I'm certainly not averse to chunky 1000 page books, but when they do happen to be slim and come in at around the 100 page mark I find myself overcome with a little wave of optimism. The Dig by Cynan Jones arrived a couple of years ago, neat and tidy at 150 pages but sadly horribly messy in content and by page 11 I had surrendered.
That happened three times before I swore off it.
The 'messy' content is badger-baiting and I couldn't bear it...
I might be the mother of a gamekeeper and thus became immune to the sight of a dead deer on the veranda, or squirrel tails blocking the filter on the washing machine, in the days when he still lived here, but badgers, though present in serious numbers, were definitely off-limits. As I understood it at the time, better the badger you know than the ones you don't....lose one harmless lot and another, possibly diseased crew would move in...but what do I know about any of this.
What I do know is that, despite this being described as 'pure, pared-down, rural realism' I could live in the midst of it but I couldn't read it on the page... yet somehow I wanted to because I was hearing compelling things about Cynan Jones and his writing style...
'a writer of uncommon gifts...'
'sets a thrilling new standard...'
'shows what a transporting device the short novel can be...'
Of The Long Dry, the first novel by Cynan Jones, Sarah Waters says 'Lovely, poignant and resonant,' on the front cover so I felt reasonably safe and proceeded.
If I think about books about Wales and farming I think of On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin, or perhaps The Hill Bachelors by William Trevor, or maybe even that first volume of autobiography by Horatio Clare Running for the Hills which I enjoyed so much last year.
The pre-ordained setting will most likely include isolation, misery, treachery, angst, infidelity, bogs and rain ( a lot of both) and some traumatic animal stuff and, 'tis true, The Long Dry has a small measure of most except for the rain because the book is set on a Welsh coastal farm in the midst of a very long hot dry summer....maybe but not specifically 1976 (it's the only significant one I can think of)
Gareth and Kate and their children Dylan and Emmy are now living on the farm bought by Gareth's father after the war 'when he didn't want to work for the bank anymore,' so their farming skills and heritage are of just a single generation's experience.
It is early morning, one cow has given birth to a stillborn calf and another, heavily pregnant, has gone missing and Gareth sets out on foot to find her. Slowly and subtly, and with few words but plenty of silences, all the personalities emerge and I was suddenly aware that I had a really good grasp on the nuances of this family...
Gareth...
' He must be very careful with his anger because it is very big when it comes...'
Kate's low self-worth and fear of her diminishing self-image as age takes its toll, but something else, something much bigger is eating away at her conscience and will cause her to self-harm...
Dylan the awkward and recalcitrant teenage son...
Emmy, the innocent child....
Curly the faithful old sheep dog nearing the end of his days..
The cats, I am definitely knowing the cats...
'...he had adopted a placid, somewhat bourgeois cynicism; he also smouldered with the simple fury of having had his balls cut off and in defiance of his emasculation paced about the place with the slow steps of a tiger...'
and the other one...
'She was beautiful, a tortoiseshell with teardrop eyes and the inbuilt mischief anything with lovely eyes has naturally...she was frivolous as only the beautiful can be...'
Using his grandfather's memoirs to create some of the events in the book, Cynan Jones invests small episodes, some of them haunting and deeply moving, with great depth and veracity and all helping to create a remarkable whole whilst leaving much to the reader's own imagination. Here is a writer who says he trusts the reader, who, by his own admission, prefers to draw the eye rather than building a narrative and perhaps the most stunning twist involves a moment of catastrophe that will happen in nine days time, beyond the final page of the book.The reader knows about it in every detail, the family don't, and with the garnered knowledge of their personalities it is the reader who will gauge the reactions and go on to write the next fifty or so pages in their imagination long after the book is finished, Cynan Jones doesn't need to.
That feels like brave writing and I appreciated that trust invested in me.
For all its action The Long Dry feels quiet and understated, less is more and more is given.
I commend it to the house and if you have read it, or anything else by Cynan Jones I would love to know your thoughts...
Any more good reads about Wales to recommend... have I ever read How Green Was My Valley or am i just remembering the film...
And any more short reads to recommend...books that pack all you need and more into so few pages..
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