A Man of His Time

by Alan Sillitoe

A wonderful historical novel from one of our best loved and most prolific writersAs a young man Ernest Burton was a bold and reckless journeyman blacksmith, seducing all young girls he comes across. We watch him grow to become a master Blacksmith, and a tyrannical father of eight who refuses even to try to remain faithful to the woman he married and who reigns over his young family with an iron fist, instilling in his sons and daughters a mixture of fear and hatred of him. Burton is an extraordinary fictional creation a bully who shows no mercy in his relentless terrorism of his sons, he can also be effortlessly charming, with a magnetic attraction that effects all he meets.Written in the sparse, plain language that Sillitoe has made his own, A Man of His Time is a mesmerising portrait of an extraordinary individual, aware that he is, in many ways, the last of a dying breed. It's a rich, absorbing, wonderfully readable novel that covers decades and crosses generations, depicting with singular brilliance an England poised on the brink of change.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

378 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Alan Sillitoe was an English writer, one of the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s (although he, in common with most of the other writers to whom the label was applied, had never welcomed it).
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sil...

Reviews

[Mark Giblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book, possibly as it's written about the same part of England I grew up in, be it a hundred years before. I could understand how working so hard in that time and place would make a hard man of you, but I still found the main character a very tough man to like. I liked the way his family grew around him, and all remained individual enough in spirit to cuss the old coot behind his back. And his long suffering wife - God love her.
So well written, well paced. Many would find it depressing I think, but I was sad to finish it. I'm trying to get some other Sillitoe books, but the local library only has this one.

[Murray Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was probably one of those books that I'll think about for a while after reading it, definitely fine literature and all that, but to be honest I found it a bit dull in places. Still glad to have read it though. Any family man could probably see something of themselves in Burton I think.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts out with Ernest Burton, a young, strapping, and good-looking blacksmith journeyman from Nottingham, as he makes his way to Tredegar in South Wales, where he is to help in his brother’s forge. Apart from smithying, there’s only one thing on roughly-hewn and arrogant Ernest’s mind: how to score his next sexual exploit. On the train to South Wales he makes the acquaintance of a recently widowed, young, and socially inexperienced woman, complete with a suitcase full of ecclesiastical books as her husband had been a devout man. You guessed it, Ernest seduces and has his wicked way with her, there and then in a most audacious manner, right in a compartment on the train!

After his time with his know-all brother George in Wales, the story takes a leap forward in time and we meet Ernest again as a master blacksmith in Nottingham. He’s in his 40s now, married to former barmaid Mary Ann, and with 8 children. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is Ernest’s voracious sexual appetites, which he continues to satisfy unthinkingly and irresponsibly. The only possible outcome is tragedy for his family and for himself…

This book is about untrammelled sexuality and sensuality in a man, who takes women wherever and whenever he can get them, without even knowing that he’s doing anything wrong. Unfortunately in Ernest this propensity is coupled with -unsurprisingly- him also being a tyrant and a bully, rendering life nearly unbearable for anyone who depends on him for their livelihood.

Apart from Ernest’s sexual appetites, which don’t abate even when he’s an old man, the book also describes the art of the blacksmith in intimate technical detail. For example there are passages when Burton shoes horses and rings young bulls that are visceral and simply astonishing. Furthermore, the disaster at Chilwell munitions factory that killed and maimed hundreds is described. All through, Sillitoe’s own rabid anti-war (although he was a war hero in WW2) and anti-patriotic sentiments are transferred to Burton and his tribe.

I think this book might be a not-so-lighthearted send-up of D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, and the bodice-ripper genre in general. Sillitoe’s book is set in the period immediately preceding and during the Great War (although the book extends into WW2), about the same timeframe as Lawrence’s work. Lawrence’s (1885–1930) and Sillitoe’s (1928–2010) lives didn’t really overlap but they both came from Nottinghamshire (Lawrence from the coal-mining town of Eastwood and Sillitoe from Nottingham itself) and were the most notable local authors of their respective eras. The notorious English class system features prominently in both authors’ fiction. Although both came from humble working-class origins, Sillitoe really did grow up with a violent father and his family often came close to starvation. It is hardly surprising then that Sillitoe as the master of the ‘angry young men’ of the 1950s might have looked down on Lawrence’s work as supercilious and lightweight and felt the need to tell the world.

Verdict: It’s almost as though Sillitoe wanted to show the public that there’s nothing romantic whatsoever in an oversexed, superdominant, irresponsible, and arrogant but uneducated male. I just hope this novel -the last one he wrote- is not completely autobiographical! Needless to say with a writer of Sillitoe’s stature, the story is told with verve and impeccable style. Highly recommended, though not his best work by a long shot. In addition, I have to admit that I lived in Nottingham for almost 15 years and there’s always an incredible pull of a story where you’re familiar with the localities!

[Stefan Koepeknie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saved his most unlikable main character (of many) for his last novel.
My favorite Sillitoe not in the Seaton Cycle.

[Anna Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for my dissertation but is actually so interesting and follows a man’s life from the 1880s right up to the Second World War.