The Power of the Dead

A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight #11

by Henry Williamson

It is the summer of 1926 and Phillip and Lucy are now living at Skirr Farm. Though only too aware of the difficulties caused by industrial unrest and the agricultural depression, Philip determines to make the farm a success. However, as well as caring for his young son Billy and his wife after the birth of their new baby, he soon finds himself drawn into resolving the financial difficulties in which Lucy's brothers find themselves. And when he does manage to steal some hours at his writing desk, he finds himself again at the battlegrounds of the First World War. Will he ever be able to put those terrible years behind him, the awful sights of the Somme, and the subsequent death of his beloved first wife, Barley, and make his name as a writer? Or will that 'thin thread of fear' remain always at the back of his mind?

Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Henry William Williamson was an English soldier, naturalist, farmer and ruralist writer known for his natural history and social history novels, as well as for his fascist sympathies. He won the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 with his book Tarka the Otter.

Henry Williamson is best known for a tetralogy of four novels which consists of The Beautiful Years (1921), Dandelion Days (1922), The Dream of Fair Women (1924) and The Pathway (1928). These novels are collectively known as The Flax of Dream and they follow the life of Willie Maddison from boyhood to adulthood in a rapidly changing world.

Reviews

[Paul Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this, the eleventh volume of the chronicle,
Phillip attains success; somewhat ironical,

As he’s trying his very best to live through farming.
But thanks to his book on an otter, he’s kept from starving.

‘The Power of the Dead’ is filled with wonders,
And an undercurrent like a distant thunder

That sanctifies the ghosts of British dead;
It will stay in your soul forever after it’s read.

[Trevor Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review contains spoilers.

The novel centres on Phillip Maddison and the conflicts he faces between his dual careers as a farmer and a writer.

At times the novel reads like an agricultural manual, such is the level of detail provided about farming matters. There are also passages from Maddison's (fictional) works which really don't add anything to the plot.

And then there is Maddison himself, a curiously passive character who allows things to happen to him. He does not stand up for himself and goes out of his way to accommodate people who take advantage of him.

The title of the novel is misleading, the assumption being that those who died in the First World War affect the lives of those that survived, but this point is only made occasionally and particularly in the character of Major Kidd, a lying conniving individual.

A curate's egg of a novel.