The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
Through Welsh Doorways
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Through Welsh Doorways - Week 1
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Robin P wrote: "What are your impressions of the style and tone of these stories?.."While sentimental, I did enjoy the stories' character portrayals and the virtues expounded, such as loyalty and steadfastness. The style is easy and the tone sufficiently 'comfy' without being too gooey and overly-sentimental. So far, so good.
Robin P wrote: "And in the third story, there is a word "cocyn". If you look that up, it will tell you that is Welsh for cocaine! In this case, that isn't the meaning. "
The site I went to defined "cocyn" as 'red-headed' which, while also not exact, was much much closer than 'cocaine' to the story's intent and enabled me to accurately visualize what I think I was intended to visualize.
The following are my brief reviews of the three stories in this discussion week.
THE MERRY MERRY CUCKOO
This story is about the deceptions that Annie, an elderly lady engages in to make the end of life pleasant for Davie, her dying husband of 50 years. It has its charms. However, I had some initial difficulty as I initially misunderstood the characters’ age and deathbed status. On rereading it, I found that these facts are directly presented. I attribute my misunderstanding to the fact that much of the story is presented in dialogue rather than narrative, and the dialogue’s Welsh dialect distracted me from just understanding some of the plain facts it was presenting. Still, by the end, I did get the proper visualization of the characters, setting and events and found the heartwarming emotions at the story’s core.
I rate it as 3.3 stars
MORS TRIUMPHANS
This is about Griffith Griffiths who, while known as a positive and productive town member, consistently fails to get elected to the town council as he is Conservative while the town is heavily Radical. The story events are about what Griffith does that may or may not help him change that situation. A true short story that was simple, direct and well-executed.
I rate it as 3.7 stars.
DREAMS IN JEOPARDY
This is the tale of a romantic triangle between three middle-aged (late 30ish?) residents of the town known as Cochran. We meet would-be-artist Pedr Evans working in the dry-goods store he owns when he’s confronted by local bitty, the gossipy Catrin Griffiths, who flirts with Pedr and tries to interfere with Pedr’s romance of another local woman, the town's tea room owner, Nelw Parry. The plot concerns the consequences of Catrin’s desire for Pedr to know a certain secret about Nelw that Catrin but not Pedr is aware of.
At 20 pages, this story is about twice as long as the previous ones, which enables the author to develop a more involved storyline and characterization. Outside of the slightly mystical reference of the titled dreams, I thought this was an effective story. It’s length allowed time for some suspense and for scenes and descriptions that provided the reader a better sense of place than the previous two stories.
I rate it as 4.0 stars
Mod
I thought the idea of buying an election, in the 2nd story, was unfortunately still apt!
Mod
Lawry would be equivalent to Laurie as a woman's name
Many place names have Cwm (valley) or Bryn (hill). Ty Ceryg means Stone House.
For a long time, the Welsh, like the Irish and Scots, didn't have last names but patronymics. Instead of putting Mc, Mac, or O' in front of the name, the Welsh added an S to the end. That's where we get the last names Evans, Williams, Roberts, and Jones. Another way to do the patronymic was with the word "ap" serving the same purpose as Mac. So there were names like ap Rhys or ap Richard, which over time became Price and Pritchard.
The lack of variety in names led to people being identified locally by their trade, such as Jones the Butcher vs. Jones the Baker, or even Jones the Meat vs. Jones the Bread. I believe that in WWI, when regiments were pulled from the same areas, Welsh soldiers were given numbers like Jones 15, to tell them apart. Our British members may know more about this.
Digression for those interested in linguistic details; in medieval Welsh, “ap” was still “map,” albeit with consonant mutation in various grammatical and phonological environments. (A feature of the language Tolkien adopted for Sindarin, one of the Elvish languages). “Map” is the exact cognate of Irish and Scots Gaelic “Mac” (and conveniently shows the difference between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, two language groups which display regular sound differences).
Mod
Thanks, Ian, that makes sense! My knowledge doesn't go that far. Yes, mutation is a fun aspect of Welsh. So "mawr" - big - becomes "fawr" before a female singular noun, initial c becomes ch after a vowel, and other rules. We do this in English but not usually at the beginning of a word. For instance we change hoof to hooves. These changes can have great effect in poetry.
I’m not in general a fan of short stories but did enjoy the third story. Have a copy of Y Geriadur Mawr, a fairly comprehensive Welsh dictionary, but it did not include cocyn. (view spoiler)
My favorite was the second story because I enjoyed the humor of it, including how Griffith Griffiths convinced the town to elect him to public office in spite of his being a Conservative. Even all the discussion about the two dying women both named Jane felt humorous to me. In retrospect, all the stories had a fair amount of humor, even though the first and the second had some more serious themes.
Mod
Yes, the families of the two Janes were competing to see who could use the hearse first.
Robin P wrote: "Jaylia3 wrote: "My favorite was the second story because I enjoyed the humor of it, including how Griffith Griffiths convinced the town to elect him to public office in spite of his being a Conserv..."I know, I loved that!
As was contextually clear, “cocyn” is definitely not cocaine: I downloaded a couple of online bilingual dictionaries which give cocen (with ^ over the e) as Welsh for cocaine. For what is worth, plain old “red” is “coch”
I was unable to find a copy of this book-it must be quite rare, but I did find it online and I read the first two chapters. I must say this book is not for me because I am not a fan of stories written in the vernacular. I appreciate that this is done for authentic purposes, but I find the language tedious. I also struggle a bit with some of DH Lawrence’s work for that reason, and I can’t go anywhere near the poetry of Robert Burns! I am about to go on vacation so that will be a natural break for me and when I come back, I look forward to reading the Vicar of Wakefield.
We can see what the tone of the stories will be - rustic/village life, tenderness, humor. The principal characters in these 3 stories were middle aged and older. Village gossip is pervasive. But all the great passions of love, ambition, and jealousy can be found in this small circle. There are also descriptions of the natural world.
Later in the week I will post some definitions and pronunciations of Welsh words. For instance, one character is named Nelw, which would be pronounched Nel-oo. And in the third story, there is a word "cocyn". If you look that up, it will tell you that is Welsh for cocaine! In this case, that isn't the meaning. It must be an older or regional word, whose meaning you should be able to figure out from the story.
What are your impressions of the style and tone of these stories?