Days of Sand

Hello Gentle Reader,

There is something to be said about poets who dare to dabble in the inkwells of prose. Afterall, poetry and prose approach language and narrative from completely different starting points and have varying expectations of what the destination is. Poetry is the lark form. There is an understanding of language. The composition, the textures, the resonance, the cadence followed by the echo. Whether or not the tune is sharp or flat; if the rhythm and rhyming scheme floats with elegance, reaching for the effervescent points of euphonic, or if the rhythm clatters, the lines dragging along the stanza as a series of chains clanging and jangling in a Marlian procession of rusted grating damned cacophony. Turners of language; cultivators of silence. Poets master schools and forms; be it Elizabethan or Italian sonnet, limerick or villanelle. These defined forms exist to support and provide structure to the ephemera which poetry courts. Whereas prose is the catchall. Where poetry corresponds with air, the lightness of the sky, the shapelessness of clouds; prose encompasses the solid and firmness of the earth; the salt and the spice of it. Not concerned with tradition or form, prose maintains itself through the universality of grammar. Structured around sentences and paragraphs; punctuated with comas, semicolons, colons; concluding with periods, exclamation marks and question marks. As long as these principles are adhered to, the form is malleable and shapable. Prose is flexible beyond the traditions of established thought, theories, schools or forms. This of course being said, the prose written and celebrated today is best described as punchy. Sentences are hardboiled. They are rendered down to their bleached and translucent bones, whereby they rattle with solemn and hollow reportage. As a point of personal judgement, this scaled, scalped and trimmed sentence structure complete with concrete pithy style, can be traced to Hemmingway; whose barebones reportage writing style was praised upon its initial debut as a significant departure from the exuberant eloquence of Henry James. Now, however, the style has become propensity of every writer milled out of some creative writing fine arts degree program. It is understandable why students and aspiring writers are instructed not to emulate the overwhelming cascading verbosity of Henry James. Yet the directness championed by Hemingway has all but washed, glazed and baked the writings of today to a templated scripture. There is no scrolling expressiveness. Its all been replaced by a style effectively described as write by numbers or the building block composition. The poet, however, who splashes in the ever-expanding pond of prose, is capable of approaching language and sentences from an original and different perspective. Gone is the utilitarian and wooden production of sentences, since replaced by a prose whose qualities invoke an undercurrent of sophistication, evident in a complexity of metaphors and imagery; the smoothness of the sentences rippling forward in controlled purposeful current; not a series of blocks assembled in a manner of tracking the trajectory of point to point. Nevertheless, there is a word of caution to poets who move into the vacuous realm of prose. Unencumbered and therefore unmoored by form or structure, it is easy to become enveloped and lost within the sheer quantity of an overabundance of text and be swept out and away. Some poets when turning to prose, loose the plot and the point, whereby readers drown (or give up) in a novel that is infused with beautiful language, but has no where to take hold or take shape or form. While others take to prose with ease, mastering both forms. Hélène Dorion is one such poet.

“Days of Sand,” has been classified as a novel. Yet, this assembly of text by the Québécoise poet Hélène Dorion, would be best defined as a meditation rather than a novel. While French publishing is open to a myriad of genres to at least attempt to describe the insurmountable shapes and figures prose can take; the counterpart of English publishing is less generous in accepting terms such as meditations or fragments as standalone literary forms unto themselves, they can certainly be a part of a novel or essay, but as singular compositions, no it just wont do. Which inevitably explains why “Days of Sand,” for all intents and purposes is described as a novel. Despite this, Hélène Dorion embraces the free form of prose with ease, crafting a series of vignettes compromised of memories; meditations on language; thoughts and ponderings, become collated into a seamless menagerie of what may be described in the loosest of terms as a memoir. Hélène Dorion’s vignettes are impressionistic in scope and scale. Rather then being an oil painter, Dorion is a watercolourist providing impressions and insinuations to shape the negative space, without anchoring the work into the firm elements of autobiography or requirements of a traditional memoir. Furthermore, Dorion’s memories are nonlinear in scope and spirit. The spark alight with the spontaneity of reminiscences. How they are incited, provoked and spurred on is never revealed, such a detail is inconsequential in “Days of Sand.” Hélène Dorion’s interest remains firmly interested in tracing the memory and revelation as its recalled and considered.

“Our lives depend perhaps upon what wanders about in our heads as children, and which we only re-encounter in pieces, in images that are only ever fragments, half-true stories driven by words. We reshape the thread linking the worlds, delving into the imaginary and reality, without concern for the other.

One day the window opens on its own. We are ready to let in the scenery. The wind blows, bringing with it faces, scenes, minor events, others more troubling. The present carries enough weight in the balance of time to modify constantly the vision we have of the past. We turn the glass around. we listen to what has been echoing forever in our voices. We are ready to reconstruct our memory.”

Memory via the pen of Hélène Dorion is pétillant in spirit. A carbonated chaos were flashes of memories whip and whirl through the window, becoming half remembered truths and stories. A convoluted mosaic constructed of chipped and fragmented tiles. The brightness of Dorion’s prose comes from its enveloping sensory qualities enriched further by the lyrical and poetic qualities. The distance between remembered and the event itself, creates a crystalline – almost cold – understanding. Dramatic incidents of escaping house fires, nearly drowning, the solitude of illness and recovery, are recalled and reflected on, but never melodramatically chewed over. Rather they lead to observations, mediations, and realizations. The understanding of one’s parents eventually ceasing to exist in the world, witnessing their own entrance into orphanhood. There are ruminations of the complexities of piecing together the origins of one’s family, or at the very least, the semblance of it. This is complete by half-true stories and personal mythologies in which we all come to accept as the testament. Memories of long-haul road trips for family vacations, hallmarks of childhood. The resolve and understanding that one will become a writer, not as a point of cultural pedigree, but as a inherent vocation from within oneself. In the end though, the “Days of Sand,” persists through its flashes, snapshots, and fragments: “The sand runs out and the wave soon will carry everything away; all we can do is love.”

Hélène Dorion’s border cross into prose is a beautiful success. In maintaining the same adherence to sharp and precise language, Dorion is capable of striking at the heart of the matter, rather than linger over details in any excessive or languid fashion. “Days of Sand,” is a collection of reminiscences, meditations, recollections and reflections. Each sequence or vignette an exquisite pearl along the strand. Readers, however, should be forewarned in advance. While “Days of Sand,” is titled a novel and won the now defunct Prix Anne-Hébert award in 2004, it is not concerned with narrative or character. There is no story to grip to it. Rather it’s a free-flowing series of short recollections and reminisces, examined from a new temporal reality, truths and observations can be understood with some degree of clarity granted by the privilege of age and distance. For readers who enjoy their prose with a greater sensory appreciation and delight in the freefall of poetry in prose, “Days of Sand,” is perfect, complete with an at times ellagic quality of time passage now viewed within retrospect.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

The Nobel Prize in Literature Nominations 1975

Hello Gentle Reader,

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 1975 was awarded to the Italian poet Eugenio Montale with the citation:

“For his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions.”

The 1975 Nobel came off the heels of one of the Swedish Academy’s legendary missteps in 1974. The stakes were high, and if there was a collectively conscious effort to cleanse the palate and start off on the right foot, the members of the academy made no such inclination. Despite this, it is not a stretch of the imagination to consider that the previous years fallout had contaminated the deliberations, regardless if they were recorded in the minutes of debate and discussion or not. Afterall, the 1974 decision remains a lightning rod and shining example of the Swedish Academy falling face first into scandal. This award alone is routinely brought forward to besmirch and bring into question the academy’s credibility as literary connoisseurs and adjudicators. Naturally, the Swedish Academy is not the absolute authority on literary matters and what amounts to greatness. The Nobel Prize in Literature is dog eared with questionable decisions, obscure laureates and humiliating omissions. The archives themselves reveal the pettiness of the members own arguments and their eccentric rationale for dismissing some writers, be it age or in the case of Auden in 1964, because his best work was considered too far past.

The decision to award Eugenio Montale the Nobel Prize was at the time lauded as a remediating step. Eugenio Montale is considered a titan of Italian poetry alongside his countrymen and Nobel Laureate Salvatore Quasimodo (1959) and Giuseppe Ungaretti, who moved Italian poetry away from the baroque and rhetorical forms of the prevailing and previous generation, instead embracing a poetic language that is often described as intrapersonal and closed off, which would become known as hermeticism. A late modernist poetry school, which placed equal emphasis on the sound of the words in addition to their meaning, with a bent towards ambiguity. This being said, Eugenio Montale refuted the notion of hermeticism poetry and its continued association with his work.

In their press release, the Swedish Academy described Eugenio Montale as “[. . .] indisputably, as one of the most important poets of the contemporary west.” Yet, during the initial nomination process and preliminary discussions of contenders for the year, Eugenio Montale was second or third on the Nobel Committee members lists of proposals. It is reasonable to speculate that the years Nobel Committee and members were, if not divided in their thoughts, they were at the minimum indecisive.

During the spring meeting, the Nobel Committee presented an extensive longlist of potential writers to the academy, totaling at 11. The then Permanent Secretary Karl Ragnar Gierow, commented on the unusual length of the list, which showed a lack of cohesive certainty amongst the members, which again can be attributed to last years disastrous proceedings. A handful of the writers who were considered first in the deliberations included: Saul Bellow and Graham Greene; while sharing the prize between Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer, or, between Vicente Aleixandre and Jorge Luis Borges. It should be noted; the list of proposals was quite lengthy due to the number of nominations in favour of splitting the award between two writers.

The conversation of splitting the Nobel Prize became a contentious discussion. In the wake and aftermath of the 1974 decision, the Swedish Academy had enacted a convention that the Nobel Prize in Literature should not be split between writers in order to preserve the prize from being diluted and its prestige reduced to a glossy glimmer. This being said, since being elected to the academy, Artur Lundkvist was the main proponent of splitting the Nobel Prize in Literature between writers in order to broaden the prizes scope and appeal; while acknowledging the increased challenges of granting a singular writer the prize, who just happened to rise above the rest. Thankfully, Permanent Secretary Karl Ragnar Gierow disagreed with Lundkvist’s assessment and advocated for the conventional and now principled restricted purview. Whereby the award should not be cheapened for the sake of casting a broader net.

It was Henry Olsson who came through during a September meeting, and with hedge trimmers in hand sought to do battle with the Nobel Committee’s expansive list of potential writers, and a prevailing indecisive attitude. Perhaps due to a sense of respect of having sat on the Nobel Committee between 1959 – 1971, Olsson carried weight and respect within the Swedish Academy as a senior member, granting him the privilege to review the list on offer and finding them not quite up to snuff, and working through it to find the gold beneath the lead. Eugenio Montale, happened to be the gold in question, a common second in addition to third rate choice amongst the committee members. A defining feature of democratic committees is the belief in fairs fair in compromise. There’s a bit of a surprise to think that Eugenio Montale can be described as a compromise decision. The diamond buried beneath the heaping coal of possibilities. To loosely quote Henry Olsson regarding his conclusion, “Montale seems to measure up both as a poet and a person.”

In the end, the 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature fell on firm footing, despite the indecision and lengthy road it took to get there. After the previous years bruhaha, Eugenio Montale proved to set the prize back on course. Despite being the last Nobel announced that year, somewhat similar to 2016. Subsequent laureates which included Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Czesław Miłosz, affirmed the prize as being one of the most eccentric and interesting literary prizes in the world. A reputation the Nobel Prize in Literature continues to hold. As for Eugenio Montale, the poet described hearing the news of being awarded the Nobel Prize had made his life, “which was always unhappy, less unhappy.” Profound.

As for the prize nominations for 1975, the Swedish Academy received a total of 114 nominations. Of these 114, 28 were first time nominees, this included:

Chinua Acheb

Fernand Braudel,

Dobrica Ćosić

Miloš Crnjansk

Mohammed Dib

Gabriel García Márquez (1982)

Wilson Harris

Masuji Ibuse

Tove Jansson

Naguib Mahfouz (1988)

Desanka Maksimović,

Vasko Popa

Chaim Potok

Mary Renault

1975 was also the first year the most female writers had been nominated for the award with a total of 13:

Anna Banti
Simone de Beauvoir
Doris Lessing (2007)
Nadine Gordimer (1991)
Tove Jansson
Rina Lasnier
Desanka Maksimović
Kamala Markandaya
Victoria Ocampo
Mary Renault
Nathalie Sarraute
Anna Seghers
Marie Under

Future nominated laureated included the following and their year:

Saul Bellow – 1976
Vicente Alexandre – 1977
Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1978
Odysseus Elytis – 1979
Elias Canetti – 1981
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 1982
William Golding – 1983
Jaroslav Seifert – 1984 winner
Claude Simon – 1985
Naguib Mahfouz – 1988
Camilo Jose Cela – 1989
Octavio Paz - 1990
Nadine Gordimer – 1991
Ōe Kenzaburō – 1994
Günter Grass – 1999
VS Naipaul – 2001
Harold Pinter – 2005
Doris Lessing – 2007 

Additionally, Elie Wisel was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, but would go on to win the 1986 Peace Prize. 

Of all the listed future Nobel Laureates in Literature, Doris Lessing would certainly have to wait the longest, becoming the oldest Nobel Laureate in Literature at 88 in 2007. During the sixties and seventies, Lessing’s reputation had moved from postcolonial critic, to a curious surveyor of the psychology and mindset of the mid-century mind. Lessing’s recent publications during the 70’s included “Briefing for a Descent into Hell,” “The Summer Before the Dark,” and “The Memoirs of a Survivor.” By the end of the decade however, Lessing would move from interior explorations to a science fiction and space-oriented exploration. It has long been speculated, once Doris Lessing began to write genre fiction (i.e. “Canopus in Argos: Archives,” series), the Swedish Academy lost interest in Lessing’s authorship alongside many of her readers and critics, who considered the author having lost her ‘rational worldview,’ whereby she explored social and psychological realism of the postwar period. During the Nobel announcement interview in 2007, the then Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdahl, mentioned Doris Lessing’s autobiographies from the 90’s, had introduced a new peak in her bibliography, which encouraged the Swedish Academy to revisit her work once again. Though this will all need to be confirmed when those archives are opened in the subsequent decades.

Other future laureates such as: Ōe Kenzaburō, Günter Grass, VS Naipaul were only beginning to gain critical traction. While Harold Pinter had already established himself as a playwright, whose comedy of menace was competing with the absurd Beckettian tropes which had previously been considered theatre gold. Additionally, this marks the first time Gabriel Garcia Marquez was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, his magnum opus “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” already published, and “The Autumn of the Patriarch,” was published in 1975. It will be curious to see what deliberations will come in the following years, and if Artur Lundkvist strong armed the academy at all, as (if memory serves me correctly) Artur Lundkvist was considered the Spanish language expert for the Swedish Academy, during his tenure.

Another first-time nominee, Naguib Mahfouz should be noted. While there is no denying that Mahfouz is an undisputable giant of Egyptian literature, it had always been theorized when it came to his candidacy of the prize, he was weighted and evaluated alongside his countryman, Tawfiq al-Hakim. While, al-Hakim had been nominated in years past (1969 and 1972), he was once again not nominated in 1975, leaving room to speculate that perhaps, nominators turned towards nominating Naguib Mahfouz, whose famous work were grand realistic novels, which may have been looked upon favourably by the Swedish Academy. Only the future archives will tell, what these discussions hold, and when Naguib Mahfouz was given serious consideration. Afterall the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature remains a shining success of the prize, Mahfouz continues to endure as a marvelous writer.

One other significant and monumental playwright of the 20^th century, who is often roped into the tent of ‘theatre of the absurd,’ Eugène Ionesco, was once again nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975 by the Nobel Committee, but it does not appear that any serious consideration was given to his candidacy at this time. To similar to Samuel Becket perhaps? Despite being a completely different and avant-garde writer. Additionally, Ionesco took a greater interest in writing theoretical texts for theatre, which allowed him to respond to his critics and reach out to audiences and members of the public directly, to help clarify any misunderstandings they may have regarding his work.

It is also interesting to see the Finnish-Swedish language writer, Tove Jansson nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though ultimately, she did not receive the prize. There does not appear to be any deliberations or review of Jansson has a contender for the prize in 1975. Though, I believe the author and artist would inevitably be phased out of never being considered, in the same fashion the academy had disregarded the nomination of Astrid Lindgren. Despite a small and loyal support within the academy for Lindgren’s candidacy, other members with severe attitudes towards the notion of children’s literature, ensured Astrid Lindgren would never be considered for the prize. Despite Tove Jansson writing a variety of novels and short stories, her career was often eclipsed (to her frustration) by the Moomin trolls, and it is not difficult to imagine members of the Swedish Academy recoiling from the thought of having to deliberate on Tove Jansson, let alone entertain the thought she might receive the prize; though this is purely speculation. 1975 marks the first time Tove Jansson was nominated, further years – pending she was nominated – will determine whether or not she was discussed.

The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975 by all accounts during the time was considered a safe choice. Eugenio Montale was considered a concrete decision as an important Italian poet. Certainly, the last of his generation with the death of Giuseppe Ungaretti. Though what separates Montale from his contemporaries (Salvatore Quasimodo and Giuseppe Ungaretti) was a refusal to engage with politics directly in his literary work. In the later years Quasimodo’s poetry moved towards a political bent, taking an active critical position. While Giuseppe Ungaretti in turn had a complex relationship with both fascism and Mussolini. First an open supporter of both, endorsing the strong-willed principles of both as necessary to unite a fractured Italy into a strong nation. Ungaretti eventually grew more disillusioned with the ideology and its leader for its brutality and strong-arm practices. Montale, however, continuously resisted politics from infiltrating his poetic work, staying the course in writing poetry that was intrapersonal, oblique, and was described by some critics as reminiscent of a man muttering to himself. In all the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature was by all accounts a decent prize. A significant refreshing perspective as last years prize was marked by outrage and opposition. While Italy was jubilant to the announcement; even by this time, poetry had become an increasingly lacking form for readers, and the rest of the world reacted with nonchalance and indifference. As for Eugenio Montale, it made is otherwise unhappy life, less unhappy.

 

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

 

For Further Reading

Svenska Dagbladet: "Efter krisen: Nobelpris till andrahandsvalet,"

The New York Times: "Montale, a Poet, Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature,"

The Nobel Prize Website: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1975 (Press Release) 

Akenfield

Hello Gentle Reader,

It’s an insistence really. At this point, truly, it is a perspective turned opinion, now fashioned into personal doctrine, that the reverence people hold for the countryside – with their continued yearning for what one person recently called, ‘a parcel piece of land,’ which they continued on with almost bellyaching longing: ‘Barely an acreage. Make it a postage stamp size even, it doesn’t need to be a farm. Just away.’ – all stems from the propagation and the inadvertent propaganda success, of the English romanticising their countryside. Successfully shifting and shaping their island home into a visage of arcadian idyll, second only to Eden itself. A pedestrian paradise of country lanes, snaking canals and rivers, frolicsome hills, chalk white seaside cliffs, shingle beaches, ancient dales, endearing woods, picturesque meadows, and tranquil lakes. Mention the English countryside and already people are conjuring some whimsical image. Perhaps that of Beatrix Potter, with her eloquent watercolour illustrations for her ‘Little Tales,’ which includes the adventures of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, and the brawling figures of Mr. Tod and Tommy Brock. If not the world of Potter, then perhaps that of Kenneth Grahame and his “The Wind in the Willows,” charting the adventures of Mole and Ratty and those misadventures of Toad. It is worth mentioning in turn, the paganistic piper of the dawn. Who is really the rustic god Pan. Salt and peppered with estates and castles and chocolate box villages, the English countryside retains its hold as a place of imaginative paradise, which everything else pales in comparison. Heralding from the Canadian countryside myself; the notion, thought, prospect, or most likely, threat of returning to those rural roots is nothing short of condemnation, tantamount to incarceration. While true, the Canadian landscape is one of untouched majestic wilderness. It is rustic and rugged, which are polite terms in this context for rough, uncontained, and lacking in civil comforts. Despite this, it is unadulterated beauty is raw, pristine, and majestic, in how little appears to have been spoiled by economic development. This does not mean it is not endangered or under threat, with bulldozers in the name of prosperity and progress waiting to be unleashed. The Canadian countryside despite its variance, diversity, and variety in features and provincial flares, retains one shared and consistent commonality: remoteness. Canadian rural, is not some country retreat, where life can be put on hold or at the very least the back burner for a few days. It is remote, in the extreme sense of the word, bringing to mind shipwrecked souls stranded in nowhere. The immensity of the landscape, is enough to swallow one whole. Why, anyone longs for this, is beyond me. Yet they do and they are out there. My own mother, who comes from rural stock and remains in her own house in what is classified as a rural hamlet, insists upon her love of where she lives. The country, she says, is peace and quiet. There’s no racing and rushing. To me, however, it always carries the sense of being left behind. Stranded in this solitary confinement. Complete with a sense of disenfranchisement and dispossession, with an unacknowledged understanding of desperation and abject poverty, easily missed amongst the usual dirt and muck that is part and parcel of country living.

The late Ronald Blythe was one of the great rural writers of contemporary English literature. Born and raised in the countryside, Blythe never seemed to escape the smallness of this upbringing by carting off to London to chase and realise his dreams of becoming a writer. Rather, Blythe understood the charm of this landscape, the beauty of its worked fields; the class of character found in field and village living their life without acknowledgement; the thankless harshness of the work. Throughout his hundred years, Ronald Blythe, became something of a rural icon and even sage. Critics often describe Ronald Blythe as the progenitor and champion of what is now considered contemporary nature writing. This is due to Blythe celebrating the seasonal rhythms and charms of the countryside from his legendary abode, Bottengoms Farm. All of which provided Blythe (especially in the later stages of his career) the inspiration and landscape turned subject, in which to reflect on the changing world, the nature of God and faith, the passage of time and the continued wonder of the natural world. “Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village,” though, was Blythe’s reputation affirming work. Upon its initial publication in 1969, “Akenfield,” was classified as a classic of modern literature, and has retained this distinction. However, upon its initial publication, the question of literary classification plagued the book. The publisher originally conceived of it as a piece of anthropology/sociology. Blythe, however, found these terms to academic for what the book sought to achieve. And while “Akenfield,” dipped its toe into rudimentary popular ethnography and social surveying, the terms anthropology and sociology, brought to mind robust humanities subjects, complete with scholars, experts, and authorities on the subject. In the same fashion, the notion and term oral history, in the sense of Svetlana Alexievich remained an otherwise niche term. In Ronald Blythe’s opinion, “Akenfield,” was a collection of essays and remembered conversations; a travelogue and piece of investigation, following in the same vein of George Orwell’s “The Road to Wigan Pier,” and the memoir “A Walker in the City,” by Alfred Kazin. Ronald Blythe in similar fashion took on different forms in compiling the material for “Akenfield.” First in returning to familiar ground as a stranger. As the wayward outsider, Blythe would be able to watch and observe. Then a transparent reporter, conversing, interviewing and listening to the stories, histories and memories of the residents. The end product is not a dry record of accounts describing a life or a series of lives, but instead capturing a rich tapestry of a world gradually falling into obsoletion. The precipice of extinction already crossed.

“Akenfield,” is organized into a series of subjects ranging from: “The Survivors,” to “God,” onwards to “The School,” “Four Ladies,” and “The Law,” with each section an ensemble of voices and vocations: Farm-Worker, Doctor, Teacher, Baptist Deacon, Rural Dean, Headmistress, Orchard Worker, District Nurse, Magistrate, Shepherd. No section is reserved explicitly for any individual. For example, “God,” naturally summons forth both the Baptist Deacon and the Rural Dean, but also incorporates the opinions on the nature of rural faith and worship with commentary provided by an Orchard Worker and the Doctor. While other sections such as “The Vet,” “Not by Bread Alone,” and “In the Hour of Death,” are singular, with commentary provided by the titular veterinarian, a poet and the gravedigger. The residents of “Akenfield,” are delineated by generations, which is further divided by defining wars of the 20^th century: the First World War and the Second World War. “The Survivors,” recount the giddying prospect of escape of their meager rural existence. The army brought the notion of adventure to their otherwise predestined lives. What followed was nothing short of horror. Leonard Thompson – who like Blythe’s own father – fought in Gallipoli during the First World War. A failure of a campaign by the allies, where slaughter and death were daily occurrences. Thompson recalls with a macabre humour, the reality of dying over there and the impossibility of a humane (let alone any notion of Christian) burial:

“We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trench but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging— even waving! There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying, “Good morning,” in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath.”

And while the horrors of any war would certainly make any dour or decrepit landscape more appealing, Thompson proves to be unsentimental with how the old ways were, when “Akenfield,” (a fictional rendering of the amalgamation of Charlesfield and Debach) and Suffolk in general, was impoverished and neo-feudal in social structure, complete with lacking public infrastructure, and poverty a defining natural feature to life. Thompson recalls the scarcity of water: “had to be fetched from the foot of a hill nearly a mile away. ‘Drink all you can at school,’ we were told — there was a tap at school. You would see the boys and girls filling themselves up like camels.” Ronald Blythe may have reverence and a deep-seated appreciation for the rural landscape, the “glory and bitterness,” of the countryside, but Blythe recognizes its own failings, shortcomings, and everyday cruelties. This is not Potter’s agrarian landscape with Farmer McGregor outwitted by Peter Rabbit and co. Nor is it the leisure land of “The Wind in the Willows.” “Akenfield,” grapples with rural life in manner that is honest, without being swamped in bucolic sentimentality; while refraining from being a runaway vitriolic barrage, holding up the countryfolk as a bumpkin sideshow to be gawked at, as cheap carnival entertainments for the urbane. The countryside for its inhabitants remains in Blythe’s view a place of deep roots and generational legacies:

“Akenfield, on the face of it, is the kind of place in which an Englishman has always felt his right and duty to live. It is patently the real country, untouched and genuine. A holy place, when you have spent half your life abroad in the services. Its very sounds are formal, hieratic; larks, clocks, bees, tractor humming’s. Rarely the sound of the human voice.”

Yet none of the villagers have any romantic attachments for the past. There is no nostalgic yearning for the way things were done before. As one farm-worker puts it, “Every bad thing gets to sound pleasant enough when time has passed. But it wasn’t pleasant then, and that’s a fact.” In their complaints, it is easy (at least for me) to recognise shared complaints, despite growing up under a different sky and a much different world. Farmers, are without a doubt, an easy lightning rod for any rural inhabitant to vex at. Their tax breaks. Their outright cheapness. Not frugality or wise business sense. It’s an outright penny-pinching stinginess. First grade misers. Whereby they could pull out a guitar or fiddle, and play a tune of their woes. If you’ve ever wondered why country music was founded on the blues principles of misery, look no farther then the farmer. Even now, with food costs and inflation, the farmers sing their tired tunes. 

It was and is the mundane cruelties, where I immediately recognized the countryside. Life and death are ever present in the country. Cattle in the fields. Chickens in their coops. Pigs in their pens. All will inevitably make their way to the grocery store and your plate. Forests and mountains are equally open during the season. It’s a conservation effort, helps to keep the populations under control. Then there are others, who through their scopes are not interested in hunting to fill their freezers. Heads. Pelts. Paws. Teeth. Trinkets and trophies are what they’re after. There is a reason there is a local taxidermist. Then there are the others. The poachers. A hunter in some respect can at least be granted a modicum of respect. A granule at best. A poacher, however, is nothing more than a scourge. They kill mindlessly. Brainless beasts of senseless slaughter. There is not an ounce or a grain or a particle of humanity within them. Economic impoverishment? No. Those considered economically disadvantaged, who in their desperation, are best described as hillbillies or rednecks, the very ones who slow down next to roadkill, contemplating if this will be their next meal. A poacher, who leaves the carcass in the ditch, is a being with no moral compass and no capacity for humanity or respect for life.

It is the Master at the Agricultural Training Centre, whose observations of rural life and of the young men who pass through his institute’s doors, who best captured the spirit of rural life at a point which struck the nearest to home. From the dyed in blue conservative politics to the casual disregard for life:

“Both groups are conservative to an amazing degree – I mean, considering how young they are. I asked my class the other day, ‘What about hanging?’ There were thirty boys in the class, all aged between seventeen and nineteen, and every one of them was in favour of hanging. It shook me. You find some funny things out. They all have a streak of cruelty. They kill in a way which would disturb the ordinary town boy – very few town boys have ever killed anything. But by the time he’s twenty a countryman will have killed a considerable number of animals. It doesn’t mean anything to them. It doesn’t mean much to me. I’m a countryman and I was brought up in an atmosphere of natural killing, on a stock farm you see the animals going away to slaughter. You see cows which you’ve milked for years and which you have named, and whom you’ve built up quite a little relationship, going off to the butcher and you don’t feel a thing. It is logical. The countryman has no reverence for life. Things are born, things die. All the time. Death is as familiar as birth. To take a murderer’s life is just sensible to them.”

The question of animal welfare and the ethics of intensive factory farming (which in the late 60’s Suffolk, is commented on as only starting out in its early stages), became a defining dilemma for the country veterinarian, who phrased the question as profits versus ethics. The country vet commented on the horrors of profit driven mutilation found in factory farms, to stop the animals from resorting to cannibalism and madness born out of the boredom and the inhumanity of their enclosures. Pigs who bite each other’s tails off. The practise of debeaking chickens to stop them from pecking and killing one another. There is no mention of grinding of male and unhealthy female chicks. Unable to produce eggs, they are considered a wasteful byproduct and put through an industrial grinder, where they are mulched into meal. Factory farming only capitalised on the inherent nihilism widespread within the agricultural community. The notion of a ‘family farm,’ now almost 60 years later, is reaching the point of extinction. Images of ‘mothers homemade chicken pot pies,’ are now just marketing campaigns, brands, and slogans. The cheery plump woman in the photo may have existed at one point in time, but not anymore. Now, its intensive and concentrated farming, whose images would be revolting to the average consumer, if they knew exactly where their eggs, meat, poultry, and dairy come from, and the conditions in which it was produced. This is not necessarily a criticism, it’s a reality. One which has subsequently wiped-out the former agriculture economy and culture Ronald Blythe originally traced, which at that time was experiencing a mass exodus. In its wake, the images of quaint country farms have been replaced by a faceless industrial complex.

My favourite sections of the book included “Four Ladies,” and “The Law.” In particular I found the observations by the Magistrate and the District Nurse, the most interesting. In the case of the District Nurse, there’s no attachment to the agricultural world. No discussion of the field work. The fragile tightwire act of farming as one battle against the weather and other obstacles. No, for the District Nurse, an outsider in every way, the obstacle was the people themselves. Those of Suffolk are an inward, secretive and suspicious lot. Despite this, she had supported their births and laid out their dead, and understood them better than most. While the Magistrate – who did her best to hide her social standings and better than attitudes – took her position seriously, but inflected a sense of social pity on those who faced the court. Still, when the Magistrate mentioned there is always that one family, immediately anyone who had any stint in the rural trenches, knew exactly what she was referring to. The peculiar ones. The pariah. The ones always on the border edges of decency and civility and for the record, didn’t give a damn. They reveled in their squalor and had no shame in their criminal dealings. These two women’s observations, brought at times refreshing outwardly perspectives on what village life is.

“Akenfield,” certainly maintain its subtext of: Portrait of an English Village, as this is exactly what it is, a portrait of an English village in a specific period of time. The winds of change are strong as they bellow and blow through the fields. The neo-feudal era is banished to the sands of time. People are no longer expected to be invisible in the presence of their social masters or superiors. There still, the countryside is drying up of its own stock. Home is home, but there are thoughts and questions of others skies and opportunities. America? Australia? These are no longer dreams, but entertained thoughts. It also captures the comic failings of the times, as noted in “The Forge,”:

“The blacksmith’s shop in most villages is now either a garage, a smart cottage called The Olde Forge or a forlorn lean-to still redolent of horse musk and iron, its roof gradually slithering down to the couch-grass mat which covers the yard.”

While the gentrification of the area, as noted by the Gardener, sees the newcomers – those city folk, who’ve come down for their own parcel or postage stamp of perceived paradise – have made life rather uninteresting, or at the very least, less elaborate. By stating “Their gardens look like shopping.” Which is not a stretch of the imagination, considering the estate garden he comes from. Ronald Blythe captures all the complexities of rural life. The neighbourliness, its own set of traditions and superstitions which carry on alongside the Christian faith. There is an awkward even bashful attitudes towards discussing politics or organizing labour openly; yet each of them will affirm they hold no fondness or dewy-eyed sentiment for the old ways – those are the worst ways, the hard ways. There is also the inherent secretiveness. “Akenfiled,” does not mine or seek to propose any lesson to be worked from the various lives on offer. What Ronald Blythe captured is so much more. Blythe captured the richness of these individuals lives against a changing rural backdrop. A time that was and will never be again, but thanks to “Akenfield,” this portraiture of place and people can be revisited and reviewed. While, at times I used the book to enforce and confirm my own held prejudices against rural life; the Poet in “Not by Bread Alone,” provides enough counter argument to my own entrenched views:

“When I was a boy I lived in a country suburb of London — it was still possible to talk of a suburb being in the country then. After Oxford, I worked in London, where I wrote a poetry of despair. It was a continuous cry for what I had lost, for the hills and fields, and the vixen wood, with the dog-fox barking at night. I imagined myself dying inside and so I came to this village to find my health. My wholeness. That is what I am here. It was not my village but to say that I had returned to it seemed a true way of describing what had happened to me. Suffolk amazed me — the great trees, the towering old buildings soaring out of the corn. The huge clear spaces. I am now at home here. I know everybody and everybody knows me. Words have meaning for me here. I am lucky, I came here to get better but I have in fact been re-born.”

Ronald Blythe’s celebration of rural life is without compare. “Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village,” captures the remarkable textures of lives lived within the English countryside. Lives which were then being transformed and phased out. It’s a remarkable book to sit back and read, not only as a sense of history, but Blythe’s ability to capture how the sense of place inherently kneads itself into one’s identity. Rather like the saddler comments on his own craft: “We worked the fat in with a bone, just as a soldier bones his boots,” – the specificities of place does much the same, and Ronald Blythe captured that testimony in “Akenfield,” with an assurance that is best described as environmental truth.
 
Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary