The Eagle of the Ninth

Howdy howdy, Elflings!

So today I wanted to tell you about a super awesome book that you have to read or else. which I read recently. Well, I listened to it on Audible.

'TIS CALLED.

*drumrooooooollllllllllllll*

The Eagle of the Ninth!!

*ba dum tshhhhhhhhh*
*polite applause*

SO for all of you who may have never heard of this book (as I certainly hadn't before a couple of weeks ago), it is a novel written by Rosemary Sutcliff, and set in ancient Roman Britain.

*inhale*

OHMIGOSH I LOVE THIS BOOK TO BITS AND PIECES
IT WAS SO AWESOME
NONE OF THE CHARACTERS DIED. THAT MADE ME SO HAPPY
THE PLOT WAS AMAZING
THE SUSPENSE WAS SO REAL
MARCUS AND ESCA ARE SO. DARN. COOL.
ESCA IS AMAZING I LOVE HIM
UNCLE AQUILA IS LIKE. THE EPITOME OF COOL RELATIVES. IMHO.
ASFJASLKFJSALKFJASDKLFJS
ROMANS AND EAGLES AND BRITONS OH MY!!!

*inhale*
GO READ THIS BOOK IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. GAH. HARMFGLFMFMEFM

I believe this book was turned into a movie. I haven't seen it, and I can't give you any info on that. BUT. The BOOK. GAH.  I CAN"T EVEN.


I feel like this picture describes my feeling about this book (and a lot of other books and movies, for that matter):

ESCAAAAAAAAAA

*cough* Anyway. If someone has seen the movie let me know how it is. 

My favorite quotes from The Eagle of the Ninth:

“Better to be a laughing-stock than lose the fort for fear of being one.” 

“And what will they do to you when you have told them this story?' 
Esca said very simply, 'They will kill me.' 
'I am sorry, but I do not think much of that plan.' Marcus said.”


“But these things that Rome had to give, are they not good things?” Marcus demanded. “Justice, and order, and good roads; worth having, surely?” 
“These be all good things,” Esca agreed. “But the price is too high.” 
“The price? Freedom?” 
“Yes—and other things than freedom.” 
“What other things? Tell me, Esca; I want to know. I want to understand.” 
Esca thought for a while, staring straight before him. “Look at the pattern embossed here on your dagger-sheath,” he said at last. “See, here is a tight curve, and here is another facing the other way to balance it, and here between them is a little round stiff flower; and then it is all repeated here, and here, and here again. It is beautiful, yes, but to me it is as meaningless as an unlit lamp.” 
Marcus nodded as the other glanced up at him. “Go on.” 
Esca took up the shield which had been laid aside at Cottia’s coming. “Look now at this shield-boss. See the bulging curves that flow from each other as water flows from water and wind from wind, as the stars turn in the heaven and blown sand drifts into dunes. These are the curves of life; and the man who traced them had in him knowledge of things that your people have lost the key to—if they ever had it.” He looked up at Marcus again very earnestly. “You cannot expect the man who made this shield to live easily under the rule of the man who worked the sheath of this dagger.” 
“The sheath was made by a British craftsman,” Marcus said stubbornly. “I bought it at Anderida when I first landed.” 
“By a British craftsman, yes, making a Roman pattern. One who had lived so long under the wings of Rome—he and his fathers before him—that he had forgotten the ways and the spirit of his own people.” He laid the shield down again. “You are the builders of coursed stone walls, the makers of straight roads and ordered justice and disciplined troops. We know that, we know it all too well. We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of the shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own.” 
For a while they were silent, watching Cub at his beetle-hunting. Then Marcus said, “When I came out from home, a year and a half ago, it all seemed so simple.” His gaze dropped again to the buckler on the bench beside him, seeing the strange, swelling curves of the boss with new eyes. Esca had chosen his symbol well, he thought: between the formal pattern on his dagger-sheath and the formless yet potent beauty of the shield-boss lay all the distance that could lie between two worlds. And yet between individual people, people like Esca, and Marcus, and Cottia, the distance narrowed so that you could reach across it, one to another, so that it ceased to matter.” 

“And it came to Marcus suddenly that slaves very seldom whistled. They might sing, if they felt like it or if the rhythm helped their work, but whistling was in some way different; it took a free man to make the sort of noise Esca was making.”

^^ That one made me so happy, given the context. Thank you, Goodreads, for letting me steal borrow some quotes even though I don't have a Goodreads account. :D

What did you think of this post? Do you want to see more of my Booky reviews? (lol)

OH OH OH. Almost forgot.

I PROMISE that that Tolkien post will make its appearance SoOnEr Or LaTeR. it SHALL. I am DETERMINED IT SHALL. 

OH and one more fangirl post because there's no denying reality. :D

YAAAAAAAS

TALK TO ME PEEPS