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Many years ago, encouraged by the superlatives heaped on Kate Roberts’ work by Welsh-speaking friends, armed with my colloquial Welsh and a massive Welsh dictionary, I started to read Y Byw Sy’n Cysgu. However, the author’s beautiful Welsh meant having to look up several words in every passage and even the most avid of readers is daunted by such obstacles. So it is wonderful to find the book now available in this excellent English translation.
Set in a North Wales village, the opening paragraphs go straight in to the shocking news that Lora Ffennig’s husband Iolo, ostensibly on a short visit to an old army friend, has in fact run off with the housekeeper of the local solicitor. With two children and a lodger to look after, Lora is very hard-working and has to keep her wits about her, while surrounded by inquisitive neighbours and critical in-laws. The story follows her gradual realisation that Iolo has gone for good, that he had many secrets in his life, and that now she, a beautiful woman, is subject to other men’s attention.
The story follows the effects of this traumatic blow, at a time when death was preferable to abandonment, on Lora, the children (who have ill health and problems at school), the extended families and neighbours. It is also a skilful, knowledgeable account of life in a Welsh rural community in the middle of the last century, bringing in the tendency for neighbours to be in and out of each other’s homes; the aspirations of spinsters; the hardship visited on farmers by the ravages of TB; and the lack of a welfare system so that people in trouble had to find work or depend on neighbours.
It is quite an unusual book, with a deep insight into the life of a good wife abandoned by her husband for a more seductive woman. The vividness of the English writing, reflecting the beauty of the original pure Welsh prose, makes for very easy reading.
What a blessing it is, for those who have not read Kate Roberts’ work before, that Seren have produced this volume, translated with such skill by Sian James.
Beryl Thomas
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 ganiatad Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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