The Stonor Eagles

by William Horwood

The secret and power of James MacAskill Stonor's extraordinary sculptures and paintings are traced back to his childhood years of loss and uncertainty and the tale of Cuillin, last of the great sea eagles of Skye

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Animals, Animal Fiction, 20th Century, Art

555 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

William Horwood is an English novelist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, an allegorical tale about a community of moles, was published in 1980. It was followed by two sequels, forming The Duncton Chronicles, and also a second trilogy, The Book of Silence. William Horwood has also written two stand-alone novels intertwining the lives of humans and of eagles, The Stonor Eagles and Callanish , and The Wolves of Time duology. Skallagrigg, his 1987 novel about disability, love, and trust, was made into a BBC film in 1994. In addition, he has written a number of sequels to The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

In 2007, he collaborated with historian Helen Rappaport to produce Dark Hearts of Chicago, a historical mystery and thriller set in nineteenth-century Chicago. It was republished in 2008 as City of Dark Hearts with some significant revisions and cuts under the pen name James Conan.

Reviews

[Lance Greenfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this book really fiction? Or is it fact? Or is it what many people now call faction?

For me, in my tiny mind, it became reality. This was down to Horwood's terrifically powerful story-telling. He captivated me completely and I really believed the events that he was describing, even down to the conversations between the eagles.

As is the case with Skallagrigg, there are two intertwined stories in this book, which eventually bind together.

I came to love Jim MacAskill Stonor: a confused boy growing up in a dysfunctional family in Deal (shades of The Boy with No Shoes), a man overcoming many difficulties, a great artist who draws, paints and sculpts eagles.

I came to love Cuillin: the last great sea eagle of Skye, who makes it to the coast of Norway and dedicates the rest of her life to returning her kind to the mountains which gave her her name.

I came to love the people, well most of them, who surrounded Jim through his trials and tribulations. And I came to love the sea eagles, well most of them, who flew with and against Cuillin and her offspring.

But I really did believe in the tales that I was reading. I became emotionally involved. I even shed a few tears from time to time.

What greater testimony can a writer have for his work?

So, I can hear you asking me, "Why didn't you give The Stonor Eagles five gleaming stars?"

The answer is that I found it very heavy going. It is 600 pages of condensed print. Reading this book was genuinely tiring. As my favourite reading time is between when my head finally hits the pillow at night and when I turn over to go to sleep, I could usually only manage to get through a few pages per session. So it took me a long time to read. But it was worth it. I thoroughly recommend this book to all of my friends.

I already want to read it again! Alas. I have too many books on my to-read pile, and must move on.

[Hilary G · Rating 5 out of 5]

During my life, I have bought thousands of books. If I had kept them all, I would have needed a far bigger house than the one I live in and so, I have kept relatively few, especially fiction. And yet, this book has survived every cull for thirty years. I think I must have first read the book in 1983 because that is the date of publication of the edition I own. I have certainly read it again since then and, having recently lent it to my sister and had it returned, I decided to read it one more time.

I am not a big fan of books and films that anthropomorphise animals. Disney leaves me cold. I don't feel the nostalgia and love some people do for characters in The Wind in the Willows. I have read Watership Down and Duncton Wood (the latter of which is by this author) but they failed to make much impression on me. Even Animal Farm would not be that interesting if it were not a brutal satire of the Soviet Union. But somehow this story of the return of sea eagles to Britain works, and is very moving.

This is a book to read with a lump in your throat nearly all the way through. An emotional journey that you can't help but get involved with. And for me, the most poignant story was not about the eagles, but about the artist, his relationships with his family, especially his father, but also his mother and brothers, and the struggle to express himself artistically. It is a wonderful story, and I think it is a tribute to the power of the story telling that the lump in my throat was just as big on this third reading, and that parts of the story still made me weep. I have rarely been so moved by a story, and it is for this reason that the book stays on my shelves when many others are given away to friends or go to the charity shop. The quality of the writing is excellent, the legends of the sea eagles and the narrative of Jim Stonor's life are coherent, the characters are complex, believable and human, but it is the story that really matters and I think once you have read it you will never forget it. The eagles may have left Jim Stonor, but I don't think they'll ever leave me.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book, and yet it is relatively unknown. I'm calling it historical fiction because it tells the story of the white-tailed sea eagle that became extinct in the British Isles in 1918.

There are two stories in this book. One is the story of an artist who grew up on the stories of the eagles and became obsessed by them. His work consisted of a series of drawings, paintings and sculptures of the magnificent birds.

The second story is that of the eagles themselves. It follows them as they leave Scotland for Norway and Iceland. It talks of the prophecy of "The Doom", and their struggle to survive as they attempt to repopulate in Scotland. For interest sake, there is a population today of approximately 5000 white-tailed sea eagles in Scotland.

In my opinion, the thing that makes this book so important is the attention it draws to humans' role in the extinction of animals, specifically these birds. From trophy hunters, egg collectors, to oil spills and farmers poisioning them in a misguided belief that the birds prey on their sheep, mankind is largely responsible for their extinction.

The only reason I don't give this book five stars is that it is a dense book. Not only is the type-set dense, but the content is as well. It took me a long time to finish this book.

I highly recommend it.

[Samuel Bigglesworth]

Well this is another book this year that I quit reading about 200 pages in that I'm unlikely to return to.

Sure elements of it were cool as hell; the realness of it, the amazingly talented artist with a very complex family life, the mythology and magic of the last of a dying lost breed, people feeling removed from their true home.

But in reality it dragged a little for me. The female love interests were written in the way that you find more commonly in old books, if I remember correctly, just as sex symbols, and as a reader it makes me roll my eyes. They maybe wouldn't be out of place featured in an article such as this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo... however my memory may be blowing things out of proportion.

There are no bad books, just unsuitable readers, and I feel when I was a teenager I may have enjoyed this immensely.

The main character felt one dimensional at times. He is held up as a wonder, and an object of study yet I felt I hardly got to know him.

No doubt an interesting book that won't fare particularly well with contemporary readers.

[Oana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful story of coming of age, art, and legend, beautifully merged in a unique and original novel.

[Matt]

Don't EVEN bother reading this book if you thought it would be like Duncton, it's sadly not.

B O R I N G !!!!!

A biopic on an artist and family that struggles through life and relationships, while creating a story around Sea Eagles.

The story about Jim Stonor, main character, is just really like reading a lame biography about an artist. The other story is about Sea Eagles as they deal with the end/extinction.

The two stories don't mash together at all.

[Wendy Kershaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite book of all time.

[Carl Barlow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not finished.

Back in the day, post Watership Down, talking animals seemed to be everywhere. William Horwood's Duncton Wood was one of the better examples, but it' sequels became too mystical for me - I like my moles to at least resemble moles and not furry wizards from some slightly naff Lord of the Rings knock-off. So, though I recall The Stoner Eagles from that time, I never got around to reading it - and now that I've made the attempt, I know that it's hardly a thing that's been missing from my life all these years.

The book details -and I do mean DETAILS- the life of a fictional artist, brought up in post-war Britain, who is somewhat obsessed by the near-eradicated Sea Eagles of Scotland. In a series of flashbacks we learn of his life... but, other than what I suspect is something of a nostalgia trip for the author (and an admittedly well-written one), there isn't that much out of the ordinary to discover, other than he was very talented and has one or two issues. Everything else is relatively mundane... which might be a reason why there are the tagged-on episodes with talking eagles (that, or it's a blatant attempt to keep the Duncton Wood fans interested). These bits are initially tales told by the characters, but soon are just thrown in for their own sake. I suspect that, in my early teens, these would have been the most interesting parts of the book, but now I only see them as unnecessary - especially as the eagles are depicted as MUCH more human than bird (also, they are a fiction within the fiction, which makes them even more redundant).

I found myself skimming after the first 150 pages, and what I saw of the remaining 450 never suggested I may be missing something. Not for me.

[Lone Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

A difficult book both to read and to rate. The problem is that it is really two stories being told at the same time – one about Cuillin, last of the sea eagles, and one about James MacAskill Stonor, a boy growing up in a seaside town.

The parts about the eagles are good – if the book contained just those, I’d have given it three or maybe even four stars. But the human stuff really drags it down. It is clearly semi-autobiographical, featuring various coming-of-age events that, whilst obviously important to the author, since he was the one living them, are essentially just perfectly normal, ordinary things happening to a perfectly normal, ordinary boy. This makes for tiresome reading.

If you’re a fan of animal stories and are thinking of reading this book, I’d suggest only reading the parts about the eagles, and just skipping over the parts with James.

[Floydinpink · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took a little time to sink its hooks into me. Once it did though it was a very memorable and I enjoyed it immensely.
However the ending was a horrible anti-climax, the like I'd never experienced before. So bad was it I actually threw the book at the ground and stomped around in anger. I just couldn't believe such a great book ended in such a limp wristed way, like the author was tired and thinking of the next novel to write, or just plain out of ideas to sew up this tale.

That ending makes it hard to rate, and harder to recommend.
If the bulk of a novel is good but the ending bad, is the story, as a whole, good or bad(and worth reading)? Can a bad book be good if it has a fantastic ending?

[Annette Barsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell passionately in love with this book right away.
It was many years ago now that I read it (1986-7) but it inspired me to create one of my first ever adventurous large clay ceramic sculptures, which I wish I hadn't sold now.
The eagle I created went in the kiln the night of the great hurricane on October 15th/16th 1987, so that in itself has great meaning for me and it did survive the storm and a nasty person's vandalism which broke it in two.
I have kept the book after lending it out and fearing never to see it again.
From memory the book writes about the life of a male artist and sculptor.
Then it swaps to the life of a pair of eagles in Skye. Very cleverly written and by an author I have enjoyed reading before.
Well worth reading. Enjoy!

[ruzmarì · Rating 4 out of 5]

Departing from the world of moles, and the world of wolves, Horwood turned his attention in this magnificent novel to art and eagles. No depth of beauty is left unexplored, no family tie unresonating. For those who resist the anthropomorphizing tendencies of the Duncton Wood series, this book offers two layers of narrative - one about an artist and his son, and one about endangered eagles - which intertwine and intersect in surprising ways. It's a novel that will change you.

[Tory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing work. Dont expect to read it in a hurry there are 3 stories in one all intertwined (is that a word?) it will move you to tears and have you on the edge of your seat and leave you feeling richer for reading it.

[David Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Horwood had not written Skallagrigg, this would have been his masterpiece. Serious, probing, skilled, compassionate - and telling.

[Pamela Kay Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a masterpiece, and I rarely, if ever, say anything's a masterpiece.

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this years ago, perhaps as a teenager, when I was first reading the works of William Horwood. Horwood was most famous then for his two trilogies about anthropomorphic moles, the Duncton books. When I say anthropomorphic, perhaps think more Watership Down rather than Redwall. (Though he did also later get to write the sequels to Wind in the Willows, so that counts for something.)

This was his second novel (clearly when he hadn't decided to focus Mostly on Moles) and has two story lines: one an epic tale about the last sea eagle from Scotland that leaves her home trying to escape extinction (known as The Doom) but hoping to make it back one day. [Note: this did mirror real life where the last known sea eagle was killed in Scotland in 1917, but eventually some came back in the 70s and now there are a couple of hundred there.]

The second strand that interweaves with this one is the life story of James Macaskill Stonor, a visual artist who created a famous series of art works to do with eagles.

While there are some tremendous scenes of power (there nearly always are in most Horwood books), this book just collapses under the weight of its own length. Either that or I'm losing my ability to read long books, both of which could be possible. The Stonor story feels almost like Horwood wanted to fictionalise his own autobiography, and so every scene seems somehow redundant and yet personal at the same time.

And even the eagle story line seems to take its sweet old time, given that mostly all that happens is that eagles travel back and forth between various locations while trying to work out how to "fly true".

Look, there will be some readers of nature books who absolutely love this, but for me, it was just too much.

[Josephine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book demands that I don't pick up another for at least a week - just to stay longer in its residue of emotion and deep thought, of inspiration and uplifting wings. It's dense writing, but so rich with life stories and struggle for survival that it carries you forward. Perhaps the fact that it's in-part autobiographical instils a greater depth. I'm from Kent and know the coast a little round Deal so the description of the beaches leapt readily to mind. There's a map at the start of the book showing the Isle of Skye and the places in Norway and Iceland where the eagles frequent - by page 600 of this epic novel the flat, black and white map becomes a wash of beautiful images elevated by ancient lore.

[Mya · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This started off very poetically and I was a little lost in the beginning. I didn't even like the eagle bits at first, but thankfully the story of Jim kept me interested. Then the poetry eased a bit and I really got into it. At one point I started to wonder if Jim's story (at least) was based on a real person, but apparently not. This is 100% fiction even if the interview extracts feel and read as if they had been in real publications. And later, the story of how Jim's art evolved felt awfully bibliographical. It is masterfully written and not as long as some of his other books. I almost wish there were pictures though!

[Casimir Laski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arguably Horwood’s most ambitious work, The Stonor Eagles is split between two interwoven narratives: an exploration of the life of James MacAskill Stonor, a legendary and troubled artist whose sculptures of birds of prey have captivated audiences around the world, and the group of sea eagles who have become mythologized through his works, derived from stories passed down to him by his father.

At once an exploration of a child of a broken home, whose insecurities drove him to dedicate his life to the arts, and simultaneously a meditation on the gradual, inevitable decline of the wild beauty once inherent to the British countryside, The Stonor Eagles suffers somewhat due to its length and pacing, particularly with regard to the plodding dives into the artist’s past—but nonetheless, the novel possesses enough merit to satisfy fans of high-concept xenofiction. [7/10]

[Benj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant epic tale about an artist who is obsessed with sea eagles, intertwined with a mythologised story about the sea eagles and their eventual return to Scotland. It's not perfect: it's a big baggy in the middle (we really don't need all the details of Jim Stonor as a boy) and I found the eagles' story a bit pointless and repetitive at times, but it is superb at depicting an artist struggling (and succeeding) to convert his ideas into physical drawings and sculptures.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it - every time I read it!

[Elsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful. One of my favourites.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much felt like a sequel to The Boy With No Shoes.

[slauderdale]

Less reviewed than it is discussed in my blog post "William Horwood, Callanish, and Skallagrigg": https://librarianslauderdale.wordpres...

As a kid I was a somewhat indifferent student in certain of my classes and my parents would get pretty annoyed about my grades. At several points I was prohibited from reading fantasy or, when they were really mad, from any kind of leisure reading. My response on those latter occasions was usually to read on the floor of my bedroom with my back against the door. It happened the first time I read "The Stonor Eagles" that I was under a No Fantasy fiat, and my mom was pretty suspicious of the gigantic eagle on the cover. “Is that a fantasy book?” she asked me. “It’s a biography about an artist named Jim Stonor,” I told her. (Partial biography, WHOLLY fictional.) She flipped through it and I guess she was reassured by the presence of newspaper excerpts at the top of some of the chapters. If she’d been looking more closely she would have noticed that they were all circa 2014, 2017, and so on…

[Mazil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has taken me a long time to come to read. Although I have been a fan of William Horwood's Duncton books since high school, I hesitated to read this book, and I'm actually glad that I waited until I was a little older.

This is thoughtful story, one that I found deeply moving. The beginning is slow but graceful, with ample and immersive imagery that paints a setting and characters that I couldn't help but grow to love by the end.

I think this story needs space and time to grow into while reading. A few years ago, I might have put this book down after the first unhurried chapter, but I'm glad I continued. This story grows into you, slowly but deeply.

If you are a fan of the Duncton books, animal stories, have an interest in the arts, and an affinity for (or feel you could cultivate a liking for, or interest in) small English towns, then this may be for you.

[Marilyn Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horwood is a terrific storyteller, creates characters I care about, doesn't gratuitously break the reader's heart, or lapse into unnecessary violence, and is mostly a pleasure to read. I agree with another reviewer here that this particular book felt long, took a long time to read. But I liked it and don't want to lower my rating. I especially liked the story line about the artist, his family and friends, and his artistic development. The story line about the eagles was also good, but mostly memorable to me for what I learned about sea eagles, and some of the challenges they face. Just updated this rating to 5 stars because this book has stayed with me so vividly and I miss Jim Stonor's world (4-23-2022).

[Mike Augustine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be an interesting dual-narrative fictional bio-drama. The novel’s parallel stories consist of a biographical sketch of an artist/sculptor (and supporting characters) and a related anthropomorphic White-tailed Sea Eagle narrative with mystical elements. I chose it based on a base understanding of artist narrative and that story probably could have been constructed to stand on its own. The author’s anthropomorphic choice in the second story provides a visceral experience of the precariousness of nature itself and the impact of humanity. The mystical elements of the second story were my least appreciated part of an overall good and uniquely linked work.

[Steve Smy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly Horwood's greatest work! The Multi-stranded novel that goes to tremendous heights and terrible depths demonstrates how apparently unrelated matters can somehow be ultimately dependant, one upon the other. Not a quick read, but then it deserves to have time devoted to it. I could suggest passages to look for, but the true power is in the whole, not the parts.

[Mawgojzeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a bit more difficult (slower) for me to become invested in, but the patience was worth it. I am not a bird-kinda-person, so I had low expectations as to how well I would I could enter the world of this story.

What a beautiful book. A real gem.

[Jill Lawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a struggle at first, but it was worth persevering as others have commented. In reality the eagle story was more appealing than the human one - but it combined in a quite a satisfying way in the end.