Border Country

by Raymond Williams, Charles Raymond (Illustrator)

When railway signalman Harry Price suffers a stroke his son Matthew, a lecturer in London, makes a return to the border village of Glynmawr. The past is uncovered and understood through the drama of the 1926 General Strike and its effects on the whole community. As Matthew and Harry struggle with their memories of social and personal change, a portrait of the love between a father and son emerges.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, 20th Century, Historical Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Cultural

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist, and critic. He taught for many years and the Professor of Drama at the University of Cambridge. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. His work laid the foundations for the field of cultural studies and the cultural materialist approach. Among his many books are Culture and Society, Culture and Materialism, Politics and Letters, Problems in Materialism and Culture, and several novels.

Reviews

[Dafydd · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book. It took me some time to get into it, but as I got used to the pace it began to dig deeply into my psyche. At some point I began to realise that this could well have been the autobiographical voice of my father, who became an academic, and who's own father was a signalman. It's billed as being a book about the general strike of 1926, but its much more than that. It's a history of a village and valley in which the subtle transitions and shifts of character and life are charted beautifully. That's not to say it isn't political; but the way Williams charts principle and questions of class and capitalism into the rhythms of life as it is lived is very touching. I didn't want it to end. I felt I was saying goodbye to a slower, harsher, kinder, truer world, and goodbye to my father all over again.

[Benny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een "vergeten" klassieker die best wat meer aandacht mag krijgen. Grensland vertelt het verhaal van iemand die van het Welshe platteland naar de stad trok, voor job, zekerheid en liefde. Maar nu zijn vader op sterven ligt, keert hij terug naar zijn roots, en naar de verhalen van vroeger. En die verhalen zeggen meer over hem (en over ons) dan hij vermoedde.

Een ontdekking, toch wel. Literair zit het mooi in mekaar, bovendien sociaal-politiek erg relevant. Ook in deze barre tijden.

Ik heb het boek in de (prima) Nederlandse vertaling gelezen, best een mooie uitgave, maar nu wil ik het herlezen in het origineel.

PS (veel later, nu ik het boek ook in het Engels gelezen heb): Dit gaat recht in mijn lijstje van absolute klassiekers!

[Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely book with sweet, nostalgic writing. It's pretty gentle stuff about changing times, class and identity and there was much that resonated with me. Ultimately though it just wasn't my kind of book, but understand the high ratings on here.

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hard one for me to describe. But it got me teary in many parts, which is difficult for me when reading fiction. Just some really moving passages in this, esp. when Matthew reflects on his time re-visiting Glynmawr and his interactions with figures from his childhood. The richness in the conversations and also how Williams portrays the characters. It all works so well for me. It's not forcing anything either, which can be a problem with some social realist novels, even if you know about Raymond Williams, it's not pushing anything explicitly socialist, it's mature enough to let the scenarios and characters speak for themselves.

I was especially drawn to the chapters during the General Strike of 1926, they were particularly engrossing but then you read on and there is an active awareness in how Williams writes, explicitly even, of the feelings of loss and defeat from that and the changes that occur with certain characters (esp. Morgan).

It's the way Williams writes this story though. I saw a review on here describe it as 'unfussy, but beautiful' prose and when I showed a passage to my partner, he said something similar, 'It's unfussy and forward but obviously thought has gone into every word.' That says it all really, it all comes together to produce an excellent story.

There's not much more I can say about this, I think it's worth reading, esp. as it's the centenary of the General Strike in 1926 (a pivotal event in the book).

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raymond Williams was a towering figure of mid-twentieth century cultural criticism but also had a successful career as a novelist. Border Country, first published in 1960, has many resonances with his own Monmouthshire childhood of the 1920s and 30s, and his later career as an academic. At the centre of the novel is the relationship between a son and his father, and their place within the wider network of family and friends that form the community of this bit of the border country between Wales and England. Told in a series of flashbacks the novel explores the geographical, class and educational boundaries that divide families and communities as well as the forces that unite them.

[Gerbrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gerbrand Bakker heeft dit boek uit 1960 vertaald. Dat was de reden dat ik dit boek ben gaan lezen. Niet verwonderlijk dat hij juist dit boek heeft vertaald. Net als zijn eigen werk is de stijl van Williams sober en dus geen metaforen en vergelijkingen. Ook het landelijke karakter en de natuurbeschrijvingen zijn Bakker niet vreemd.

Aan het begin van het verhaal reist Matthew Price vanuit London terug naar zijn geboortedorp in Wales om zijn zieke vader Harry te bezoeken. Wat volgt zijn veel terugblikken op het leven in de jaren 20 en 30. De mijnwerkersstaking van 1926 speelt daarbij een rol. De keuzes die men toen maakte. De sociale veranderingen. Het feit dat Matthew ging studeren aan een universiteit was maar voor weinigen uit de arbeidersklasse weggelegd.

Gerbrand Bakker zegt het zelf heel mooi in het nawoord: eigenlijk is Matthew de hele roman bezig met thuiskomen. 3 ½ *

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otherwise known as the tragedy of Morgan Rosser.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raymond Williams' 1960 novel opens with Matthew Price, a university lecturer from the Welsh Borders, running through a multicultural London where a smile from a fellow traveller is rare, to catch a bus. And in many ways he never stops running until the book's close. A historian, he is studying the migration of labourers in 19th century Wales, a process that he himself has continued by moving from the valley to Cambridge and eventually London, and one which is of course still going on today. But the study is starting to overwhelm him as he tries to reconcile the larger picture, the statistics, with the stories of the individual people behind them. And here Williams introduces on of the novel's central concerns: the intertwining of the personal with the political, the microcosm and the macrocosm. As Matthew's vicar, Mr.Pugh, tells him as a teenager, he must go and see the great cathedrals and the universities for himself even if they turn out to be just the village's chapels writ large.

When the novel opens Matthew has been summoned back to Glynmawr where his father, railway signalman Harry Price, has suffered a stroke. The novel then alternates between two timeframes: the present where Matthew must step back into the place of his childhood and reconnect if he can with home and family; and Harry's own arrival in the village as a young man, recently married, in the 1920s. Central to the story is the General Strike of 1926 when the railway workers came out in solidarity with their mining brethren, an event that has a profound effect on Harry and his friends. The novel proceeds to analyse the impact of this on both individuals and the community as the world around them changes, and asks questions about embracing progress or clinging to "the way things are done". By the 1950s Glynmawr has become a place people pass through on the road to somewhere else, the jam factory no longer produces with locally grown fruit but is a bottling plant for imported pulp, the railway station is set to close - journeys no longer begin or end here, "home" has become a much more flexible idea.

Through it all runs a moving (yet never sentimental) portrayal of the bond, seldom acknowledged in words but based on love and mutual respect, between a father and a son. This is a thoughtful, poignant and touching novel that wrestles with important questions about who we are today and is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. The prose is unfussy but beautiful, and Williams' writing on nature, landscape, and the rhythms of the seasons demonstrate a deep-rooted love for his border country. Blending aspects of Richard Llewellyn's 'How Green Was My Valley' and David Storey's 'Saville', this is a minor classic that deserves a much wider readership.

[Zareen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book struck a code for me as it was about identity. It is also about journeys. Although it is a novel, I am wondering if it is based on Raymond Williams own experiences.

The main character, Matthew Price aka Will, returns to Glynmawr where is Father is very ill. His father, Harry, is a signalman in the border country overlooking the Black mountain.

It is also a social history of the inter-war years told from the perspective of a skilled railwayman. It is also about tradition in conflict with 'progress' or change. This conflict is represented by a conflict between two of the characters, Morgan Rosser, who although is a trained signalman, goes into business after the General Strike of 1926. He offers an opening to both Harry, first, and then his son, Will, to come into business with him. Neither of them accepts his offer, and because Morgan is disappointed, he becomes quite offensive, going into character assault. He doesn't understand Harry or Will, who don't see life from his perspective.

When Harry dies at the end of the novel, Morgan takes over the funeral arrangements for his former colleague. This leaves Matthew, aka will very frustrated, irritated & extremely disempowered. He likes to be in control and to tell people what to do and how to do things, thus not giving them space to be or grieve.

[Nicholas Garforth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. I was quietly entranced once I had adapted my reading speed to accommodate and appreciate the author’s writing and content. Satisfyingly constructed, I loved the spiral-like circularity of the storyline as I did the theme of movement and journeys, of the characters in physical motion most of the time. This is a novel reflecting on the impact of progress and change during the early to mid-20th century as experienced at a local level. It explores the tension between tradition and social/entrepreneurial opportunities and their ultimately destructive impact on established communities and ways of living. But at the personal level, the depiction of a close father-son relationship had a profound resonance for me, inspiring me to reflect on my own bond with my father, and the impact of his decline and loss. He also wanted his children to take advantage of opportunities not available to him, and I love this book for affirming the positive memory and the love and the gratitude I hold for him even more strongly than I already did. Female characters/presence aside, just brilliant.

[Suzanne Ashworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Atypical Welsh of its time and worth persevering with.

[shilpa]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿❤️❤️

[Ruth]

This is a. beautifully written book but not an easy read and very slow - not for me at the moment but one I may well return to.

[Dan Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by an author from, and set in a fictionalised version of, my hometown, the themes in this hit in a big way. Very poignant, and eerily relatable for my life right now.

Adore books like this that really earn the right to make you feel something. What a great read.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rare, almost unique feeling. I usually love books that take me somewhere new or feel something different. This takes me back.

Maybe it does both of these things; time travel to feel the feelings of family. Nostalgia - truly the pain form an old wound. A life, a place, a time, a history. The passing of time and the passing of ways of life.

'What do you reckon a man works for, Will? To you, I daresay, the world seems open, there's plenty of time. But there never is, not really. You're into it, you're a man sud-denly, and with a wife and a family. Then it's not next year to worry about, or the next stage. It's just the end of the week; that's far enough. People get driven, see, but not just for the money. That's what we don't understand now in politics. We see it as a system, but what it is, at the start, is a man working for his family. Caught, see, and anxious, and knowing he's got to go on.'”

It’s not just the geography - but the borders between power and the powerless, hope and the loss of the future, borders between friends and communities when the strike occurs

'The quarrel had been only superficially about the job. The real substance, and its roots, seemed to lie far back. This was a border defined, a border crossed. It felt like a parting, whatever might actually follow.’

“He asked me not for the way, but for the start.’
'But it's outside his experience, sir, isn't it? This sort of going away?
'You could say that. But experience isn't only what's happened to us. It's also what we wanted to happen.'
'I think it's for him as much as for you,' Pugh said. 'And I want you to see that, as I saw it in him. That a life lasts longer than the actual body through which it moves’

“a man could bear to lose, but the sudden conviction that there was nothing to win-that the talk of winning was no more than talk, and collapsed when the real world asserted itself-this, deeply, was a loss of his bearings, a change in the whole structure of his life. “


Immediately: this is the soothing that I needed. The familiarity of coming from border places and going back there, where do you truly belong?

“…from Glynmawr to London, but it's a change of sub-stance, as it must also have been for them, when they left their villages. And the ways of measuring this are not only outside my discipline. They are somewhere else altogether, that I can feel but not handle, touch but not grasp. To the nearest hundred, or to any usable percentage, my single figure is indifferent, but it is not only a relevant figure: without it, the change can't be measured at all. The man on the bus, the man in the street, but I am Price from Glynmawr, and here, understandably, that means very little. You get it through Gwenton. Yes, they say the gateway of Wales. Yes, border country”.

Returning to wales after his fathers accident:

“He walked on, steadily, turning his face from the wind.
So much of the memory of this country was a memory of walking: walking alone, with the wind ripping at him; alone it seemed always, in memory, though not in fact.”


Every page seems to give memories. The emotions well up Fast from deep and they run fast.

The wardrobe in the back bedroom, text me back to the wardrobe in granddad‘s house

The voices and the smell of charcoal, of coal fires, of deep carpet

The tensions of the strike, how it was life and death and how it split close friends, is done well.

“Morgan walked behind them, frowning. Finally, Meredith appeared, with Tom Rees behind him.
You're responsible for keeping this station open, not closing it, Meredith was saying. 'Call yourself a bloody stationmaster!'
'Go on home, Jack,' Rees said, as he turned and locked the red outer door. 'You got work to do there, haven't you?" Id better have, with this bloody lot,' Meredith said angrily, and pushed past the others to his bike. He rode away without speaking again.
'Only the thing is,' Rees said, coming down the steps with his bunch of keys, 'all this has got to be done right. No sense otherwise?
Harry looked at him, and smiled. They all stood together under the closed box, looking along the empty lines and the deserted platforms, and at the home signals set at danger.
For some while, none of them spoke.”

The gentle way they plant the plants together so that they don’t go to waste

The way the strike unfolds as you sadly expect; the workers dealing with disappointments in their own way. All having lost something.

“THe end of the strike had changed Morgan. Harry had lost most, by being off work, but recovered quickly. The way he had got back, through Meredith's defiance, had pleased him, and he often thought about it. It was the kind of action he himself was most used to. But for Morgan, really, there was no satisfaction. A struggle had been lost; a common effort had failed. And it was not only the failure that broke him, but the insight this gave, or seemed to give, into the real nature of society. His life had been centred on an idea of common improvement. Then, suddenly, a different reality had closed in. The brave show was displaced, in an hour, by a grey, solid world of power and compromise.
It was not only that the compromise angered him: not only that he was sickened by the collapse into mutual blame. It was that suddenly the world of power and compromise seemed real, the world of hope and ideas no more than a gloss, a mark in the margin. He had lived on his ideas of the future, while these had seemed in any way probable, and they had seemed probable until now. And a man could bear to lose, but the sudden conviction that there was nothing to win-that the talk of winning was no more than talk, and collapsed when the real world asserted itself-this, deeply, was a loss of his bearings, a change in the whole structure of his life. The change was slow to clarify, in all its implications, but the restlessness was there from the disillusion of the last days of the strike. Left virtually alone, in this close preoccupied valley, he could feel the hardening. You could talk about creating the future, but in practice, look, people ran for shelter, manœuvred for personal convenience, accepted the facts of existing power. To see this happening was a deep loss of faith, a slow and shocking cancellation of the future”

“Harry hesitated. Morgan, watching him, saw what he had so often seen before in this man: an extraordinary tension between what was felt and what could be said. Whenever the eyes were dark, like this, the old, losing struggle was being waged.”

As he supports his son in his route to university, the vicar remarks:

“God. Here, with so little to do, I'm not granted that. I have to put these questions to myself, and there are so few answers.'
'My father says that.'
"That there are so few answers? Yes. Your father is a very unusual man.'
"Do you think so?
"He takes the usual ways, Matthew, as far as he can. He lives, I have seen him, in a very full way, with his work and his neighbours. But I have seen him, also, at the very edge of his understanding, and he is not the man to pretend.'
'I suppose that's right, sir?'
'Your father is not a religious man, in any way. I know enough of religion to insist on that, and not to mind about it.'
'You keep saying outpost, sir. I still don't quite under-stand.'
Arthur Pugh went to the window, where the curtains were undrawn. The silhouette of the tower stood faintly up against the night sky, and above it, very dark, was the mass of the Holy Mountain.
"They call that mountain holy,' Pugh said, 'because once a time of persecution men met there, secretly, to worship nd build an altar of the stones. We make too much of persecution, Matthew. Every cause, good and bad, has had its martyrs, yet there are some foolish enough to think martyr-dom sanctifying. Just as I said outnost. There are outposts of everything ”


“If you went up there and looked, really looked, you'd see it."
'See what, Will?" Morgan asked.
Well, a different view of things, that's all. Something more than keeping your nose to the ground.'
'Grindstone's the word,' Morgan said. 'And of course, certainly, it's a good view, and the air's nice. Only you can't live on that. At your age, Will-I don't want to go on about your age, it used to annoy me, but still—at your age you get set on things like that. Mountains, stars, seas, distances. A sort of longsightedness. The things close-up are all too diffi-cult?
"They stay difficult,' Harry said.
'Aye. Only you don't solve them by going and looking from a mountain.'
'No,' Harry said. T've had too much to do down here?
'And that's the size of it. It's what we've all got to come down to?”


As Matthew leaves to go back to London

“‘Go on, go on, go on, Addis shouted, kicking at the basket. 'What's the matter? Go on with you. Don't you want to get home?' He put his hand cautiously into the basket, and pushed up the last two pigeons. They fluttered out past his hand and flew up with the others, circling above the bridge.
"That's a game, Harry. All the way here in a basket, then fly back home?
'It's an interest.'
'Not for them it isn't.'
Harry looked up at the little cloud of birds. They were still circling, high above the station, in wider and wider sweeps. He rested his arms on the bar, watching them slowly space out and draw away from their circling, to fly south and home. From inside the box, a bell rang: the train had reached Pont Dulas. He turned from the window, and answered the bell.”

After his father Harry dies:
“He did all this mechanically. He was feeling nothing. The dry sleeper sticks began to crackle in the grate, and as he crouched, arranging the coal, he felt their warmth on his eyes. There was nothing to do but to wait, until the fire burned through.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, I’d suggest, a memoir-autobiography in the form of a novel and features three main characters: the chief protagonist, Matthew ‘Will’ Price; his father, Harry Price who is a signalman in Glynmawr, a small village in south Wales not far from the border with England, and Morgan Rosser, Harry’s colleague who, after the General Strike of 1926, becomes a dealer which seems to mean someone who runs a successful and, relative to those around him, lucrative business.

Matthew is the boy who makes it out of his working class origins into university and academic life, and long passages of the novel are devoted to examining his sense of being of two worlds and not feeling ‘settled’ in either of them. Indeed, it seemed to me that ‘settle’, ‘settled’, and ‘settlement’ were the text’s key words: what does it mean to be settled? Settled in oneself? settled in a particular place? both? or content to be content with what one has or what one has achieved while acknowledging that part of you itches for something else, something more, something different? The novel has a slightly different take on each of its three main characters: Morgan, who is a loquacious thinker, is the great proponent of being settled and, though restless, has achieved what he set out to achieve; Harry, who refuses to give up his signaller’s job when Morgan offers him the chance for a major role in the dealership, is happy with the regularity of his work and the opportunity it affords him to run a small market garden and to associate helpfully with other members of the small Glynmawr community; and Matthew, the one who left the valley to pursue education, by the end of the novel, finds himself feeling more settled in his suburban middle class life in England, recognising that, as deeply and as foundationally fond as he is of his Welshness, his life is elsewhere now, and that Glynmawr accepts, respects, and even admires, that, not, as he fears, holding it against him that he left the valley.

I did not find this an easy novel to enjoy, but I liked parts of it very much. I found moments of longueur in passages in which the writer examines the landscape in which the novel is set – a rural part of South Wales dominated by its ‘Holy Mountain’: these could be both dull in the way, to me, Edward Thomas and W.H. Hudson can be, and at other times lively, usually when I was conscious of there being a figure in the landscape responding to it. There is also a lot of what I would loosely call philosophising, especially by Morgan Rosser whom I would describe as a bit of a self-obsessing, navel-gazing windbag at his least amenable, but a good friend when he is able to feel, in the novel’s word, ‘settled’, at ease with himself and the world. In the later part of the novel, Matthew and he engage in a couple of conversations with ‘settlement’ at their heart, passages I found tedious if only because they did not communicate clearly with me. If I were to grouse, I might say I found Williams' writing rather ploddingly or methodically earnest in places.

Having said that, much of Williams’ dialogue was one of the strengths of the novel as were his domestic interiors. I felt he had a cinematographer’s sensitivities combined with those of a scriptwriter with a good ear. His cast of characters from Glynmawr’s small community is also one he handles well: each person is neatly depicted: the solid, reliable railwaymen; the hardy, impoverished hill farmers; the local (English) ex-army landowner who becomes, under Morgan’s self-interested encouragement, a fruit grower; Pugh, the clergyman, who tutors and advises Matthew; Matthew’s mother, Ellen, who, like all the women, make the most of their lives keeping home, husband, family and community together; and, at the edges of it all, Matthew’s own family in London where he works as an academic, decently comfortably suburban and English.

Perhaps most of all, Williams achieves a piece of revealing social documentary in the same way as the better known novels ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, ‘A Kind of Loving’, ‘Room at the Top’ and ‘This Sporting Life’ do. What makes his different, however, is its rural, Welsh setting as distinct from the industrial English cityscapes of the others. From that point of view alone, and its greater historical sweep and a lengthy, interesting account of a small group of unionised railwaymen responding in their different ways to the General Strike, Williams achieves something unexpected and, perhaps, unique in the – may I call it? - working class literature of the 1950s and 1960s.

[Mark McTague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply affecting story of the love between a father and son. Told through alternating chapters of flashback, the story unfolds as the adult son, Matthew (called Will by his parents and neighbors as he grew up) returns in the 1950s to his Welsh village where his aging father has suffered a heart attack. Through the flashbacks we see their characters unfold as their relationship develops over the years. This account of their love for one another is portrayed against the backdrop of the social and economic forces that transformed Britain in the interwar period, where the intimacy and close-knit societies of so many small towns and villages were disrupted if not destroyed by those forces of modernization. The story, and their relationship, also involves questions of how personal identity relates to social class and ethnicity (rural, working class Wales vis-a-vis urban, bourgeois England, where Will/Matthew has become a university lecturer in London after getting a scholarship to attend Cambridge, something his father had wanted for him). It is also a tale, perhaps centrally so, of the difficulty of saying the words that truly matter to the ones we love the most, and of the cost of that reticence. Well recommended.

[Rhys Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book in so many ways. What does it mean to be in one class or another? What does it mean to feel like a stranger in a place that was your home? What brings us together or divides us in our communities?

The book is aptly named for being a fictional village on the England - Wales border (and the Welsh dry Sundays well referenced by a scene of popping over the border for a drink…) but it applies to all facets of life too. Where are those borders, what do they mean for us as individuals and how we relate to each other?

The story is told through a series of flashbacks after Matthew (Will) the main character hears about his father having a stroke and going to see him in the village he grew up in.

Touching on the general strike, a close friend’s ascent in the world of business (and subsequent turn away from his previous role as secretary of the local union branch) and the path that was set out for Matthew as a child, it tells the gradual story of Matthew’s leaving and the difficulty, in the present, of what it feels like to be back.

It’s a beautiful story which is finished well - it really took me by surprise in terms of the emotional weight it brings.

[Amy Carver · Rating 5 out of 5]

REREAD REVIEW: A perfect depiction of feeling ‘held and divided’ by the intensely local places you feel know a certain version of you. The version it sometimes feels we spend the rest of our lives reconciling with… Rereading this after the Xmas period hit different. That feeling of going home and readjusting to the ways it has stayed the same but also changed. This is a book for my countryside children!

OG REVIEW: Beautiful. Made my heart swell with its incredible descriptions of growing up in a rural village and making the choice to move away. The writing is precise and unsentimental but left me emotional over my family’s West Country roots. A book that articulates impossibly large feelings for sure. “For the distance is measured, and that is what matters. By measuring the distance, we come home.”

[Bob Tyrrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful exploration of the impact of change on an individual and a community, how some live true to their values in an understanding of the essential futility of the idea of progress whilst others go with the flow, believing they are 'moving forward' and 'getting on'. Who is right and who dies the closest to understanding something about the nature of life? If you're Welsh you'll have the added bonus of seeing so much that is intimately, sensitively and accurately observed! Really a great book from a great author.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raymond Williams writes with an authentic voice this realist drama which successfully combines the lives of characters with a wider examination of Welsh life in the early to mid 20th century. Some books force emphasis on their 'message' and the result is clunky. It is my impression that Williams brings to bear his education and his long study of society and culture when he writes this book, but that his talent as an author still helps his characters stand in relief in front of a backdrop. Unlike clumsy sci-fi where the exposition is thinly dressed as dialogue, these people are flesh and blood and entirely plausible.

Williams successfully captures the feeling of a place. There is a lot of time spent looking at the landscape, particularly from the eyes of Matthew Price's character, but also in general exposition. Together with the roles played by characters and where their work and interest takes them we see a broad view of the valley where the plot is centred. Easily conjured is the village, the nearby town, the valley, the farms; especially vivid is the railway line, station, and signal box, as well as the cottage in which the Prices live next to the Rossers.

Many books about social mobility have the character grateful they have been given a hand up a steep and slippery ladder. What is more authentic about this story is the pain on separating and the acknowledgement that leaving home for one's prospects is a dislocation and that there are virtues to living in community and retaining the identity you grew up with. Modern life is far, far more displacing than what is portrayed here and seeing these growing pains vividly described might resonate with more people in the 21st century than in the 20th. There is a broader loss than the individual character's migration: he at least can return to where he grew up, although he sees it changing. Most today are harkening to things lost and not returning, and times and conditions that they believe are forever gone. The landscape of South Wales has changed enormously since the time described and there is something bittersweet in seeing it thus preserved in amber.

The language used in this book is exceptional: short, strong sentences only sometimes broken by longer musing or exploration. The character dialogue is a beautiful and authentic vernacular, reminding me of the best writing by Irish authors who capture the particular way of being Irish that their characters have and seeing and knowing it from experience. The mannerisms and philosophy of the characters appear perfectly authentic for their time and setting, most likely drawn directly from the author's life experience.

This book was fascinating for the contrasting examination of the private life and also of society itself and for the skill that this balance was struck with. I found quite interesting the author's approach in different sections: why is the authorial focus closer on Matthew's shoulders in the present, but often a little removed from his father Harry's? A biographical answer is that Matthew in many ways shares parallels with the author's own life and represents some versions of him or some of his experiences, whereas Harry is a character. Another might be that the book is from Matthew's point of view and the sections regarding Harry are expressed in the third person only as a device to summarise stories and knowledge of his father to the reader (although a device would have been interesting to achieve this, e.g. recollection or letters discovered).

This was in short an enjoyable, believable, authentic and compelling story that involved me throughout. I recommend it to those who want a good story, and especially those interested in Welsh history.

[Toby Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a gloomy book. Its protagonist Matthew (‘Will’) Price is a humourless fellow and lives in a dour community. Plus he has what must be the dullest job imaginable, researching population movements in the Welsh valleys in the 19th century. Mind you he had had the perspicacity to marry one of his students and accumulate a house in the London suburbs, a pair of sons and a Collie.
The style is very pared down, to the extent that he takes all the joy out of anything. He describes the landscape in detail but the social rituals only partially, leaving you with little idea of how anyone could survive in such a stern community. The greatest exhibition of joy is when the bees swarm. Anger and oppression are immanent and the jokes are all defensive.
Raymond Williams is venerated as the inventor of the concept of ‘culture’. And in this sense the book is about is working men’s mentality. Harry is closed-up and ‘can’t say all he wants to say’ to his son. Will is angry and tongue-tied with Eila, his childhood sweetheart, when he comes back and visits her, and leaves with scarcely a word being exchanged.
He is impartial enough to point out that socialist solidarity has its ironies: Morgan the trade union secretary’s faith in the possibility of achieving change is shattered when the 1926 General Strike collapses, and in his easy way he first starts a successful business delivering fresh produce to the mining valleys over the hill, and later persuades local farmers to grow black currants and builds a jam factory. He eventually sells up and becomes a councillor (‘in the Labour interest’ mind). He tries hard to get Harry to come in with him as a buyer, but the latter sticks with his job in the signal box. He also invites Will to join him and eventually take the firm over, but Will goes off to Cambridge instead.
Harry is laid off after the strike, but gets his job back through another irony: Meredith, the perpetually sour third signalman, had not supported the strike. But he doesn’t like being bossed about either, so refuses to work over the end of his shift to cope with a late-running train. So they have to reinstate the night shift. All in all then, the evidence for working-class solidarity is slim: it’s the scab who does Harry a good turn.
Another topic is the deep friendship between Harry and Morgan, which is never really explained, only instantiated. Morgan even has to organise Harry’s funeral since Will is so incompetent, forever wittering on about how he has lost touch with his roots, can’t move back and will always be a stranger. His trouble is he has no empathy, only political analysis. Whereas Morgan has both plus a balanced sense of priorities. So Morgan comes out as the all-round admirable successful hero, and Harry and Will both as pompous autistic losers.
But as far as culture goes there are big lacunae: there is next-to-no mention of food – only bread-making – and a rather purple section on the Eisteddfod, which fails to mention anything about the Welsh language. Coal or slate mining are scarcely mentioned.
However there is fascinating detail on railway signalling practices – a signalman could ‘waggle’ the distant signal to warn his mate he was late – and lively descriptions of chasing and capturing a swarm of bees and of crossing the border into England to get a drink on Sunday.

[Jane MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another of the Library of Wales selected books, Raymond Williams' "Border Country" tells the story of Matthew Price's return to the small Welsh setttlement of his upbringing when his father has suffered a stroke, and a retrospective account of his father Harry's life since arriving at Glynmawr and becoming a father. Put like this, it sounds an unremarkable premise for a novel, however "Border Country" is in effect a powerfully moving and complex contemplation on rural life in Wales in the interbellum years and one which probes at the the very heart of what it is to be a man and a father. As the title suggests, the story is set in that border country between Wales and England but it soon becomes apparent that Williams is examining a wide range of symbolic borders,including those that divide one man from another, father from son, the rural past from the modern age and right from wrong. Harry is simple man of few words but one of strong moral integrity who ploughs his own path in the face of numerous contrary pressures and while not always able to verbalise his choices has an unwavering instinct for what is right for him from which he will not be swayed. The divisions posed by class, the nature and purpose of work,  religion and education which cause rifts in his community are intuitively managed by Harry hence he is valued by others for his self effacing strength. His relationship with his son is an intensely poignant one as he encourages him to pursue an academic career inevitably taking him away from the rural life he himself has lived with satisfaction and posing emotional and intellectual dilemmas for both men. 


Reflecting the pace of life of the period, Williams' prose is slow paced and meandering and the authentically reproduced dialogue is sometimes obtuse and challenging to follow but the communication between the characters is nevertheless compelling and meaningful. "Border Country" simultaneously manages to unsentimentally depict a simple rural past where man reaps the fruits of his own labours and lives by his efforts and the transition "border" life of business (dealing) involving different types of work that have their own distinctive value, accepting both as meaningful.


"Border Country" is a compelling and richly thought provoking story of relationships and the diversity of factors that act upon them. It's emotional impact will remain with me.

[Dan Bartfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful novel about the relationship between father and son and the choices we make during our lives.

Harry Price stayed in Glynmawr all his life and worked the same job day in and day out despite having opportunity to do something better. Over the course of his illness, his son Matthew (Will) begins to further understand and respect the quiet dignity of his father.

The line in his book that stayed with me the most is when the character Morgan Rosser says to Will at the end of a conversation, "We shan't finish this, Will. It's a lifetime." Will and Morgan were talking about the ways to approach life and how the choices Will and Harry made were different to what Morgan wanted for them. I think what Morgan means is that our entire lives are made up of decisions and there is never a complete resolution. We just have to trust the choices we make and respect the choices others make. These conversations with ourselves and others will never end. That is what life on this Earth is all about, the freedom to choose and be the kind of person we want to be.

The only thing I didn't like about this novel was that the females characters weren't given much of an identity, especially Eira, Morgan's daughter. The reader knows that her and Will have a past, but I did not feel that the reader knows much about her beyond the surface. Just my opinion though!

This book is definitely worth the read.

[Avesta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man - I really tried to enjoy this... but I really couldn't.

There were just simply too many characters; pages and pages of endless (and often seemingly pointless) conversation that would be hard to follow without a pen and paper; rather ambiguous flashbacks which, while interesting, are often quite subtle.

The first 10 pages were a solid example of the above - majority of them were simply just conversations between a few characters. I kept on at it, and found the flashbacks to the strikes rather interesting since there's so much detail into them despite how short they were. However, that seemingly came at a price since Williams did not really expand on other parts of the plot in the book - and left certain characters as, what I'd interpret to be, 'page fillers'.

Also feel that you require some prerequisite knowledge to understand some subtleties throughout the book - for example, there was a section where Meredith took offence to her name being pronounced with an English accent. I personally didn't think anti-English sentiment was that prevalent in early 20th century Wales - but I learnt from the book club we read this in that 'Meredith' is pronounced 'Muh-redith' and not 'Mehr-uh-dith'.

I don't think I'd read this again. Might be good if you're a Welsh boomer though.

[Jee Koh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb novel. I'm surprised that it's not better known. How does one measure the lives of an individual and their community? Social science and theory render them abstract and general, like the mountaintop view of a farming valley, but a novel, such as this, can describe the minute but all-important particulars. The style is plain, as befits the "blunt truculence" of this Welsh village on the border with England, but it is always evocative; so much is said by not being said. The occasional lyricism takes off from the road and soar into the air. How does Matthew/Will Price go home after leaving it for London and a university lectureship? In his own words: "Only now it seems the end of exile. Not going back, but the feeling of exile ending. For the distance is measured, and that is what matters. By measuring the distance, we come home."

[Filipa Ribeiro Ferreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

O livro tem uma cadência calma, no momento da morte do pai, assistimos ao reviver da vida e da relação entre este pai e o seu único filho, num momento do tempo (entre guerras) que talvez tenha criado o maior fosso entre as gerações. Um pai que nunca quis ser mais do que o que era: um simples funcionário dos caminhos de ferro, mas que recebia o respeito da sua comunidade e tinha um amor profundo pela sua terra (na fronteira de Gales, montanhosa e profundamente rural) e pelos saberes artesanais que dela tiravam o sustento. E um filho que, tendo nascido ali, sai para estudar (como era aliás desejo do pai), vai à guerra e não tem como regressar, seria voltar atrás. Mas mantém o amor e um orgulho imenso naquela terra de fronteira, que o viu nascer e agora o acolhe de visita, quase como a um estrangeiro.

[Jacob Chak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cried on a plane finishing it, so there's that.

It wasn't a book that gripped me immediately and it's likely because I didn't fully understand the land and mindset I was about to inhabit. I didn't take it seriously enough but as it picked up steam I really grew to appreciate the amount of reading between the lines you had to do.

We have less and less ability to choose where we call home in the modern world. This book is also an exercise in bringing as much of your parent's world with you as you can because there is deep knowledge in there. Also, pick a good partner to spend your life with...

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really tried, but after 50 years, I have given up attempting to get through this book. I first tried to read Border Country when I moved to the Radnorshire side of the Welsh border in the early 70s but managed only a few pages. Tried again in the 90s managing a couple of chapter. I started it again a few weeks ago…a book about my area and the working people of the market towns and countryside, written by a Marxist with a huge reputation, surely my sort of thing? I found it very hard work, it just didn’t feel right, and I started, and finished, other books before going back to it. I managed to get half way through, but tonight I’ve laid it down for the last time.

[Ms Jayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quiet joy. The characters of the men were so well-drawn and sensitive and the way the little community pulled together was beautifully heart-warming. I had been prepared for some harrowing scenes reminiscent of How Green Was My Valley or The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists but instead the principal conflict was how to acknowledge/resist the pull of home when you are trying to make a life for yourself. The writing on nature was superlative and, having lived briefly in the area several years ago, it brought back memories of the beautiful Black Mountains and life in the Valleys.