The second title in the landmark series, the Library of Wales. When railway signalman Harry Price suddenly suffers a stroke his son Matthew, a lecturer in London, makes a return to the border village of Glynmawr. As Matthew and Harry struggle with their memories of social and personal change, a beautiful and moving portrait of the love between a father and son emerges. Reprint.

Yr ail gyfrol yn y gyfres Library of Wales. Pan gaiff y gŵr rheilffordd Harry Price strôc sydyn daw ei fab Matthew, sy'n ddarlithydd yn Llundain, nôl i Glynmawr ar y gororau. Wrth i Matthew a Harry ymgodymu â'u hatgofion o newidiadau cymdeithasol a phersonol, meithrinnir cwlwm o gariad agos rhwng y tad a'r mab. Adargraffiad; cyhoeddwyd yn ei ffurf bresennol yn 2006.

Matthew Price (a university lecturer in economic history) returns from London to the border village of Glynmawr where his father, Harry, has suffered a stroke. Harry was a railway signalman and the novel then tells the story of the family from Harry’s first coming to the village with his bride. This includes the General Strike in 1926 and its impact on the small group of railwaymen living in this rural community. The first section of the book follows the family to the point where Matthew decides to go to University. The final section follows Matthew’s return visit to his sick father, six months after the stroke, Harry’s death and the subsequent response of the community around Matthew and the funeral until he returns to his wife and sons in London.

Clearly the novel contains many parallels with Raymond Williams’s own life as a 1930s grammar-school boy from the Black Mountains. He became involved in Marxist and socialist politics and published many books on the relationships between literature, society and politics. (Indeed, the research which Matthew Price is struggling with might have evolved into Williams’s most famous work, Culture and Society, published in 1958.) He had begun work on the novel in the late 1940s but did not publish it until 1960, since when it has scarcely been out of print.

The centre of the book is the relationship between Matthew and Harry. It is a book about change – within characters, in their society and of individuals who move and change, but its heart is a man, not rigid but of great constancy and devotion to personal standards. Trying to define this to his son, Harry says, 'You set yourself a job, you finish it . . . Once you turn aside from what you’ve set yourself, once keep back just a bit of your strength and then, whatever happens, you’re finished with yourself.'

The novel not only explores Matthew’s different choices, but also those of Morgan Rosser, Harry’s fellow worker. Morgan is more politicised than Harry, more demoralised by the failure of the Strike. He becomes a successful businessman (but can never convince Harry to join him) and is not happy with what he has grown in to. Matthew, returning to his English life in London, is both stronger in himself and surer of what his father has given him to carry on.

There are obvious parallels with D.H. Lawrence – the rural background with issues of class and labour, new educational opportunities and tensions thus created within families. Both are also fine descriptive writers, evoking a landscape and unique sense of place. However, Williams seems a much purer writer; his characters are not forced mouth-pieces for his notions, his descriptions more bent on communication than persuasion. He seems to give the characters respect and understanding, without the need for villains or dramatic action. Raymond Williams, the economic historian, was, like Matthew Price, confronted with facts and statistics of social change. When 'the figures got up and walked' he took on 'the emotional patterns' and put them in to a fiction more true and illuminating than public history could be.

The style is spare and unsentimental, the scope of the narrative apparently very limited, but the author conveys both the issues and emotions very effectively – and the issues and emotions are universal.

Caroline Clark

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.