There’s a tiny, isolated village in Somerset, England, separated from outsiders by a twisty river and no bridge. On Shrove Tuesday, 1491, the novel’s narrator and parish priest of Oakham, John Reve, is awakened by news that the body of the wealthiest villager, Thomas Newman, was sighted in the river’s fast moving current, before being swept away again. The only evidence of Newman is a green scrap of his clothing found in the bulrushes. Was this an accident, a murder, or a suicide?
Samantha Harvey wouldn’t simply write a straightforward historical novel or mystery. She’s an unconventional (but accessible in her narrative immediacy) writer who reveals many layers of character while advancing her plot, as I learned in DEAR THIEF, a novel that centers on a woman writing to a childhood friend who stole her husband. Furthermore, THE WESTERN WIND is told backwards in time, from Shrove day 4 to Saturday, February 14th, day 1. This, to me, seals the contract of reader and writer, because the reader must actively attune and allow for the challenges that come with reverse telling. Like Reve, we want to know what happened. I experienced more than a few double takes. In the end, you will be mightily rewarded!
In 1491, the Renaissance has not reached everywhere; this is the late Middle Ages in Oakham, replete with religion and superstition embracing a monumental part of everyone’s lives. Minor transgressions are confessed to John Reve, and he informs us that he has the only confession box in England, placed there to allow people slightly more privacy, but crudely built and offers minimal concealment.
The priest is concerned about losing his flock, as many have been confessing privately to traveling friars. John is a complicated man, a priest with his own self-doubts and periodic crises of faith. To make matters worse, his superior, the unnamed dean, with “a nose for the nasty,” has traveled to the village to demand that the answer to Newman’s fate be concluded swiftly, offering to let whoever confesses to Reve (the dean thinks Newman was murdered) will be pardoned. The confessions that unfold are a large part of the novel.
John thoughtfully examines the tragedy of Newman, who had new ideas and a plan to build a bridge that would liberate the villagers from confinement and poverty. Some other residents were indebted to Newman, or had indeterminate ties to him. Additionally, Reve is praying for a western wind to blow away the evil spirits. He worries that the prevailing eastern winds would give Oakham more to tremble about and suffer.
Although told in first person, Reve is privy to most secrets, providing us with a window into everyone’s lives, an omniscience of sorts. However, there’s nobody but John to tell us about John.
As character development goes, John Reve is the most rich and compelling. Although he is the most known to us, he is paradoxically the most ambiguous. Contemplative, witty, flawed, and compassionate, he knows all the secrets and how best to help others. But whom can he confess to? Is he a reliable narrator? Time reversed will reveal the facts and the author’s brilliance of swiveling time to get to the truth.
And don’t worry that the prose will be medieval and stilted. Harvey evokes time and place in more atmospheric and indelible, visual ways, such as sights, smells, and sounds. Ball is played with a pig’s bladder and a drum out of goat hide. While the language is easily accessible, there is no question that you are in ancient times, with its textured period detail.
“My heart beat, and beat again, and I thought: one day it will beat and not beat again. Then what’s in store for me? And the light undid itself, separating out the grain of the stone into a dull, disparate yellowish-grey, the texture of cloth before fulling. I’d forgotten to eat and was hungry.”
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Top reviews from other countries
thewomanintheattic
A strange, magnificent book
Reviewed in Germany on August 15, 2021
anonyme
meilleur livre que j'ai lu récemment
Reviewed in France on December 30, 2019Paul Hoffman
Medieval period captured in words
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2024