Silver Ley

Rural Trilogy #2

by Adrian Bell

Silver Ley was first published in 1931, it is the second volume in Adrian Bell's classic rural trilogy, the other volumes being Corduroy and The Cherry Tree. In Silver Ley the author moves from being a farm apprentice to a farm owner.

Genres: Memoir, British Literature, Nature, Nonfiction

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Adrian Bell is one of the best-known of modern writers dealing with the countryside. His books are noted for their close observations of country life.
The son of a newspaper editor, Bell was born in London and educated at Uppingham School in Rutland. At the age of 19 he ventured into the countryside in Hundon, Suffolk, to learn about agriculture, and he farmed in various locations over the next sixty years, including the rebuilding of a near-derelict 89-acre smallholding at Redisham.

Reviews

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published a decade after Adrian Bell’s debut memoir, Corduroy, Silver Ley picks up where he left off and covers most of the decade of the 1920s. Bell—son of a London literary man—took it into his head at nineteen to become a farmer. After a year’s apprenticeship, described in Corduroy, he buys with his family’s help a small Suffolk farm, called Silver Ley.

The book opens on his first year at the farm, living simply and settling into his life. As with the previous book, his story is told in vignettes, each chapter a little jewel of description and characterization as he outlines some local figure or event. The book seems episodic at first but a storyline, or series of storylines, develops.

The narrator’s family, inspired to dreaming by his contentment, decides to move out of London. They take a house almost adjacent to his farm and embrace for a time the rural life. He loves his family but they have a detrimental effect on his career and way of life—their attempts at starting various farm-related enterprises interfere with his own business plan, and moving in with them forces him to hire more help and do less of the farm work himself. He is also drawn away from his life’s purpose by the local lesser gentry, who recognize him as one of their own and include him in their amusements. Other distractions include two possible love interests (though the reader roots strongly for only one of them).

This unsatisfactory state of affairs persists for about seven years, till his family’s changing needs lead them to move closer to London, and he returns to Silver Ley. In the meantime, the economics of farming have deteriorated and he faces a grim struggle, one that requires him to sacrifice one of his dearest hopes (that this thread of his life is depicted with restraint makes it none the less poignant).

Bell’s style is precise without being dry, reminiscent without sentimentality. He brings to life a vanished world, described by a thoroughly likable narrator who clearly loves and respects the countrymen around him. I never felt he was patronizing them, for all their quirks and flaws and unproductive behavior. You feel his affection for the people of the land when he says, “They were touched always and all days by limitlessness—by great views, winds.”

As with the first book in the trilogy, Bell occasionally repeats himself, a phrase or image he has developed an affection for. But those moments, as well as a few moments in which the prejudices of the era are glancingly mentioned, are rare and didn’t weigh heavily on my mind. The dominant impression left by the book is one of a truly gentle man grateful for the beauty and rigors of his life. I loved the book, and him.

Also this is technically the second volume of a trilogy, it could perfectly well be read alone.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the ongoing story of Adrian Bells' farming adventures in the 20's. Although I liked "Corduroy" better for it's description of the Colville farm and family, this is Adrian setting out on his own, and he is as charming as ever. It wasn't quite as much about farming as I wished - as it turns out, his family in London decide to join him in the country, so the book becomes more about this move and their subsequent exploits (which are interesting in their own right - Adrian's mother dives in head-first, buys chickens, milks cows, makes butter - sells it to all her London friends...!). But as I mentioned, Adrian's charm is unwavering. He is an unusual farmer, after all. He has a poetic bent, and can write beautifully of ordinary events and people. I will be reading as much of his work as I can get hold of (not easy here in North America).


"My mother took up her sewing then, my brother his book, while I lay back with a large and soporific pipe to doze the evening away in the romantic coma of words grouping themselves at the music's suggestion into sonorities which might mean much or nothing, and half-lines of poems which would never begin to be written, but merely glow in fragments against the mind's inner darkness, and vanish, like the changing pattern of red sparks which my eyes watched on the chimney."


"My mother was also a little apprehensive of my breakfast mechanics whereby everything cooked itself while I made the coffee.
"That frying pan is sure to upset," she said.
"No, it won't," I answered, "because I've balanced it like that every morning since I've been here."
However, on that particular morning it did happen to give a sudden lurch for some reason. It just goes to show how inanimate things can try to make one look a fool."

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silver Ley is the second of Adrian Bell's trilogy, based on his reminiscences of life as a farmer in Suffolk between the First and Second World Wars.

In the first book, Corduroy, we follow Adrian as he starts his apprenticeship on Colville's farm in Suffolk - having gone there directly from the razzmatazz of London society. In "Silver Ley", Adrian finds his life changing in several ways. He is joined by his family who are drawn to the Suffolk countryside from London, and wish to make new lives for themselves as farmers. Farming itself is changing - the advent of tractors, laying off of farm workers and the difficulty in making a livelihood chiefly. We also meet Adrian's social circle - the rich Willingtons and the Jarvis's. Towards the end of the book, Adrian's life changes once more.....

This is a great "escape" novel; the reader doesn't even need to be interested in farming to enjoy it. I would highly recommend it.

Now I've got the pleasure of "The Cherry Tree" (the last book in the trilogy) to start!

[David Killington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as charming and engaging as the first volume of this trilogy.
Better times.

[Ernest · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Mary Warnement · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can I tag this both fiction and memoir? Because Adrian Bell fictionalizes his memoirs. This is volume two of his trilogy describing his apprenticeship and early years farming. In this, his family leaves London to join him for the romantic country life; though they were not prepared for what would come, it was not fad. They stick it out six years and become committed to the life. He leaves his tiny cottage, where his man Walter and Walter's wife move in, to join his family in Groveside, a larger home where he lives more as a gentleman farmer. Until his family moves on, and he easily decides to return to his simpler life--though I wondered at the callous mention of turning out Walter. But he also describes the many empty farms and poor conditions for agriculture in the 1920s so perhaps there were many available cottages. His turn of phrase is exquisite, although the last few pages, where he describes politics and his love interest made him seem less sympathetic to me. A wonderful book to read as autumn and harvest approaches. Even though the book covers almost a decade, harvest time turns ones thoughts to agriculture--particularly if you are a city mouse.
p. 83 and 276 res severa est verum gaudium; True joy is a serious thing (Seneca the younger, Epistulae morales, 23, 4)

[Catie]

Buddy read w/ @bookmusings - April 2017