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Ulverton
At the heart of this novel lies the fictional village of Ulverton. It is the fixed point in a book that spans three hundred years. Different voices tell the story of Ulverton: one of Cromwell's soldiers staggers home to find his wife remarried and promptly disappears, an eighteenth century farmer carries on an affair with a maid under his wife's nose, a mother writes letters to her imprisoned son, a 1980s real estate company discover a soldier's skeleton, dated to the time of Cromwell...
Told through diaries, sermons, letters, drunken pub conversations and film scripts, this is a masterful novel that reconstructs the unrecorded history of England.
Told through diaries, sermons, letters, drunken pub conversations and film scripts, this is a masterful novel that reconstructs the unrecorded history of England.
385 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
78 people are currently reading
1441 people want to read
About the author
Adam Thorpe
52 books54 followersAdam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and playwright whose works also include short stories and radio dramas.
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.
His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.
Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.
-Wikipedia
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.
His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.
Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
January 7, 2013
Stylistically stunning and very clever. I cannot believe this didn’t get more prizes when it came out. A kind of Akenfield (rural documentary) meets Cloud Atlas (shifting eras, narrators and connections) meets polemic.
Firstly, it’s brilliant pastiche – conveying the language, the (reimagined) dialect and the medium of the different eras. For doing this so well (even read amid today's glut of historical pastiche), it deserves applause.
It also brings the pleasure of a good mystery. Reading along, you pick up connections. You spot a name or a place that was the site of something you’d read about a century ago. You chance upon the ‘what happened next’ for events and lives from earlier entries – and it all ties up ingeniously.
There’s also a very satisfying supernatural, ghoulish thread running through the novel, especially in earlier, more correspondingly superstitious ages. In fact, I loved the way the storytelling gets progressively more ‘rational’ and ironic (mirroring the evolution of knowledge), bringing us a diligent but dim 18th century scientist farmer (and his ‘member’) and an entertainingly ghastly Victorian lady photographer cum anthropologist. Some chapters are great comedy set pieces. One is borderline incomprehensible – but to a purpose.
It’s documentary too, because it’s also obviously about the evolution of a place though history, and how it marked significant moments in British history. How it passes on names and legends.
Polemic? Well, if not a debunking, I’d like to think it’s an attempt to stick it to the English rustic fantasy (and its forgotten casualties). That Ye Olde Cottage? It was a freezing hovel and people died of typhoid or starved in it. That ancient white horse? It was put there by some pompous arse Victorian.
That’s at least how I read the final movement. As the new couple say, ‘It’s very important …to have that country life’. But as Adam Thorpe suggests, the last country life retreated decades ago and what remains generally can’t afford to live there. So get off my land now, you mommet.
Firstly, it’s brilliant pastiche – conveying the language, the (reimagined) dialect and the medium of the different eras. For doing this so well (even read amid today's glut of historical pastiche), it deserves applause.
It also brings the pleasure of a good mystery. Reading along, you pick up connections. You spot a name or a place that was the site of something you’d read about a century ago. You chance upon the ‘what happened next’ for events and lives from earlier entries – and it all ties up ingeniously.
There’s also a very satisfying supernatural, ghoulish thread running through the novel, especially in earlier, more correspondingly superstitious ages. In fact, I loved the way the storytelling gets progressively more ‘rational’ and ironic (mirroring the evolution of knowledge), bringing us a diligent but dim 18th century scientist farmer (and his ‘member’) and an entertainingly ghastly Victorian lady photographer cum anthropologist. Some chapters are great comedy set pieces. One is borderline incomprehensible – but to a purpose.
It’s documentary too, because it’s also obviously about the evolution of a place though history, and how it marked significant moments in British history. How it passes on names and legends.
Polemic? Well, if not a debunking, I’d like to think it’s an attempt to stick it to the English rustic fantasy (and its forgotten casualties). That Ye Olde Cottage? It was a freezing hovel and people died of typhoid or starved in it. That ancient white horse? It was put there by some pompous arse Victorian.
That’s at least how I read the final movement. As the new couple say, ‘It’s very important …to have that country life’. But as Adam Thorpe suggests, the last country life retreated decades ago and what remains generally can’t afford to live there. So get off my land now, you mommet.
July 27, 2021
I was inspired to reread this after spending a 2-week break in a small village in Northumberland.
Funny how the memory can play tricks. Although I remembered the broad idea (a chronological series of stories all set in and around the fictional west country village of Ulverton) I'd thought it began much longer ago than it actually did (which is during the English Civil War).
Thorpe utilises different techniques for each story such as monologue, diary, art catalogue and even at the end a TV screenplay. Family names recur and some of the stories lead to echoes down the centuries giving a splendid sense of continuity.
Really enjoyed it even on 2nd run through
Funny how the memory can play tricks. Although I remembered the broad idea (a chronological series of stories all set in and around the fictional west country village of Ulverton) I'd thought it began much longer ago than it actually did (which is during the English Civil War).
Thorpe utilises different techniques for each story such as monologue, diary, art catalogue and even at the end a TV screenplay. Family names recur and some of the stories lead to echoes down the centuries giving a splendid sense of continuity.
Really enjoyed it even on 2nd run through
January 24, 2014
When this is good it's very good, when it's bad it's unreadable, literally if you're reading it on a kindle as the last chapter is in tiny, tiny print and I couldn't adjust it. Also some chapters are written in very heavy dialect and frankly I just skipped those chapters with a feeling that life is too short, what a waste of money, should have borrowed it from the library, oh well, Marion, persevere and all that ....you get the drift or rather you don't, mostly, all those leads....and on it goes like this, a parody, a spot of self indulgence, oh come, Mr Thorpe, Adam, really, I mean, really....? An experiment, perhaps, happens as maybe? Loved some of it, very clever, wonderful, but also very put downable. So, what's next....despair, despair, despair.
April 28, 2012
A Novel of Short Stories
Adam Thorpe’s first novel Ulverton comprises twelve chapters. Each of these chapters is a short story set in the fictional English town of Ulverton. Ordered chronologically these stories span the last three and a half centuries of English history. It is the common factors of geographical location and shared historical events that bind the short stories, written in a variety of styles and expressed through a cross section of society’s viewpoints, into a novel.
We are first introduced to Ulverton through the viewpoint of a local farmer. He narrates the consequences of a neighbouring farmer’s unexpected return from fighting for Cromwell in the English Civil War. This chapter is written in the first person. It sets up a local legend (Anne Cobbold the witch) that other characters in subsequent chapters refer to. This and other events establish a continuity of history throughout the book.
Next we have the Vicar’s story set thirty-nine years later. On the walk home to Ulverton from a funeral in a neighbouring village the narrator and his party are overtaken by a snowstorm. The vicar narrates from the pulpit his version of the events that have been the subject of gossip in the community.
It is early in the eighteenth century when we return to a farmer’s point of view in chapter three. Our narrator is concerned with improvements in husbandry and the continuation of his family name and he records his endeavours upon these topics in journal form.
The fourth and fifth stories are written in epistolary form. A series of letters from a literate lady in confinement contrasts with the letters, of erratic spelling, written by the tailor for a favour, from a peasant mother to her wayward son.
Early in the nineteenth century, looking back on his days as an apprentice carpenter, our narrator for the sixth tale relates in the first person the story of a practical joke upon his pious boss. This incident took place at the time of the previous chapter and is alluded to in one of the letters there.
The industrial revolution provides the historical backdrop for the next era of Ulverton’s history. The courtroom depositions of members of the community show the troubles of the time as Luddites try to halt the march of progress these are interspersed with sections from the solicitor’s letters to his fiancé.
Chapter eight is presented as the written notes to accompany a series of photographic plates. The pictures (not included) are being shown as a slide show and the photographer’s commentary covers images of Ulverton and an archaeological expedition to Egypt.
The ninth chapter is Thorpe’s personal favourite story in the novel because it empowers a normally marginalized section of society and makes the reader work to understand it. Thorpe said: “I don't see much point in writing a novel unless the reader works.” Written in thick dialect as a peasant’s stream of consciousness the language is difficult, and a second reading may be necessary to capture the full gist of his story.
As the world is beginning the Great War in 1914, we see Ulverton from the viewpoint of a retired colonial servant recently returned from India after the death of his wife. The first draft of this story appeared in New Writing I as a self-contained short story. The narrator is remembering the atmosphere of the period from a safe distance in 1928.
The diary and some other papers of a famous cartoonist’s secretary bring the reader to Ulverton at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The cartoonist is planning to bury some artefacts and his own writing for posterity on the same day as the new monarch is crowned.
The final chapter of this novel of short stories is set in 1988 and is written in another new form. It is the script of a documentary about a property developer’s plans for Ulverton. His encounters with the Ulverton Preservation Society bring him into contact with one Adam Thorpe giving the author a cameo role in his own novel.
Ulverton won Adam Thorpe the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize when it was published in 1992. An extract from the novel was used by The Council for the Protection of Rural England in their publicity material promoting conservationism. It is a novel concerned primarily with location, the town of Ulverton itself is the novels main character. Using a variety of literary techniques Thorpe has created a fictional place that encapsulates the broad sweep of modern history across the English countryside creating a novel form of novel in the process. This book is an interesting read and provides inspiration for short story writers looking to move up in length to writing novels.
Adam Thorpe’s first novel Ulverton comprises twelve chapters. Each of these chapters is a short story set in the fictional English town of Ulverton. Ordered chronologically these stories span the last three and a half centuries of English history. It is the common factors of geographical location and shared historical events that bind the short stories, written in a variety of styles and expressed through a cross section of society’s viewpoints, into a novel.
We are first introduced to Ulverton through the viewpoint of a local farmer. He narrates the consequences of a neighbouring farmer’s unexpected return from fighting for Cromwell in the English Civil War. This chapter is written in the first person. It sets up a local legend (Anne Cobbold the witch) that other characters in subsequent chapters refer to. This and other events establish a continuity of history throughout the book.
Next we have the Vicar’s story set thirty-nine years later. On the walk home to Ulverton from a funeral in a neighbouring village the narrator and his party are overtaken by a snowstorm. The vicar narrates from the pulpit his version of the events that have been the subject of gossip in the community.
It is early in the eighteenth century when we return to a farmer’s point of view in chapter three. Our narrator is concerned with improvements in husbandry and the continuation of his family name and he records his endeavours upon these topics in journal form.
The fourth and fifth stories are written in epistolary form. A series of letters from a literate lady in confinement contrasts with the letters, of erratic spelling, written by the tailor for a favour, from a peasant mother to her wayward son.
Early in the nineteenth century, looking back on his days as an apprentice carpenter, our narrator for the sixth tale relates in the first person the story of a practical joke upon his pious boss. This incident took place at the time of the previous chapter and is alluded to in one of the letters there.
The industrial revolution provides the historical backdrop for the next era of Ulverton’s history. The courtroom depositions of members of the community show the troubles of the time as Luddites try to halt the march of progress these are interspersed with sections from the solicitor’s letters to his fiancé.
Chapter eight is presented as the written notes to accompany a series of photographic plates. The pictures (not included) are being shown as a slide show and the photographer’s commentary covers images of Ulverton and an archaeological expedition to Egypt.
The ninth chapter is Thorpe’s personal favourite story in the novel because it empowers a normally marginalized section of society and makes the reader work to understand it. Thorpe said: “I don't see much point in writing a novel unless the reader works.” Written in thick dialect as a peasant’s stream of consciousness the language is difficult, and a second reading may be necessary to capture the full gist of his story.
As the world is beginning the Great War in 1914, we see Ulverton from the viewpoint of a retired colonial servant recently returned from India after the death of his wife. The first draft of this story appeared in New Writing I as a self-contained short story. The narrator is remembering the atmosphere of the period from a safe distance in 1928.
The diary and some other papers of a famous cartoonist’s secretary bring the reader to Ulverton at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The cartoonist is planning to bury some artefacts and his own writing for posterity on the same day as the new monarch is crowned.
The final chapter of this novel of short stories is set in 1988 and is written in another new form. It is the script of a documentary about a property developer’s plans for Ulverton. His encounters with the Ulverton Preservation Society bring him into contact with one Adam Thorpe giving the author a cameo role in his own novel.
Ulverton won Adam Thorpe the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize when it was published in 1992. An extract from the novel was used by The Council for the Protection of Rural England in their publicity material promoting conservationism. It is a novel concerned primarily with location, the town of Ulverton itself is the novels main character. Using a variety of literary techniques Thorpe has created a fictional place that encapsulates the broad sweep of modern history across the English countryside creating a novel form of novel in the process. This book is an interesting read and provides inspiration for short story writers looking to move up in length to writing novels.
February 21, 2013
Loved this. It's impressive simply in terms of sheer narrative skill. Each chapter is distinct in form and voice, moving from 1650 to 1988, including short story, stream of consciousness, diary entries, epistolary fiction, courtroom depositions, descriptions and annotations for a supposed book of photographs, a transcript for a television documentary. Names and stories weave in and out of individual chapters, with every chapter forcing the reader to rethink earlier stories and implications. And through it all a shifting, wonderfully complex sense of the relationships between place and time, present and history. A masterclass in narrative technique and control of form.
January 7, 2015
I love, love, love this book. The village of Ulverton is visited across centuries as the reader hears the stories of various of its inhabitants. At first these stories seem random, but as more is learned more is understood, and they all weave in together to form a whole: the history and meaning of the village through its heterogeneous people.
There is something of Alan Garner's writing about it, it has a similar obsession with place (his is Alderley Edge), and as far as I am concerned that can only be a good thing.
There is something of Alan Garner's writing about it, it has a similar obsession with place (his is Alderley Edge), and as far as I am concerned that can only be a good thing.
September 2, 2016
Loved the concept of each chapter following on from earlier periods in the life of an English village. Some of the chapters are great. But others are nearly unreadable. Seems more an academic writing exercise than a great novel. Life's too short ...
February 16, 2020
Ok so the good things about this novel... I love the sense of the change of time over the centuries in one small village like the changing of the seasons. I love how as you go through the centuries the language in the book changes with each new decade though I found the last part of the book incredibly irritating and just plain batty also I couldn’t actually read the last bit because it was script and I was reading it on kindle it felt like a waste as I had no idea what the ending was like because it was too small. I also found certain ye olde English extremely trying and just annoying as hell. So by the end I just wanted to finish it not caring if I actually read the last few pages. So ok but not great
January 31, 2021
Been a week, still chewing on this one, in a good way. Prefigures the pop-postmodern genre grab bag stuff that people got hot for when Cloud Atlas did it, but while Mitchell (who I’ll always love, but I’m increasingly aware of his flaws) is all about the pastiche and the Dirk Gentlyish holism to the detriment of character and emotion, Thorpe uses pastiche (if you can call it that) to serve feeling. Even when he’s doing the most insufferable thing an author can do (a Joyce impression), the character feels true and funny and sad. Anyway, the important thing is that Violet Nightingale a) deserved better, and b) is a fantastic name, perhaps befitting a detective of some sort.
February 18, 2008
I liked the idea of this book: a collection of stories all based in the same English village/hamlet starting around the 13th century and moving chronologically to around the present day. The form of the stories and gender of the narrators varied, which made it interesting and challenging. However, I just couldn't get to grips with the stories written in dialect, and have to own up to skipping them!
September 4, 2024
One of the greats - it's a literary feat. Thorpe juggles so many voices, forms, periods and styles, and completely pulls it off with wit, elan and subtelty.
There is an incredible amount of detail suffused into every tale - it's hugely immersive, and utterly convincing. The sweep of history is palpable and moving. The reflections and linkages are artful and never smack you in the face. I'm sure there is so much going on that I missed on a first read.
I mean, I'm feeling positively drab and kind of sub-literate writing this review having read a litany of stunning prose such as this. It's a serious gift. I can't fathom why Thorpe seems not to be as well known as the likes of Ishiguro, Mantel etc etc. This is one of the most impressive novels I've ever read, put flatly.
There is an incredible amount of detail suffused into every tale - it's hugely immersive, and utterly convincing. The sweep of history is palpable and moving. The reflections and linkages are artful and never smack you in the face. I'm sure there is so much going on that I missed on a first read.
I mean, I'm feeling positively drab and kind of sub-literate writing this review having read a litany of stunning prose such as this. It's a serious gift. I can't fathom why Thorpe seems not to be as well known as the likes of Ishiguro, Mantel etc etc. This is one of the most impressive novels I've ever read, put flatly.
May 14, 2019
An amazingly ambitious, episodic novel covering a period from 1650 to the twentieth century. We are presented with accounts from a varied collection of characters living in and around the fictional settlement of Ulverton in rural England. Each voice has a style which is utterly distinctive and feels completely authentic. Through their stories we are able to piece together a sense of the lives and concerns of the whole community in the face of historical changes and traumatic events. This book is challenging at times but what Thorpe achieves is nothing short of astounding.
September 25, 2013
These 12 stories, set in the fictional town of Ulverton, span over 3 centuries of English history, from 1650 to 1988. An interesting and challenging read, with the final tale taking the reader back to the first one, it is a book to remember. The tales written in dialect reminded me of some of Alan Garner's work. Wonderful!
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March 5, 2017Did not make it past page 160. The story could not hold my attention. This only happens to me once every few years, but so many books, so little time........
June 21, 2025
I bought a used paperback copy of Ulverton after learning about it from Simon Haisell, who leads the slow read of War and Peace that I am so much enjoying. His short description was intriguing, but the clincher was an endorsement from Hilary Mantel. It promised "three hundred years set in a fictional village, its stories told in the changing literary style of the times." (Find the entire short review below.)
The level of research and craft in Ulverton is jaw-dropping. The first chapter is set in 1650, and is the relatively straightforward telling by a farmer of a tale of a neighbor returning from war. The second chapter jumps to 1689 and you slowly realize that this is a sermon and apologia by the right reverend trying to explain how two parishioners ended up dead. It is sly and dry and funny. The third chapter set in 1712 is the apparent diary of a farmer who goes on at great length about soil types and manure and the latest agricultural science theories. The farmer also finds time to sow seeds with the maid.
The following chapters are found in varied forms — letters from a married woman to her lover, letters from a barely literate mother to her son in prison, a story being told by a carpenter at a tavern, the notes taken by a lawyer investigating the 1830 Swing Riots that saw protesting mechanization and brutal working conditions, and the descriptions from a coffee table photography book.
Each of these chapters has a distinct voice, a masterful (so far as I can tell) grasp of dialect and language styles and the subject matter, be it farming, carpentry, photography, or the court system.
But these don't hang together as a novel. There are occasional references to prior characters or events, but nothing that makes the current story any more compelling. And I was OK with that, as the stories stood on their own and often had a clever, sly payoff that made it worth my time and effort.
But then came Chapter 9, set in 1887, which is written in what I'm guessing is the phonetic spelling of a thick regional dialect. No punctuation. Here are the first few words: gate ope now maunt lope about in Gore patch wi' they crusty bullocks yeeeeeeeeow bloody pig-stickin them old hooks jus yowlin out for grease haaf rust look yaa that old Stiff all pinch an screw all pinch an bloody screw aye shut he fast now hup .... And continued for 20 more pages.
At this point, I kind of gave up. The next chapter is set in 1914 as England is about to enter WWI. It has many intriguing characters, but none is doing anything that exciting. The next chapter — 1953— contains the diary entries for a woman working as the assistant for a famous eccentric. And the final chapter from 1988 is the script, complete with shot list and music, of a movie set in the fictional village about a land developer, but by this point I just didn't care.
Here's the short review that prompted my interest:
The level of research and craft in Ulverton is jaw-dropping. The first chapter is set in 1650, and is the relatively straightforward telling by a farmer of a tale of a neighbor returning from war. The second chapter jumps to 1689 and you slowly realize that this is a sermon and apologia by the right reverend trying to explain how two parishioners ended up dead. It is sly and dry and funny. The third chapter set in 1712 is the apparent diary of a farmer who goes on at great length about soil types and manure and the latest agricultural science theories. The farmer also finds time to sow seeds with the maid.
The following chapters are found in varied forms — letters from a married woman to her lover, letters from a barely literate mother to her son in prison, a story being told by a carpenter at a tavern, the notes taken by a lawyer investigating the 1830 Swing Riots that saw protesting mechanization and brutal working conditions, and the descriptions from a coffee table photography book.
Each of these chapters has a distinct voice, a masterful (so far as I can tell) grasp of dialect and language styles and the subject matter, be it farming, carpentry, photography, or the court system.
But these don't hang together as a novel. There are occasional references to prior characters or events, but nothing that makes the current story any more compelling. And I was OK with that, as the stories stood on their own and often had a clever, sly payoff that made it worth my time and effort.
But then came Chapter 9, set in 1887, which is written in what I'm guessing is the phonetic spelling of a thick regional dialect. No punctuation. Here are the first few words: gate ope now maunt lope about in Gore patch wi' they crusty bullocks yeeeeeeeeow bloody pig-stickin them old hooks jus yowlin out for grease haaf rust look yaa that old Stiff all pinch an screw all pinch an bloody screw aye shut he fast now hup .... And continued for 20 more pages.
At this point, I kind of gave up. The next chapter is set in 1914 as England is about to enter WWI. It has many intriguing characters, but none is doing anything that exciting. The next chapter — 1953— contains the diary entries for a woman working as the assistant for a famous eccentric. And the final chapter from 1988 is the script, complete with shot list and music, of a movie set in the fictional village about a land developer, but by this point I just didn't care.
Here's the short review that prompted my interest:
"Finally, I’ve just picked up ULVERTON (1992) by Adam Thorpe. Again, I heard about this book on backlisted. Three hundred years set in a fictional village, its stories told in the changing literary style of the times. Hilary Mantel championed this book, writing:
'If you believe that English fiction is jaded, you must read Adam Thorpe … Tender, precise, tragicomic and unsentimental, it draws the reader into its task of reconstructing the unrecorded history of England. And sometimes you forget that it is a novel, and believe for a moment that you are really hearing the voice of the dead.' "
June 25, 2021
2.5 stars rounded down.
FINALLY. This wasn't all that bad, really, and some parts of the slice-of-life, slice-of-time approach to village life I really enjoyed. The little connections that threaded through the stories were satisfying to notice, and gave the village of Ulverton a veracity, a reality.
But. Then there was the section written entirely in vernacular without any punctuation whatsoever, without any paragraph breaks, not even for dialogue switching between speakers, and which I could barely stomach reading a page at a time. How dare you make me read that with my own eyes.
And that just broke my momentum completely. The fact that I finished it at all became an achievement, and the latter half of the book was a joyless slog despite the fact that I would otherwise have actually enjoyed much of the writing. It cost the book two whole stars. For one stretch of unbearable dialect. Readers beware, but writers even more so.
FINALLY. This wasn't all that bad, really, and some parts of the slice-of-life, slice-of-time approach to village life I really enjoyed. The little connections that threaded through the stories were satisfying to notice, and gave the village of Ulverton a veracity, a reality.
But. Then there was the section written entirely in vernacular without any punctuation whatsoever, without any paragraph breaks, not even for dialogue switching between speakers, and which I could barely stomach reading a page at a time. How dare you make me read that with my own eyes.
And that just broke my momentum completely. The fact that I finished it at all became an achievement, and the latter half of the book was a joyless slog despite the fact that I would otherwise have actually enjoyed much of the writing. It cost the book two whole stars. For one stretch of unbearable dialect. Readers beware, but writers even more so.
August 23, 2019
2.5 really. Although some of the individual passages were well written, I really didn't enjoy this at all. The sections with local dialect were just too challenging to read for very little return to the reader. I like the premise of the book, with the same place featuring through time from 17oo's until the present day, but found it focused more on the people rather than the place and it didn't engage me or give me a sense of the place through time. It's difficult when the sections are so disparate and rather obscure. My favourite section was near the end, set at the start of WW1. I thought this was very well written. The very last part is impossible to read on the Kindle version but I tried my best. All in all an unsatisfying read.
January 18, 2024
This book was recommended to me and the concept sounded so interesting - the story of people over several centuries from a fictional village, presented in different forms; straight narrative of different styles, letters, film scripts etc.; a series of short stories in one sense but linked by setting and a few incidents that get regularly referenced.
Sadly, in the execution it was not for me. I found some of the early chapters written in dialect to be impenetrable. I believe that the author wanted people to work at his books but as a bedtime reader that is not what I want. As a result I did not finish it.
Sadly, in the execution it was not for me. I found some of the early chapters written in dialect to be impenetrable. I believe that the author wanted people to work at his books but as a bedtime reader that is not what I want. As a result I did not finish it.
October 21, 2024
this isn’t so much a did not finish, DNF, but more I just gave up. same result, I suppose.
12 short stories spanning 300 years all touching on the tiny town of ulverton.
some of these stories were clever and fun to read. one or two took me to the limits of my comprehension capabilities… and then the rest … pfft
I just got bored.
might be the book for some, but not for me.
12 short stories spanning 300 years all touching on the tiny town of ulverton.
some of these stories were clever and fun to read. one or two took me to the limits of my comprehension capabilities… and then the rest … pfft
I just got bored.
might be the book for some, but not for me.
August 10, 2025
this might be a masterpiece - and i learnt a lot about farming techniques along the way
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June 11, 2020This is the first book that I remember not finishing.
Honestly, I've not read such self aggrandising, pretentious twattery in my life (and I had to do a "literary fiction" module full of angsty white middle aged authors projecting onto their characters at uni)
Honestly, I've not read such self aggrandising, pretentious twattery in my life (and I had to do a "literary fiction" module full of angsty white middle aged authors projecting onto their characters at uni)
April 17, 2022
I must apologize ahead of time. I chose this book for my bookclub but I found that I didn't particularly like reading the book and found it difficult to read because of the author's writing style.
An interview with Thorpe about writing Ulverton: http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/ees...
Summary: (http://fionnchu.blogspot.com/2014/05/...)
"That takes place in an efficient style nearly our own, but most chapters after will hearken to the tone and vocabulary of the period. Similar to Moore, this will challenge the reader, as it forces you into dialect and regionalisms. Facts tying each section to others flit across the page, but rarely and briefly. Considerable concentration is needed, perhaps too much in one part which as with other chapters seems to go on too long for the detail and the mood necessary to place the reader within the situation, and some of this moves slowly--if fittingly so for a rural account, after all.
1689 comes with a more Bunyanesque feel, set on the barren places in a terrible winter. A religious revelation bursts in, as an Anglican clergyman must tell of a Quaker's conversion in grotesquely twisted circumstances. 1712 brings in a fussy tone about a diligent landowner's earnest attempts to modernize as the land's enclosed and its farmers set later to toil for the gentry and the wealthier class who have taken over the commons. Thorpe introduces here an effect I like and which he uses later, hesitation by a narrator: brackets here fill in what the writer loses control over or leaves illegible.
In epistolary style, one side of an exchange between a lady of the estate and her departed lover happens in 1743. Pay attention already to items that are repeating in later chapters. 1775 I had to read to myself aloud in parts. It's a barely literate tailor's transcription of a phonetic rendering of dialect and while compelling--a mother's plea for her son sentenced for stealing a hat to Newgate prison in London--it demands very close attention, but it rewards the same. This can be said of the entire novel. Few passages leap out, but the accumulative effect pleases in incremental, subtle, and embedded fashion.
I felt the 1803 part an amusing if moral shaggy-dog story--and a long one set in a tavern suitably over a long if one-sided conversation-- but it does in retrospect show how the cutting down of so much of England's woodlands altered the landscape and furnished its houses in a time of fuel and expansion. In 1830 a backlash against mechanization by farmers sets laborers to revolt, as taken down by a legal functionary, as he intersperses the testimony of those arrested and facing execution or transportation to Van Diemen's Land with his appeals to his beloved. Thorpe plays off the concerns of the law and gentry skillfully, as they attend to agrarian matters as they must, but often in offhand fashion compared to their domestic concerns, as their own jobs interfere with their own pleasures, as with us all.
A female photographer's 1859 commentary on the plates she takes around Ulverton as well as in Egypt captures Thorpe's ability to channel his chosen styles well--here a George Eliot phrasing comes across very smoothly. Light in the Middle East hits her differently: glare makes a scene "as unintelligible as newsprint in a foreign country." (188) A stream-of-consciousness 1887 poacher's ruminations take the most effort, even more than that of the prisoner's mother, to decipher. A short part, it felt much longer.
Still, these set up if laboriously the impacts of the last century. Here, the sections start to coalesce, as surnames you've seen from centuries before repeat and as places sound more familiar. 1914 juxtaposes an amateur archeology dig at the barrow through an official retired from India with the recruitment by the squire of the local lads to enlist and fight. As if a parlor opened once a year for visitors, so, the narrator reflects, are the mentalities of the villagers, exposed to an idea beyond their workaday and parochial concerns. "To reveal the dead is not to release them." (245) A standalone chapter, it successfully dissects imperial imperatives and ironies.
Following is another intriguing perspective: a 42-year-old woman transcribes the fulsome and tiresome obsession of a cartoonist to record his life and times before it all blows up in 1953. A bonfire of old carts and farming tools commemorates the Coronation and the passing of agrarian ways as the motor car and the plastic wonders of the modern age enter the markets and the streets. She demurs: "Why can't folk leave the past alone?" (289)The ellipses and hesitations of the narrator assume a poignant role and the starts and stops in her own asides challenging or easing her honesty grow as this section unfolds. This modulation memorably displays Thorpe's control of character.
Finally, Thorpe makes a cameo as in 1988 a native son turns developer. It's a post-production script for a documentary as a housing estate is built and the barrow makes another appearance, so to speak. Thorpe tells the two sides fairly, the need for saving a village's economy by ensuring jobs to build houses aimed at young families able to keep a few businesses there going, and the need for preservation and respect for fading folkways in a place where every field stands for so much more and where every field bears a telling name.
It's a challenging novel. While parts slow you down, and some of this proves too prolix, the experience of immersion in a dialect and a thought pattern foreign to us makes the lessons Thorpe labors long to inculcate convincing. "
Summary (http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/U...)
"Describing the structure and basic premise of the book gives little away: twelve short-stories about people associated with the fictional village of Ulverton, set in East Anglia, and ranging from the 17th century to the 1980s. Each story has its own style such as a diary format, letters, descriptions of photographs and a TV script. Some characters weave in and out and others are contained within the individual stories, but the narratives are linked as they all focus on the largely unrecorded history of the village and its inhabitants.
One story, set in 1775, takes the form of letters being written by John Pounds, a tailor, on behalf of the illiterate Sara Shail to her son Francis. Sara is living in Ulverton; Francis is in prison, accused of theft and awaiting hanging. She is struggling to find the money to attend the hanging as she is suffering from breast cancer and believes that the touch of her dead son’s hand will cure her. We understand that Francis becomes more and more demanding (although his replies are not included) and Pounds starts to add some rather barbed comments of his own. Francis is eventually pardoned and it is left to he reader to ponder quite what may happen next.
I particularly enjoyed the 1943 story which takes the form of the diary of Violet Nightingale, who is acting as secretary to Ulverton based artist Herbert Bradman. He is planning to bury a collection of 20th century artefacts (together with, rather pompously, some of his own writings) for the benefit of future archaeologists. Violet is encouraged to write her own account of the project and also falls for Herbert, but comes to realise how unimportant she is to him. Hell hath no fury …
Ulverton is a book you have to work at, as the stories are written in the style and with the language of the time in which they are set. I found it useful to read some of the stories aloud because of this. However, it is so worth persevering with, as you become drawn into these very individual voices as they recount their experiences. It is an absolute joy when you make the connections between characters and events and realize how peoples’ perceptions of history alter over time. It has the feel of real historical accounts, laid out for you to piece together yourself.
The book is about the ways in which people live with, on and in the landscape. It is about how people leave their mark through the most subtle of ways and it is deeply affecting. After reading this, you will never look at a place name, a road name, a footpath or the rural landscape, or read an historical account in quite the same way."
An interview with Thorpe about writing Ulverton: http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/ees...
Summary: (http://fionnchu.blogspot.com/2014/05/...)
"That takes place in an efficient style nearly our own, but most chapters after will hearken to the tone and vocabulary of the period. Similar to Moore, this will challenge the reader, as it forces you into dialect and regionalisms. Facts tying each section to others flit across the page, but rarely and briefly. Considerable concentration is needed, perhaps too much in one part which as with other chapters seems to go on too long for the detail and the mood necessary to place the reader within the situation, and some of this moves slowly--if fittingly so for a rural account, after all.
1689 comes with a more Bunyanesque feel, set on the barren places in a terrible winter. A religious revelation bursts in, as an Anglican clergyman must tell of a Quaker's conversion in grotesquely twisted circumstances. 1712 brings in a fussy tone about a diligent landowner's earnest attempts to modernize as the land's enclosed and its farmers set later to toil for the gentry and the wealthier class who have taken over the commons. Thorpe introduces here an effect I like and which he uses later, hesitation by a narrator: brackets here fill in what the writer loses control over or leaves illegible.
In epistolary style, one side of an exchange between a lady of the estate and her departed lover happens in 1743. Pay attention already to items that are repeating in later chapters. 1775 I had to read to myself aloud in parts. It's a barely literate tailor's transcription of a phonetic rendering of dialect and while compelling--a mother's plea for her son sentenced for stealing a hat to Newgate prison in London--it demands very close attention, but it rewards the same. This can be said of the entire novel. Few passages leap out, but the accumulative effect pleases in incremental, subtle, and embedded fashion.
I felt the 1803 part an amusing if moral shaggy-dog story--and a long one set in a tavern suitably over a long if one-sided conversation-- but it does in retrospect show how the cutting down of so much of England's woodlands altered the landscape and furnished its houses in a time of fuel and expansion. In 1830 a backlash against mechanization by farmers sets laborers to revolt, as taken down by a legal functionary, as he intersperses the testimony of those arrested and facing execution or transportation to Van Diemen's Land with his appeals to his beloved. Thorpe plays off the concerns of the law and gentry skillfully, as they attend to agrarian matters as they must, but often in offhand fashion compared to their domestic concerns, as their own jobs interfere with their own pleasures, as with us all.
A female photographer's 1859 commentary on the plates she takes around Ulverton as well as in Egypt captures Thorpe's ability to channel his chosen styles well--here a George Eliot phrasing comes across very smoothly. Light in the Middle East hits her differently: glare makes a scene "as unintelligible as newsprint in a foreign country." (188) A stream-of-consciousness 1887 poacher's ruminations take the most effort, even more than that of the prisoner's mother, to decipher. A short part, it felt much longer.
Still, these set up if laboriously the impacts of the last century. Here, the sections start to coalesce, as surnames you've seen from centuries before repeat and as places sound more familiar. 1914 juxtaposes an amateur archeology dig at the barrow through an official retired from India with the recruitment by the squire of the local lads to enlist and fight. As if a parlor opened once a year for visitors, so, the narrator reflects, are the mentalities of the villagers, exposed to an idea beyond their workaday and parochial concerns. "To reveal the dead is not to release them." (245) A standalone chapter, it successfully dissects imperial imperatives and ironies.
Following is another intriguing perspective: a 42-year-old woman transcribes the fulsome and tiresome obsession of a cartoonist to record his life and times before it all blows up in 1953. A bonfire of old carts and farming tools commemorates the Coronation and the passing of agrarian ways as the motor car and the plastic wonders of the modern age enter the markets and the streets. She demurs: "Why can't folk leave the past alone?" (289)The ellipses and hesitations of the narrator assume a poignant role and the starts and stops in her own asides challenging or easing her honesty grow as this section unfolds. This modulation memorably displays Thorpe's control of character.
Finally, Thorpe makes a cameo as in 1988 a native son turns developer. It's a post-production script for a documentary as a housing estate is built and the barrow makes another appearance, so to speak. Thorpe tells the two sides fairly, the need for saving a village's economy by ensuring jobs to build houses aimed at young families able to keep a few businesses there going, and the need for preservation and respect for fading folkways in a place where every field stands for so much more and where every field bears a telling name.
It's a challenging novel. While parts slow you down, and some of this proves too prolix, the experience of immersion in a dialect and a thought pattern foreign to us makes the lessons Thorpe labors long to inculcate convincing. "
Summary (http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/U...)
"Describing the structure and basic premise of the book gives little away: twelve short-stories about people associated with the fictional village of Ulverton, set in East Anglia, and ranging from the 17th century to the 1980s. Each story has its own style such as a diary format, letters, descriptions of photographs and a TV script. Some characters weave in and out and others are contained within the individual stories, but the narratives are linked as they all focus on the largely unrecorded history of the village and its inhabitants.
One story, set in 1775, takes the form of letters being written by John Pounds, a tailor, on behalf of the illiterate Sara Shail to her son Francis. Sara is living in Ulverton; Francis is in prison, accused of theft and awaiting hanging. She is struggling to find the money to attend the hanging as she is suffering from breast cancer and believes that the touch of her dead son’s hand will cure her. We understand that Francis becomes more and more demanding (although his replies are not included) and Pounds starts to add some rather barbed comments of his own. Francis is eventually pardoned and it is left to he reader to ponder quite what may happen next.
I particularly enjoyed the 1943 story which takes the form of the diary of Violet Nightingale, who is acting as secretary to Ulverton based artist Herbert Bradman. He is planning to bury a collection of 20th century artefacts (together with, rather pompously, some of his own writings) for the benefit of future archaeologists. Violet is encouraged to write her own account of the project and also falls for Herbert, but comes to realise how unimportant she is to him. Hell hath no fury …
Ulverton is a book you have to work at, as the stories are written in the style and with the language of the time in which they are set. I found it useful to read some of the stories aloud because of this. However, it is so worth persevering with, as you become drawn into these very individual voices as they recount their experiences. It is an absolute joy when you make the connections between characters and events and realize how peoples’ perceptions of history alter over time. It has the feel of real historical accounts, laid out for you to piece together yourself.
The book is about the ways in which people live with, on and in the landscape. It is about how people leave their mark through the most subtle of ways and it is deeply affecting. After reading this, you will never look at a place name, a road name, a footpath or the rural landscape, or read an historical account in quite the same way."
January 25, 2014
The cover blurb has a Sunday Times reviewer declaring this "A masterpiece" and it... probably is. It is a powerful exercise in the taking on of different voices, without a doubt-- with each change of era, there is a different narrative point of view, and they are all indeed quite distinct-- but to my slightly low-brow tastes it is wanting in the area of plot. Stuff happens, yes, and there is a nice little quiver in the reader's bosom when events from earlier in the book are referred to later, frequently in a distorted form as if authentically passed along by word of mouth, but none of it really has any bearing on what follows. This combined with an occasionally painful patch of phonetic dialogue (the end of the 1800s is marked by twenty-eight pages of picturesque rural gibberish with but a single period for punctuation) makes it something of an up-hill climb for the reader. It is an impressive exercise, but I'm not sure it's an enriching one.
As I say, I'm slightly low-brow in my expectations. One might point out that there is a good depiction of the futility of human ambition, of the ephemerality of human works, and of the paradox of "progress" (things get worse because things get better), and that's all true. If that's the sort of thing that you're looking for in a book, and you don't mind the substitution for plot by slices of life, you'll rate this book higher than I. What stars I've given it are mainly for the workmanship; the different voices also give an impression of authenticity to each era, and I do appreciate that.
As I say, I'm slightly low-brow in my expectations. One might point out that there is a good depiction of the futility of human ambition, of the ephemerality of human works, and of the paradox of "progress" (things get worse because things get better), and that's all true. If that's the sort of thing that you're looking for in a book, and you don't mind the substitution for plot by slices of life, you'll rate this book higher than I. What stars I've given it are mainly for the workmanship; the different voices also give an impression of authenticity to each era, and I do appreciate that.
May 14, 2023
This is one of the most ambitious books I've read in a long time. It's the story of a rural English village called Ulverton, and each chapter tells a story related to the village at a given point in history. The earliest takes place in 1650, the latest in 1988. The stories take all sorts of forms: conventional narratives, diaries, letters, descriptions of a photographs, a film script. Many of these are clever and successful, but a few were challenging to get through—particularly a series of letters written by a nearly illiterate person and a long, rambling stream-of-consciousness narrative.
As a whole, Ulverton does an admirable job if imitating the passage of time. Each new chapter is a bit jarring at first, but eventually you kind of settle into it and accept the new paradigm. There's not really a cohesive story, but one or two details from the previous chapters typically crop up. One interesting mechanism is that the earlier stories frequently become distorted as the book progresses, moving from history to myth. The ending was also surprisingly good and unexpected, and it played really well into the overall theme of the stories we tell about the past.
As a whole, Ulverton does an admirable job if imitating the passage of time. Each new chapter is a bit jarring at first, but eventually you kind of settle into it and accept the new paradigm. There's not really a cohesive story, but one or two details from the previous chapters typically crop up. One interesting mechanism is that the earlier stories frequently become distorted as the book progresses, moving from history to myth. The ending was also surprisingly good and unexpected, and it played really well into the overall theme of the stories we tell about the past.
August 26, 2019
This book is definitely not an easy read before bed. With each chapter, apart from the first, I had to ask myself what is this chapter about and how does it relate to the whole. I enjoy that sort of analysis, some would hate it. Being a country girl I didn't find the dialect difficult...I have neighbours who speak like this and in equally muddled thoughts, so I could follow it okay...
It wasn't until I got to the end of the book....and probably because rural England is going through neighbourhood planning to fill housing quotas in areas where there is little work; developers want to build executive style housing rather than affordable homes for local people; prime farm land is being used for high density housing; parish councils are torn between what is wanted and what is truly needed, and history is being lost....... that I really understood where Adam Thorpe was coming from in writing this book.
I give it 3 as a novel. As social commentary it is worth more than that. I will read it again.
It wasn't until I got to the end of the book....and probably because rural England is going through neighbourhood planning to fill housing quotas in areas where there is little work; developers want to build executive style housing rather than affordable homes for local people; prime farm land is being used for high density housing; parish councils are torn between what is wanted and what is truly needed, and history is being lost....... that I really understood where Adam Thorpe was coming from in writing this book.
I give it 3 as a novel. As social commentary it is worth more than that. I will read it again.
February 17, 2019
Sadly, despite having looked forward to reading this one I had to give up on it. For those that know me well, they know that I don't give up on books easily and it did take a while to come to this decision.
I started the book on the 8th May and by 17th May, I'd only managed to read around a 135 pages. It was as if reading it was a chore and reading should never be a chore in my opinion. When I was in the mood to read or had the time, it wasn't the first book that I picked up and when I did pick it up, it was with some reluctance.
It's not that it was badly written as it was far from that. I found it well written but it didn't grab me. I'm not a huge fan of short stories and this was basically a series of short stories set over several centuries featuring one fictitious village know as Ulverton, which did have certain variations on the name.
Based on what I read I gave it a 2/10. If I'd got on with it better this would have been more.
I started the book on the 8th May and by 17th May, I'd only managed to read around a 135 pages. It was as if reading it was a chore and reading should never be a chore in my opinion. When I was in the mood to read or had the time, it wasn't the first book that I picked up and when I did pick it up, it was with some reluctance.
It's not that it was badly written as it was far from that. I found it well written but it didn't grab me. I'm not a huge fan of short stories and this was basically a series of short stories set over several centuries featuring one fictitious village know as Ulverton, which did have certain variations on the name.
Based on what I read I gave it a 2/10. If I'd got on with it better this would have been more.
August 30, 2018
I’ve become a bit obsessed with English villages. Not that I want to live in one - it just seems the most inviting microcosm through which to read about history happening. Whether over years (Reservoir 13), decades (Akenfield), or centuries, change is absorbed at a pace gradual enough that it becomes legible. In Ulverton, Thorpe traces the topographical, architectural, agricultural, and biographical transformations of a fictional village from the time of Oliver Cromwell to Margaret Thatcher. Even more amazingly, he tells each succeeding tale in a different resident’s voice - rendering a survey of nothing less than the evolution of Homo Britainnicus Rusticum.* Some chapters are harder to penetrate than others, but for Anglophile history buffs the effort is worth the rewards. When I spotted a clue and gleaned a meaning I felt like a veritable archeologist.
*Not official Latin nomenclature. Or even really Latin.
*Not official Latin nomenclature. Or even really Latin.
August 17, 2019
A patchwork quilt of a novel, telling the stories of assorted characters over several centuries in a fictitious village. Thorpe writes with a distinctive voice for each character, ranging from humble shepherds to Victorian lady photographers, and the novel's time span encompasses three hundred years of history. Some people have complained in their reviews that they didn't like the chapters written in dialogue, or skimmed over these, but I think they add to the charm of the book. Radio 4 has recently broadcast a multi-voice adaptation, so perhaps people who struggle with the dialogue in print could listen to it instead?
February 5, 2019
Dammit! Had to return it to the library before I finished it. I'll definitely come back to it (probably buy my own copy). It's the most amazing series of loosely linked stories set in a Wessex village, over the course of 300 years. Each chapter is its own little self-contained nugget of beautiful writing. Different genres, different voices - all excellent and totally convincing.
February 5, 2017
Ten or so carefully interlocking stories over several centuries of an English village. Difficult going in places, possibly a tiny bit too clever for its own good in others, and one that I think needs at least two reads to fully grasp.
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