camlan when King Arthur dies. And as such, his life as well as the life of his kingship has been overwhelmed with the political will of Arthur. The tracker and his King even go to the lake to find the sword for Arthur's last battle.

Cathal touches the past at various points during the book. He and the Tracker contact each other upon an old Roman road that runs near Cathal's retreat and the tracker's Iron-age village. They fight inside the ruins of the Tracker's hill fort. The book ends with Cathal trying to penetrate the time barrier one last time. But the book is about the journey rather than the destination. And the journey is hard on Cathal's health as he wastes away under his obsession.

Crested sapwood supportable noradrenaline runout.

"
Kevin Tolley, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of On the Bright Road

Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).

Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 50%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 50%

Tone of book - sensitive (sigh....)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - King Arthur
Time Travel: - largely backwards/past
Inner Struggle Yes
Plotlet: - fighting a personal illness/handicap
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Time Travel story? Yes

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - unemployed
Age: - 40's-50's
Eccentric: Yes - eccentric - obsessed - mentally ill - emotionally unstable
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - physically sick

Main Adversary
Identity: - none

Setting
Terrain - Forests
Earth setting: - 20th century
Takes place on Earth? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
scientific jargon? (SF only) - none/very little science jargon needed
How much dialogue? - significantly more descript than dialog

Most similar books to On the Bright Road
The Coming of the King by Nikolai Tolstoy
Out of Avalon by Jennifer Roberson
Chasing the King by Lyn Meads Wilson
Grail Prince by Nancy McKenzie
Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor

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N.P. Figgis Resident Scholar Profiles

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Kevin Tolley

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On the Bright Road N.P. Figgis Book Review

On the Bright Road
N.P. Figgis Book Review