We Live

by Lewis Jones

First published in 1939, We Live is the second of two books (the first being Cwmardy) which tells the story of a typical South Wales mining community in the Rhondda valley, from the beginning of the century to the eve of the Second World War.

To convey the whole sweep of events, the author used the form of the documentary novel, of which these books remain two of the most famous in British working-class literature.

We Live deals with the years of the General Strike, the great marches of the unemployed in the thirties, the growth of the Communist Party, and the struggle against fascism in Spain.

As in Cwmardy, these historic events are observed through the human dimension of the main character, Len Roberts, his family, workmates and comrades.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Born in Clydach Vale in 1897, Lewis Jones began work underground at the age of twelve. He worked for the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, was elected a County Councillor in 1936, and died in 1939 after a day of speaking at numerous public meetings in support of the Spanish Civil War.

Stephen Knight described Jones' work as novelist thus: "Lewis Jones produced two novels that remain classics of international industrial fiction and testify to the oppressed but resistant and creative character of industrial South Wales."

Reviews

[joe]

bit of a gem here.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a particularly difficult decision to abandon this novel. I had read the first of Lewis Jones’ two connected autobiographical books (really they just make one long novel) about Welsh miners, Cwmardy, with interest and respect. Cwmardy (named after its village setting) is not short at 402 pages, and the sequel, We Live, is even longer at 479 pages, of which I have finished 174. This second installment is VERY repetitive of the first, which was itself becoming repetitive towards the end. Basically just a protracted series of labor troubles – strikes, lockouts, preparations for such, battles with police, and so on – punctuated by what seem like exceedingly short periods of mining work itself. I never did figure out the survival economics. Looking ahead over the next 300 pages, I see it is more and more of the same, and my heart’s not in it.

Especially because we know that the owners always win in the end, and so the futility is extreme. I know this must have been far worse to live through than to read about, but still. Futility is not one of my favorite subjects, it is dispiriting, and hitting this wall is especially apt to occur in socialist and left-wing fiction, which Jones’ saga emphatically is. Cwmardy is not especially doctrinaire, but We Live becomes much more so as the protagonists get involved in Communist Party politics and the inevitable leftist infighting (also not one of my favorite subjects).

Since I am boringly middle-of-the-road politically and philosophically, intensely ideological fiction (in whatever direction) can sometimes irritate or lose me. The ideology is more naked / committed in We Live than Cwmardy, and this change reflects Jones’ own journey. He was unemployed in mining for the last ten years of his life, but continued to be involved in activism, and eventually dropped dead of what appears to have been sheer exhaustion at age 41. We Live was finished by his romantic partner, who touched up / wrote the last two chapters, and published posthumously.

[BeesReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, wonderful book, follow up to Cwmardy.
Published in 1939 and after the author's death.
The struggles of the miners and the grinding poverty of the inhabitants of this little Welsh town.


I'll write a better review later.