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Rachel Trezise reviews All Things Betray Thee by Gwyn Thomas for Planet 206
All Things Betray Thee
Gwyn Thomas
Parthian, Library of Wales, £8.99
An extract of the review follows:
"Gwyn Thomas' All Things Betray Thee was a historical novel when it was first published in 1949 as an emblematic account of the 1831 Methyr Rising that occurred a hundred odd years earlier. Now, republished as part of the Library of Wales series, it is even older, but not a shred less significant. [...]"
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"Raymond Williams stated in his foreword that the novel is a connection to the past and the future, though primarily the present, 'that endlessly repeated present in which the issues and choices are personally active. The immediate location is 1835 but the connection is beyond it to: 1986 if we can hear it.' Or the rioting in cities across England in the summer of last year. Or the public sector strikes called in November. Or perhaps the Occupy protest that is ongoing throughout the world. This novel, more than Thomas's others, transmutes the mean, urban streets of industrial villages back into a world where there is a rural peace along valley floors and among mountain tops -- imagining the valleys at the very birth of industrialisation [...] Finally, after almost two centuries of slagheaps and 'Rhondda Grey', the death of industry is upon us, and the mountains are grassy again. Physically, we are almost back to the start. But the economic wasteland that is left and the linguistic schizophrenia caused by anglicisation will continue to be a festering wound. All Things Betray Thee ensures we'll always remember when and how these wounds were first opened."
Buy All Things Betray Thee from the online Parthian Bookshop for £9.99
Rachel Tresise is the author of In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl and Fresh Apples, both available from the online Parthian bookshop. Her second collection of short stories will be out through Parthian in 2013.
Buy Planet 206 from the Planet website and read this review in full.
University of Glamorgan lecturer Dr Kevin Mills wins M Wynn Thomas award
The inaugural M Wynn Thomas Award has been awarded for an essay about the links between passion, song-writing and religion. This significant new award named in honour of a Swansea University academic to recognise the best critical work the field of Welsh writing in English, has been awarded to University of Glamorgan lecturer Dr Kevin Mills.
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Literature Wales Literary Tourism Programme 2012: Arthur Machen and Brenda Chamberlain
Parthian Books and Library of Wales are proud to be partnering with Literature Wales to provide two excellent author walks as part of their Literary Tourism Events Programme for 2012, 14 new literary adventures by train, boat, barge and bus, on horseback and on foot.
1. Arthur Machen in the Usk Valley with Catherine Fisher
11am - 4pm, Saturday 14 July 2012
In recent years, in part due to the 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth which was inspired by The Great God Pan (1894), Arthur Machen has developed cult status as one of the great early fantasy fiction writers. Born and bred in Caerleon and the hills in the north, Arthur was directly influenced by the people and places of the Usk Valley, setting scenes and drawing themes from them throughout his literary career.
We will explore some of these influences through the eyes of Catherine Fisher, local fantasy writer and Wales' Young People's Laureate, and the knowledge of some members of the Friends of Arthur Machen. The walk starts after a brief coach journey and follows a linear route back to Caerleon, ending at Caerleon Arts Festival Field.
Start: Ye Olde Bull Inn Car Park, High Street, Caerleon, Newport, NP18 1AE
Finish: Caerleon Arts Festival, Hanbury Field, Uskside, Caerleon, Newport, NP18 1AA
Ticket price: £7
Food/Drink provision: Not included - bring a packed lunch & flask; Tea/coffee & cake included afterwards.
Recommended clothing: Walking boots; Waterproofs; Warm layers; Suncream (if relevant).
Difficulty: Moderate, 5.5 miles
Not suitable for: pets, wheelchair access or children under 12 years of age.
2. Brenda Chamberlain's Bangor and Beyond with Jill Piercy and Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, 2pm - 5pm, Saturday 20 October 2012
Writer and artist Brenda Chamberlain (1912-1971) was born and raised in Bangor; moving to Llanllechid, Germany, Bardsey Island and Hydra, Greece before returning to Bangor in 1967. Wherever she lived, she wrote, painted and kept illustrated journals. She published three novels, a poetry collection and an account of her role in the creation of the Caseg Broadsheets with Alun Lewis, which featured poems by themselves, Dylan Thomas and Lynette Roberts.
Jill Piecy and Dr Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan will lead a walk around Bangor, followed by a short bus tour to the Bethesda area where she lived when first married. The afternoon will end with the launch of Brenda Chamberlain - A Life (Parthian, 2012) by Jill Piercy, generously hosted by Bangor University.
In partnership with Literature Wales, Parthian Books, Bangor University and Pontio.
Start: Gwynedd Museum & Art Gallery, Fford Gwynedd, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 1DT
Finish: School of English, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG
Ticket price: £8 (£7)
Food/Drink provision: Light refreshments included
Recommended clothing: Comfortable footwear; WaterproofS; Warm layers.
Difficulty: Moderate, 1.5 miles
Not suitable for: pets, wheelchair access or children under 16 years of age.
For more information on all 14 of the Literary Tourism Events on Literature Wales' April - October 2012 Programme visit: http://www.literaturewales.org/news/i/140908/
Dannie Abse Brings Jewish Twist to Wales
Though “What will survive of us is love” comes from his captious contemporary, Philip Larkin, the line might stand for the life and career of Welsh-Jewish poet Dannie Abse. Having turned 88 last September, Abse was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the 2012 New Year Honours, “for services to poetry and literature.” With a new collection, “In Extra Time,” out in April from London’s Enitharmon Press, as well as a January reprint of his enchanting anthology, “Ode to Love: 100 Poems of Love & Lust,” from Portico Publishing, Abse is a benevolently omnipresent caregiver in verse, an appropriate status given his longtime day job as a pulmonologist at a chest clinic in London.
Jon Gower's Library of Wales Reading Challenge
Hay International Fellow Jon Gower has set himself a New Year challenge to read all of the titles currently published by the Library of Wales. With a total of 33 books, from the best-selling novels such as Raymond Williams' Border Country to newly-discovered literary gems such as Margiad Evans' Turf or Stone, this series has something for everyone. Gower will begin his challenge, symbolically, on 1st of March 2012 - both World Book Day and St David's Day.All 33 Library of Wales titles are now available as a limited edition pack
Limited edition packs including the full 33 titles of the Library of Wales Series are now available in the Parthian online bookshop.
The Library of Wales is a landmark series of books representing the best of Welsh writing in English, bringing classics of Welsh literature to the general reader.
‘One of the best things we’ve supported as a government’ Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan.
This is the chance to buy a complete set of the Library of Wales series - a total of 33 titles - for £275.00. From the best-selling novels such as Raymond Williams' Border Country to newly-discovered literary gems such as Margiad Evans' Turf or Stone, this series has something for everyone. For an even luckier few, the first limited edition packs sold will include a rare hardback edition signed copy of Goodbye, Twentieth Century by Dannie Abse. Only 200 copies of this book were printed.
Includes the three new Library of Wales titles Goodbye Twentieth Century, a humorous and poignant autobiography from Dannie Abse, compelling political thriller The Volunteers by Raymond Williams; and Gwyn Thomas' turbulent South Wales uprisings in All Things Betray Thee, along with Ron Berry, So Long Hector Bebb; Raymond Williams, Border Country, Gwyn Thomas, The Dark Philosophers; Cwmardy & We Live, Lewis Jones; Country Dance, Margiad Evans; A Man's Estate, Emyr Humphreys; In The Green Tree, Alun Lewis; Alun Richards, Home To An Empty House; Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve, Dannie Abse; Poetry 1900-2000, Meic Stephens ed.; Sport, Gareth Williams ed.; Rhapsody, Dorothy Edwards; Jampot Smith, Jeremy Brooks; Voices of the Children, George Ewart Evans; I Sent a Letter to My Love, Bernice Rubens; Congratulate the Devil, Howell Davies; The Heyday in the Blood, Geraint Goodwin; Alone to the Alone, Gwyn Thomas; The Caves of Alienation, Stuart Evans; A Rope of Vines, Brenda Chamberlain; Black Parade, Jack Jones; Dai Country, Alun Richards; The Valley, The City, The Village, Glyn Jones; The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen; The Hill of Dreams, Arthur Machen; The Battle to the Weak, Hilda Vaughan; Turf or Stone, Margiad Evans.
Brenda Chamberlain: Postcard from Hydra
When the man she was having a love affair with was charged with murder of a tourist Brenda Chamberlain fled to a convent on the far side of the island of Hydra. It is one of the incidents caught in her record of seven years of island life in the 1950s now republished in the Library of Wales series.
Writer and publisher Lewis Davies climbs the island paths.
This morning I climbed the track up mountain to the convent. On the way up I stopped to talk to a man labouring on the construction of a new paved footpath up through the pines. He has worked in London in a restaurant while studying art at Goldsmiths College . He has work in a gallery in Piraeus but not here in Hydra. “It is difficult here, difficult to make a living, which is why I’m building this path.” He offers to show me some of his work. I am to meet him in his cousin’s bar this evening. “I will show you some work.”
The afternoon is cooling now and thick clouds rise above the mountains of the Peloponnese to the west. It is still warm enough to sit out on the terrace in a pair of shorts and write postcards. Hydra climbs up the hill from the harbour, much as Brenda Chamberlain described it in A Rope of Vines Journal from a Greek Island. More houses now probably, and boutiques on the front selling jewellery and art – but maybe they had boutiques in the 1950s here too.
Brenda Chamberlain arrived here in the early 1950’s fleeing an unhappy relationship and the failed fleeting promises of the art world. She was no stranger to islands having spent the previous seven years living on Ynys Enlli (Bardsey) at the end of the Llyn peninsular. She was an artist and a writer, her work had won awards and critical praise but she was still searching, perhaps looking for a place where she could settle for a few years, find a way through life.
It is the words that she wrote on these island exiles which draw me here. I remember being entranced by the magic realism of her work in Tide-Race. And it is the colours of her work in paintings on Bardsey which stand out, deep bold reds and blues, the self-portrayal of her and her French artist lover on a fishing boat, physicality and perception. On Hydra it is as if the shear force of sun bleached the colours from her work. She turned to work in pencil, stark, vivid line drawings. She drew Venetian houses, dark priests on donkeys, a cat sprawled on a terrace, a wine jug on a balcony.
And in the same time and space she kept a journal. The writing is spare, deliberately trying to capture the hard, sun shaped character of Hydra. She is trying to write herself into the island. She becomes involved with an islander who is charged with the murder of a tourist. She flees to the convent and the nuns offer her sanctuary. She writes as if it is an exile of years but she will only stay for a few days. The story is elliptical and never quite as true as it sounds.
The rooftops are tiled and still. There was a cockerel crowing earlier and this morning the disconcerting braying of donkeys carrying overweight tourists around the streets. I buy a bottle of cheap wine in a plastic bottle from the supermarket – four euros for one and half litres. It helps writing the postcards.
Lewis Davies is a writer, playwright and publisher. His most recent book is Love and Other Possibilities.
Brenda Chamberlain’s work on Hydra A Rope of Vines Journal from a Greek Island is available as part of the Library of Wales series.
A biography of Brenda Chamberlain: Artist and Writer by Jill Piercy will be published in 2012. Literature Wales will also be running a Literary Tour on Brenda in Autumn 2012.
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