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Addlands
The stark beauty of the Welsh countryside is given powerful life in this sweeping tale of one family from World War II to the present day, for readers of Alice Munro, Kent Haruf, Bruce Chatwin, and Louise Erdrich.
Addlands (i.e., headlands): the border of plough land which is ploughed last of all.
The patriarch of Funnon Farm is Idris Hamer, stubborn, strong, a man of the plough and the prayer-sheet, haunted by his youth in the trenches of France. The son is Oliver, a junior boxing champion and hell-raising local legend who seems from birth inextricably rooted to his corner of Wales. Bridging these two men’s uneasy relationship is Etty, a woman born into a world unequipped to deal with her. Following the Hamer family for seventy years, this novel’s beauty is in its pure and moving prose, and its brilliant insight into a traditional way of life splintering in the face of inevitable change. Addlands is also a tale of blood feuds and momentous revelations, of the great dramas that simmer beneath the surface of the everyday. Through all the upheavals of the twentieth century, the only constant is the living presence of the land itself, a dazzling, harsh, and haunting terrain that Tom Bullough conjures with the skill and grace of a master.
Addlands (i.e., headlands): the border of plough land which is ploughed last of all.
The patriarch of Funnon Farm is Idris Hamer, stubborn, strong, a man of the plough and the prayer-sheet, haunted by his youth in the trenches of France. The son is Oliver, a junior boxing champion and hell-raising local legend who seems from birth inextricably rooted to his corner of Wales. Bridging these two men’s uneasy relationship is Etty, a woman born into a world unequipped to deal with her. Following the Hamer family for seventy years, this novel’s beauty is in its pure and moving prose, and its brilliant insight into a traditional way of life splintering in the face of inevitable change. Addlands is also a tale of blood feuds and momentous revelations, of the great dramas that simmer beneath the surface of the everyday. Through all the upheavals of the twentieth century, the only constant is the living presence of the land itself, a dazzling, harsh, and haunting terrain that Tom Bullough conjures with the skill and grace of a master.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published August 16, 2016
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1083 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
August 22, 2016
There are things about this book that are profound and beautiful. It's about the call of the land and how it summons a man and his family to stay with it in spite of the challenges of a brutal nature, of family stakes, and the inevitable future that brings technology which will change the way these people work the land. I read an advance copy so it should be noted that some of the quotes in this review may be different than the final version, but I can't help but include a little of the exquisite writing .
"On the near side of the brook he slipped to the ground and, with the moon and the searchlights appearing once more from the hill behind him, led the horse through the ford and into the Bottom Field. In the thin, shifting light, he saw the first signs of a glat in the hedge, a fresh mole tump, a ewe he'd known as Bessie as a lamb, which was rubbing on a gatepost and would need to be checked for the scab. He passed the creatures gathered round the hay cratch and climbed towards the Banky Piece where the barn for the Funnon rose above him, loud with cattle, the wind on the roof and in the surrounding trees. "
From the beginning of the story there is something quiet, somber, almost a sadness as we see the determination of Idris Hamer to tend the land and the animals on it, in the face of adversity. In spite of the beauty of the prose in so many places , there were some things that fell short for me. The story moves slowly, with not much action even as the chapters leap forward by multiple years. Sometimes it was a struggle to determine what had happened in those years that passed. I found I was distracted with the use of the Welch dialect in so many places as I tried to guess the meaning within the context. The biggest issue I had was that I just was not able to feel any emotional connection to the characters except to Oliver, as a child during a devastating snow storm as he tries desperately to save the sheep buried under the snow. It took way too long to get a feel for what the Idris held inside , maybe a reason for his demeanor. It took way too long to get a feel for his wife, Etty's secret. It took way too long to understand Oliver's pull to the land.
"At times he had tried to explain to Naomi why he could not join her, why he could no more crawl out of this valley and live than he could have crawled out of his own skin."
I'm finding this difficult to rate because I struggled in the first half trying to decide if I would continue for the reasons I've given. I'm glad I did because the second half was so much more. In the end, it will be 3 stars but if it were possible 3.5.
Thanks to The Dial Press/Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley.
"On the near side of the brook he slipped to the ground and, with the moon and the searchlights appearing once more from the hill behind him, led the horse through the ford and into the Bottom Field. In the thin, shifting light, he saw the first signs of a glat in the hedge, a fresh mole tump, a ewe he'd known as Bessie as a lamb, which was rubbing on a gatepost and would need to be checked for the scab. He passed the creatures gathered round the hay cratch and climbed towards the Banky Piece where the barn for the Funnon rose above him, loud with cattle, the wind on the roof and in the surrounding trees. "
From the beginning of the story there is something quiet, somber, almost a sadness as we see the determination of Idris Hamer to tend the land and the animals on it, in the face of adversity. In spite of the beauty of the prose in so many places , there were some things that fell short for me. The story moves slowly, with not much action even as the chapters leap forward by multiple years. Sometimes it was a struggle to determine what had happened in those years that passed. I found I was distracted with the use of the Welch dialect in so many places as I tried to guess the meaning within the context. The biggest issue I had was that I just was not able to feel any emotional connection to the characters except to Oliver, as a child during a devastating snow storm as he tries desperately to save the sheep buried under the snow. It took way too long to get a feel for what the Idris held inside , maybe a reason for his demeanor. It took way too long to get a feel for his wife, Etty's secret. It took way too long to understand Oliver's pull to the land.
"At times he had tried to explain to Naomi why he could not join her, why he could no more crawl out of this valley and live than he could have crawled out of his own skin."
I'm finding this difficult to rate because I struggled in the first half trying to decide if I would continue for the reasons I've given. I'm glad I did because the second half was so much more. In the end, it will be 3 stars but if it were possible 3.5.
Thanks to The Dial Press/Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley.
August 26, 2017
This quiet story of a small hill farm in the Welsh border country is clearly something of a labour of love. The main characters are three generations of a farming family and the story moves from 1941 to 2011, with chapters typically five years apart.
There are plenty of descriptions of the land and of farming methods, and plenty of local dialect words some of which are beyond the scope of a standard dictionary, but these are rarely essential to understanding the story, which is largely about the way farming has changed, and the community has changed with it.
Another strand is the change in attitudes to unmarried mothers - at the emotional centre of the book is Etty, who is forced to marry the proud but old fashioned and older farmer Idris while pregnant with Oliver, whose father has deserted her. Oliver is a giant, hard-working but hot-headed often drawn into fighting. His child Cefin is the product of a short-lived affair with Naomi, a student teacher and aspiring writer who refuses to sacrifice her career to the farm.
Other chapters cover events of wider significance to the area - the harsh winter of 1947 and the foot-and-mouth epidemic and consequent sheep slaughter of 2001, and the demolition of the local railway in 1963.
This is not a book that will appeal to thrill-seekers, but it has a quiet beauty and works very successfully on its own terms.
There are plenty of descriptions of the land and of farming methods, and plenty of local dialect words some of which are beyond the scope of a standard dictionary, but these are rarely essential to understanding the story, which is largely about the way farming has changed, and the community has changed with it.
Another strand is the change in attitudes to unmarried mothers - at the emotional centre of the book is Etty, who is forced to marry the proud but old fashioned and older farmer Idris while pregnant with Oliver, whose father has deserted her. Oliver is a giant, hard-working but hot-headed often drawn into fighting. His child Cefin is the product of a short-lived affair with Naomi, a student teacher and aspiring writer who refuses to sacrifice her career to the farm.
Other chapters cover events of wider significance to the area - the harsh winter of 1947 and the foot-and-mouth epidemic and consequent sheep slaughter of 2001, and the demolition of the local railway in 1963.
This is not a book that will appeal to thrill-seekers, but it has a quiet beauty and works very successfully on its own terms.
August 17, 2016
This book is a masterpiece. It's prose is fluid, occasionally dazzling and full of memorable description of people, place above all, emotion and event. It is one of the best reads in a long time. The story covers many years but key moments are chosen for highlighting and these moments illuminate each life described so economically and yet so deeply that you feel you know the characters and the events that shape them. I finished it and went straight back to the beginning to read it again. I have never done that before!
September 8, 2024
I put this on my external-to-Goodreads “want to read” list in March 2020 (a different era) because of an NPR book list. Another reminder that Goodreads could be vastly improved by having a place to enter a reason when you add something to your “want to read” list, like which friend recommended the book or where you found it mentioned. Goodreads could be vastly improved in many other ways as well IMO
In any case, totally randomly this is a novel set in WALES and I got it from the library on kindle completely coincidentally while on my honeymoon in WALES. I had no idea it was going to be set in Wales until I started reading it!!
Unfortunately, not a good book. Follows one family on their rural farm from roughly 1940 to 2011 and jumps forward in time periodically, skipping key plot points which you then have to deduce on your own. Pretty hard to follow and hard to get enthusiastic about
The best part was there is a random blonde girl who shows up eating a salad and reading her book at a cafe while on some kind of walk/trek through Wales!! The main character, Oliver, who has basically never left his small town and only seen the sea twice from a distance, is baffled about why she has walked there and where she could be going
In any case, totally randomly this is a novel set in WALES and I got it from the library on kindle completely coincidentally while on my honeymoon in WALES. I had no idea it was going to be set in Wales until I started reading it!!
Unfortunately, not a good book. Follows one family on their rural farm from roughly 1940 to 2011 and jumps forward in time periodically, skipping key plot points which you then have to deduce on your own. Pretty hard to follow and hard to get enthusiastic about
The best part was there is a random blonde girl who shows up eating a salad and reading her book at a cafe while on some kind of walk/trek through Wales!! The main character, Oliver, who has basically never left his small town and only seen the sea twice from a distance, is baffled about why she has walked there and where she could be going
abandoned
December 1, 20205/10
I could feel it in my bones that this was going to end up being a great sloozefest.
Sloozefest, n. State half way through a slog and a snooze.
Beautiful language, beautifully written. Captivating passages of the natural world, all elements which I love in a book. The problem was I couldn’t find any soul in any of the characters. I knew I wouldn’t care a whit for them, even after spending 70-odd years with them (the arc of this story).
Life is too short to give up 7 good decades of the readerly world.
I could feel it in my bones that this was going to end up being a great sloozefest.
Sloozefest, n. State half way through a slog and a snooze.
Beautiful language, beautifully written. Captivating passages of the natural world, all elements which I love in a book. The problem was I couldn’t find any soul in any of the characters. I knew I wouldn’t care a whit for them, even after spending 70-odd years with them (the arc of this story).
Life is too short to give up 7 good decades of the readerly world.
October 31, 2016
On the day in 1941 that his nineteen-year-old wife gives birth to a son, middle-aged Welsh farmer Idris Hamer discovers a large, flat stone with unusual lettering on it while plowing one of his fields. Over the next 70 years, the stone will reappear periodically in the lives of the Hamers, serving as a sort of guardian talisman or tormenting demon in this bleak yet compelling family chronicle.
Idris and his wife, Etty, live in Radnorshire, a rural area bordering England where the residents consider themselves neither Welsh nor English, but something altogether different. Though Etty's child is named Oliver after Idris's beloved older brother, everyone in the community is well aware that Idris is not the child's father; his actual paternity remains a mystery, since he looks nothing like the Hamers or other locals, with his massive build and swarthy complexion. Idris, twenty years his wife's senior and prematurely aged by being gassed in battle, is actually a distant cousin of Etty's who agreed to marry her when she told him she was pregnant. As Etty comments, he is "a good man in his way", meaning that he leads the singing in Methodist chapel every Sunday and is not a violent drunk like her father, the local stationmaster. But Idris is also taciturn and set in his ways, and his sexual relationship with Etty is perfunctory on his part and reluctant on hers. Idris also has his own family problems with a younger brother who hovers on the periphery of the action, claiming a share of Hamer family land.
As the story moves ahead, Oliver gradually emerges as the central character. While Idris's life as a farmer in 1941 differs little from those of his ancestors (plowing with a horse, no electricity), Oliver will experience enormous changes over the years. Though his mother and grandmother have ambitions for him, he is drawn to the land and the animals every bit as much as Idris, and he will remain on the farm where he was born. He becomes something of a local legend for his brawn, long black hair, propensity for barroom brawls, the gaudy rings he wears, and the raven (named Maureen) perpetually perched on his shoulder. His violent temper sends him to prison for nine months--and leaves him with a large collection of bumps, bruises, and missing body parts.
Etty is the practical, business-minded member of the family who subscribes to agricultural journals and makes a number of astute decisions that enable her husband and son to go on playing farmer in an era when small family farms are an increasingly endangered species. She transforms a ruined cabin where a previous resident committed suicide into a rustic retreat for a university professor, and when hoof-and-mouth disease ravages the U.K., it is Etty who decides to purposely (and illegally) infect their herd, when she realizes that they will lose the farm without the reparations money offered by the government.
Oliver has an intense but brief fling with Naomi, daughter of the resident professor. This results in the birth of a son, Cefin, who will grow up in the city with very sporadic contact with his father. In one of the novel's more amusing episodes, Oliver encounters a wide-eyed grad student who has come in search of the man who inspired Naomi's critically acclaimed "post-pastoral" poetry volume--a book that Oliver has never bothered to look at. Despite Cefin's eventual academic degrees, travels around the world, and work in the information industry, he, like Idris and Oliver before him, is drawn to the Hamer farm in the story's surprisingly upbeat conclusion.
Despite the geographical distance between them, Tom Bullough's writing is strongly reminiscent of William Faulkner's, particularly in their characters' connection to the land and to family, however dysfunctional. Like Faulkner as well, Bullough can be a difficult stylist; many character relationships and plot points that other writers would spell out early on, only emerge gradually, obliquely, or not at all. In addition, Bullough uses a substantial number of dialect words that don't appear in standard dictionaries. He does explain at the beginning that the book's title refers to the edges of a field that are plowed after the rest, and there is a glossary on his website for those who don't care to guess at the meaning of "larper" and "poochy" from their context. In the end Addlands does provide an ample payoff for thoughtful readers in search of a heartfelt and moving look at a vanished way of life.
Reviewed by Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction Department
Idris and his wife, Etty, live in Radnorshire, a rural area bordering England where the residents consider themselves neither Welsh nor English, but something altogether different. Though Etty's child is named Oliver after Idris's beloved older brother, everyone in the community is well aware that Idris is not the child's father; his actual paternity remains a mystery, since he looks nothing like the Hamers or other locals, with his massive build and swarthy complexion. Idris, twenty years his wife's senior and prematurely aged by being gassed in battle, is actually a distant cousin of Etty's who agreed to marry her when she told him she was pregnant. As Etty comments, he is "a good man in his way", meaning that he leads the singing in Methodist chapel every Sunday and is not a violent drunk like her father, the local stationmaster. But Idris is also taciturn and set in his ways, and his sexual relationship with Etty is perfunctory on his part and reluctant on hers. Idris also has his own family problems with a younger brother who hovers on the periphery of the action, claiming a share of Hamer family land.
As the story moves ahead, Oliver gradually emerges as the central character. While Idris's life as a farmer in 1941 differs little from those of his ancestors (plowing with a horse, no electricity), Oliver will experience enormous changes over the years. Though his mother and grandmother have ambitions for him, he is drawn to the land and the animals every bit as much as Idris, and he will remain on the farm where he was born. He becomes something of a local legend for his brawn, long black hair, propensity for barroom brawls, the gaudy rings he wears, and the raven (named Maureen) perpetually perched on his shoulder. His violent temper sends him to prison for nine months--and leaves him with a large collection of bumps, bruises, and missing body parts.
Etty is the practical, business-minded member of the family who subscribes to agricultural journals and makes a number of astute decisions that enable her husband and son to go on playing farmer in an era when small family farms are an increasingly endangered species. She transforms a ruined cabin where a previous resident committed suicide into a rustic retreat for a university professor, and when hoof-and-mouth disease ravages the U.K., it is Etty who decides to purposely (and illegally) infect their herd, when she realizes that they will lose the farm without the reparations money offered by the government.
Oliver has an intense but brief fling with Naomi, daughter of the resident professor. This results in the birth of a son, Cefin, who will grow up in the city with very sporadic contact with his father. In one of the novel's more amusing episodes, Oliver encounters a wide-eyed grad student who has come in search of the man who inspired Naomi's critically acclaimed "post-pastoral" poetry volume--a book that Oliver has never bothered to look at. Despite Cefin's eventual academic degrees, travels around the world, and work in the information industry, he, like Idris and Oliver before him, is drawn to the Hamer farm in the story's surprisingly upbeat conclusion.
Despite the geographical distance between them, Tom Bullough's writing is strongly reminiscent of William Faulkner's, particularly in their characters' connection to the land and to family, however dysfunctional. Like Faulkner as well, Bullough can be a difficult stylist; many character relationships and plot points that other writers would spell out early on, only emerge gradually, obliquely, or not at all. In addition, Bullough uses a substantial number of dialect words that don't appear in standard dictionaries. He does explain at the beginning that the book's title refers to the edges of a field that are plowed after the rest, and there is a glossary on his website for those who don't care to guess at the meaning of "larper" and "poochy" from their context. In the end Addlands does provide an ample payoff for thoughtful readers in search of a heartfelt and moving look at a vanished way of life.
Reviewed by Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction Department
July 2, 2017
Exceptional novel set in the Welsh borderlands, telling the story of Idris, Etty and Oliver, rooted in the Welsh land with its harsh and unforgiving beauty. The novel seems hewn out of the very soil it describes. It is monumental, an epitaph to farming as it was in the middle of the last century, and a tremulous nod to what is at hand, how man is leaving the surface of the earth, and all that is being left behind.
November 22, 2022
If you read for action and plot twists, it is not for you. If you read for beautiful, even astonishing prose, you’ll love this book, as I did. This author is a true master of his craft.
April 17, 2020
This is the second book I have read by Tom Bullough, and I very much look forward to reading the rest of his work.
Beautifully written, and, as with his novel ‘Konstantin’, it powerfully evokes a whole world within the world, and I’m pretty sure its memorable characters and landscapes will remain with me.
I live fairly near the country described in the book, having moved to Wales last year with my Welsh husband, whose hiraeth could be borne no longer! I look forward, once lockdown has lifted, to exploring the area Tom Bullough has written of.
Talking of hiraeth, and the use in the book of dialect words: as a lover of words who likes to look up ones I’ve not come across before, I have to admit to a degree of frustration (though by the end of the book I didn’t care anymore!) at not being able to find some meanings, even with search engines, the Oxford dictionary, and Welsh into English. So I hope it doesn’t sound too peevish to say that it might be a kindness, in any future edition, to have a glossary at the back if the book for some of the more
uncommon words?
That would be lovely, mun! 🙂
Beautifully written, and, as with his novel ‘Konstantin’, it powerfully evokes a whole world within the world, and I’m pretty sure its memorable characters and landscapes will remain with me.
I live fairly near the country described in the book, having moved to Wales last year with my Welsh husband, whose hiraeth could be borne no longer! I look forward, once lockdown has lifted, to exploring the area Tom Bullough has written of.
Talking of hiraeth, and the use in the book of dialect words: as a lover of words who likes to look up ones I’ve not come across before, I have to admit to a degree of frustration (though by the end of the book I didn’t care anymore!) at not being able to find some meanings, even with search engines, the Oxford dictionary, and Welsh into English. So I hope it doesn’t sound too peevish to say that it might be a kindness, in any future edition, to have a glossary at the back if the book for some of the more
uncommon words?
That would be lovely, mun! 🙂
June 10, 2016
Addlands is a literary family saga crossed with a nature diary. I’m not sure if the peppering of dialect words and farming procedures I couldn’t quite understand, added to or detracted from my enjoyment of this novel, but enjoy it I did. It’s an elegy to the changing countryside, and the ordinary heroism of those wedded to it, hard-working and hard-playing, and the inevitable losses and gains as time marches on.
Full review http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post/...
Full review http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post/...
February 8, 2019
A brilliant novel. Beautifully observed on life in the hill farms around Hay and deeply moving on the passing of time on three generations of the Hamer family and the Welsh borders where they live. Good enough to demand to be read slowly.
March 7, 2017
Boring, who cares about cattle, sheep and unpronounceable places and names. Lost interest and skimmed last 2/3 of book.
April 1, 2018
A masterpiece. Complete immersion in the landscape, the language and the hearts of the people on this farm in the Welsh borders. A brave and wonderful creation by Tom Bullough. And one which I keep with its face turned to the room on my shelf, because I love it so much. Bullough inhabits the minds of men and women of different generations, with such different mindsets, all joined by the landscape. The words they speak took me back to my childhood and beyond. Absolutely loved it, and will read again. I have recommended it to friends who didn't really get it - but their experiences growing up and their connections to rural life have been very different to mine. For me it was perfect.
August 3, 2016
Towards the end of the novel a visitor to the area is excited about the post-pastoral poetry that was written by another character following her stay there. This raises the idea of the novel itself as an example of post pastoralism. As with Bullough's other work it has strong descriptions of the natural world and how people live with and interact with it. This novel also discusses how time changes traditional lives in rural settings. Powerful.
November 7, 2016
This is the first time I finished a book and then went right back to Chapter 1 to read the whole thing again. First time, I felt like I was tangled up in the Welsh, second time I just rolled with the story. I'm glad I did that, caught some beauty that I missed the first time through. So many sentences to reread and savor. It did not move me as a 5-star book does but I enjoyed the sense of time and place.
August 20, 2016
Tom Bullough has written a modern saga of the Welsh-English border that is as much about the Welsh and English languages as it is about Wales and England. Filled with beautiful passages and marked by the insistent use of the local dialect (sans glossary, so you just have to go along with it), Addlands is a novel about change, technology, manhood, and violence.
October 4, 2016
I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaways winner. This is a beautifully written book! I am unfamiliar with Welsh language, so sometimes it was a bit confusing, but I could generally get the gist. I liked how there is no climax, the story just keeps rolling on, like in life, and the characters are ever-changing with time.
August 31, 2016
I gave the copy I received from the goodreads giveaway to my mother. She is almost done with the book and she would like to say thank you to the author.
September 29, 2016
What a wonderful book. I absolutely adored it.
November 1, 2016
Great sense of place - nicely structured time wise - some fantastically poetic language
December 24, 2016
I couldn't get into this book and gave up on it after 50 pages.
August 8, 2023
4.5 stars. Wonderful nature writing and one of the best books that I have read for showing the huge changes that were wrought on rural communities during the twentieth century. The book begins in 1941 when the workings of the farm are pretty much the same as they have been for centuries. By the end of the book there are mobile phones, all sorts of gadgetry, the chapel has become a home and the drain of people away from the land seems to be terminal. There are questions about belonging, about tradition, about morality and modernity, and all with the most lyrical writing about the countryside in a very quietly beautiful part of the world. The book is peppered with local dialect but it is only the odd word rather than full sentences and even if you cannot guess the meaning from the context it really doesn’t impact your comprehension overall. It’s also a useful reminder that there is more than one language native to the UK! Not one to be read for plot, but for a gentle, although unromanticised portrait of rural life it is perfect.
January 31, 2025
A series of disjointed anecdotes, the thread of which is difficult to maintain. Loaded with unknown vocabulary. Some of the words aren't even in the glossary on the author's page. Its like watching a movie through a keyhole or a landscape through a dirty winter. You never get a clear picture. Nonetheless I finished it so there are redeeming qualities. The main characters are compelling. Their inner lives and thoughts rendered in an insightful and interesting manner. Events take place in rural Wales from the mid-Twentieth century to approximately the current time. Rural and farming life in Wales rendered over that time frame time made the book enjoyable. The difficulty and unchanging nature of this way of life into the forgotten past is what kept me reading. The old way focused on the Seasons, weather, the natural environment, and Faith in Christianity. The rapid transition to modern life surely brought comfort and convenience, but as usual when you gain you lose, so the Faith and knowledge and love of the natural world are lost.
March 15, 2019
I was iniataly irritated by the way each chapter deals with a short period of time, with each chapter separated by years, but ended the book thinking it was an incredibly clever way of making us, the readers, get ever more involved with the novel by filling the gaps with our own imaginations.
The action takes place in an area of Radnorshire I know and love, and the characters are 100% real and believable, though the dialect is not quite on the button, despite what the professional reviewers may say on the cover.
This book will become a classic Radnorshire novel alongside those by Hilda Vaughan and HLV Fletcher, and I highly recommend it.
The action takes place in an area of Radnorshire I know and love, and the characters are 100% real and believable, though the dialect is not quite on the button, despite what the professional reviewers may say on the cover.
This book will become a classic Radnorshire novel alongside those by Hilda Vaughan and HLV Fletcher, and I highly recommend it.
January 9, 2020
3.5 stars
The main strength of this book lies within its nature writing, which is very impressive and descriptive, but is unfortunately something I find incredibly boring in novels. The scenery is so repeatedly described that I found myself skimming paragraphs of it, trying to find something more interesting to latch onto. I never felt particularly connected to the characters with the constant skipping through time, and while I feel Bullough represented the concerns and struggles of a small farming community well, I didn't find myself caring about the characters or how the events impacted them. Impressive from a literary standpoint, but just not my cup of tea.
The main strength of this book lies within its nature writing, which is very impressive and descriptive, but is unfortunately something I find incredibly boring in novels. The scenery is so repeatedly described that I found myself skimming paragraphs of it, trying to find something more interesting to latch onto. I never felt particularly connected to the characters with the constant skipping through time, and while I feel Bullough represented the concerns and struggles of a small farming community well, I didn't find myself caring about the characters or how the events impacted them. Impressive from a literary standpoint, but just not my cup of tea.
April 6, 2018
An elegant, sweeping family saga in the Welsh countryside with breathtaking descriptions of the land, animals, birds, flora and people who love the land. My only regret is not having read it on my Kindle as there are many Welsh words especially relating to farming and animal husbandry that I didn’t know but I just soldiered on figuring I got the gist of it. I will read this again one day on the Kindle so I can truly enjoy this fine, well told story.
October 20, 2022
To get involved with a story, you have to care about the characters. This unlikable crew with their Welsh words that are rarely explained and their hard life was just not interesting. The next bloody fight about two thirds of the way through had me skimming ahead and not finishing the book. The poetic descriptions of the countryside even get annoying after awhile. Guess you have to be Welsh to like this book.
March 8, 2023
A book rooted in the Welsh borderlands with beautiful, lyrical descriptions of the land and the changes over 70 years, and the effect these have on the inhabitants of the Fynnon. Just wish there had been a map of the farm and the surrounding countryside. There is nothing sentimental about this - life is harsh - and there are no heroes but plenty of flawed characters trying their best to live in this unforgiving landscape. Hiraeth
May 18, 2017
I enjoyed this book but it was difficult to understand. But I just kept reading and got enough from the context to understand the story. I like books about people who live off the land and care for animals. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone else. It's a special book but not for the general reader.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews