Comrade Jacob

by David Caute

223 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Gary Budden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have an ongoing obsession with the English civil war and its fallout. It's a fascinating and crucial piece of history that is strangely under-represented in fiction – luckily, there are some decent works out there if you’re willing to dig/go on AbeBooks.

David Caute’s 1961 novel Comrade Jacob focuses on Gerard Winstanley and the mystical proto-communist sect he founded in the years after the fall of the monarchy. His ecstatic religious epiphany on St George’s Hill, Surrey, leads to the creation of the Diggers (many of them ex-soldiers from Cromwell’s army), who take it upon themselves to live collectively and farm the commons on the hill, in a time of great famine, poverty and social unrest.

It's wonderful novel about a tricky subject, exploring religious faith, power, the system of land ownership in England, and how, inevitably, brute force is meted out to those who try and live a different kind of life. (St George’s Hill, incidentally, is now home to stockbroker-belt residences and a private golf course.)

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Michael Bully · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found it rather good. Remarkably free from sloganeering and dogma. 'Brother Jacob-' Gerrard Winstanley is shown to be humanitarian, compassionate, inspiring and visionary, whilst at the same time annoying and self-righteous. The Diggers are courageous but are facing incredible odds. Getting attacked by a band of hostile soldiers, resented by many local people. The standard problems of communal living emerge with some of the hill dwellers simply wanting to contribute less than others. Their community still needs money simply to buy goods that it can not produce. Which means finding a benefactor, who has their own agenda.
General Fairfax, stationed nearby, but dreaming of retiring to his native Yorkshire, is portrayed has having a sense of fair play and tolerance . A local parson John Platt, debates theology with Winstanley, yet soon becomes hostile , paralleling tensions between the Church and the new radical sects. The poet Robert Coster also appears in the novel.

[Rick Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel about the Diggers, a 17th century English group led by Gerrard Winstanley, who asserted that the death of Charles I ended the Norman Yoke and hence restored the commons to the people. In other words, the public lands that had been privatized by William the Conqueror and awarded to his favorites were no longer privately owned. It was therefore legal for these people to “dig,” that is, plant crops, on a plot of previously common land, in this case St. George’s Hill in Surrey. Of course they didn’t survive long, but their story and Winstanley’s writings are provocative and inspiring.

It’s a good novel, evocative of the conditions of the rural poor, and insightful in its characterizations. I’m inclined to read another of Caute’s books.