A collection of eight diverse stories written by a master storyteller exploring how the young and aged relate to each other and how different generations have succeeded or failed to adapt to the substantial changes wrought by the 20th century.

Casgliad o wyth stori amrywiol gan arch-storïwr yn archwilio perthynas yr ifanc a'r hen, a'r modd y mae cenedlaethau gwahanol wedi lwyddo neu fethu addasu i'r newidiadau syfrdanol a fu yn yr 20fed ganrif.

These eight longish stories deal with aspects of growing old and the response of young people to a world that also seems to be grey and weary. At least two, ‘The Arrest’ and ‘An Ethnic Tremor’, I have read before in magazines. Some are set in north Wales, and all in that Welsh Nonconformist society whose chronicler the author has for long been. No other writer peels away the outer skins of middle-class respectability to reveal the seething passions of ‘ordinary’ people as well as he does.

The style is unremarkable, in the way that a well-dressed man does not draw attention to what he is wearing (a mid-20th century observation), the language is subtly inflected to suggest social gradations that are beginning to disappear or mutate, and the structure of the stories is pretty straightforward.

What he hears, beyond the pettiness and commonplaces of the people he observes, is the scream of history as it has unfolded during his lifetime. Two world wars, the Cold War, economic depression, the end of Empire, the rise of Communism, technological advances like the moon landings – these are some of the events that shaped his century and left their mark on the psyche of his generation. As for the young, he is aware that they inhabit a world he can hardly recognize but which he is determined to face up to.

What have the old to teach the young and should they listen? Can the young teach the old anything and should they try? Who are the problem? Such questions are what make these stories so gripping, so relevant to our times, so essential for an understanding of the continuum out of which Emyr Humphreys writes.

The Protestant conscience of which he is such a distinguished standard-bearer is here seen in its subtlest manifestations. Local government, university life, BBC Wales, the language campaigns, the Church in Wales, even post-war Yugoslavia, it seems, are settings for the playing out of complexities that have always fascinated this marvellous writer. What is ‘good’ and how is it transmitted from one generation to the next?

Meic Stephens

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.