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The Western Wind
15th century Oakham, in Somerset; a tiny village cut off by a big river with no bridge. When a man is swept away by the river in the early hours of Shrove Saturday, an explanation has to be found: accident, suicide or murder? The village priest, John Reve, is privy to many secrets in his role as confessor. But will he be able to unravel what happened to the victim, Thomas Newman, the wealthiest, most capable and industrious man in the village? And what will happen if he can’t?
Moving back in time towards the moment of Thomas Newman’s death, the story is related by Reve – an extraordinary creation, a patient shepherd to his wayward flock, and a man with secrets of his own to keep. Through his eyes, and his indelible voice, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy.
Moving back in time towards the moment of Thomas Newman’s death, the story is related by Reve – an extraordinary creation, a patient shepherd to his wayward flock, and a man with secrets of his own to keep. Through his eyes, and his indelible voice, Harvey creates a medieval world entirely tangible in its immediacy.
294 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2018
About the author
Samantha Harvey
13 books281 followersSamantha Harvey has completed postgraduate courses in philosophy and in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively and taught in Japan and has lived in Ireland and New Zealand. She recently co-founded an environmental charity and lives in Bath, England.
Her first novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009, longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and won the 2009 Betty Trask Prize.
Her first novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009, longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and won the 2009 Betty Trask Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 691 reviews
February 18, 2019
Samantha Harvey writes a fascinatingly complex, intricate, challenging and multilayered medieval historical mystery set in the 15th century in the tiny, isolated, and impoverished village of Oakham in Somerset. It is 1491, and the prominent wealthy Thomas Newman, a man of ideas, is dead in the river, although it is not clear whether it is a case of accident, murder or suicide. John Reve is the local priest, knew Newman well and is tasked by his superior, the Dean, to find and punish who murdered Newman, whose death must be explained. The Dean is a man who has his own agenda, and Reve is an overburdened, self reflective and self doubting man, a mass of compellingly contradictory human qualities, compassion, intelligence, selfish, empathetic and yet unreliable and more. The narrative circles back in time in structure, beginning in the present and going back through the 4 days. Reve investigates through the form of the confession from his villagers at the confession box.
It is chillingly cold, both in terms of weather and the economic challenges that Oakham's people face, they hope for a bridge to offer them a way out of the fear, insecurity and frustrations they face. Nearby monks are eyeing the place for takeover with plans for a abbey, and the flourishing sugar and wool trade is bypassing the village. Reve is a man they believe in, a man of religion and influence, which might seem strange as Reve is poor and barely able to help himself as he asks them to pray for a western wind. He investigates the mystery by listening to the confessions, presented with a host of suspects that include a local landowner, and a woman who just might be seeking a way out of her suffering. Superstitions and the pagan still have a hold on the villagers along with their seasonal rituals, as the narrative delivers its twists and reveals.
Harvey excels in her characterisation, particularly that of Reve and in evoking the primal atmosphere and flavour of this historical period, her descriptions are rich in description and her vibrant prose is often so beautifully lyrical in her portrayal of everyday life. It must be noted many of the historical details are not accurate, but for me this didn't affect my enjoyment of this wonderfully enticing read that I found an immersive and thought provoking experience. Readers who love historical fiction or who have a love of the medieval period will enjoy reading this. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.
It is chillingly cold, both in terms of weather and the economic challenges that Oakham's people face, they hope for a bridge to offer them a way out of the fear, insecurity and frustrations they face. Nearby monks are eyeing the place for takeover with plans for a abbey, and the flourishing sugar and wool trade is bypassing the village. Reve is a man they believe in, a man of religion and influence, which might seem strange as Reve is poor and barely able to help himself as he asks them to pray for a western wind. He investigates the mystery by listening to the confessions, presented with a host of suspects that include a local landowner, and a woman who just might be seeking a way out of her suffering. Superstitions and the pagan still have a hold on the villagers along with their seasonal rituals, as the narrative delivers its twists and reveals.
Harvey excels in her characterisation, particularly that of Reve and in evoking the primal atmosphere and flavour of this historical period, her descriptions are rich in description and her vibrant prose is often so beautifully lyrical in her portrayal of everyday life. It must be noted many of the historical details are not accurate, but for me this didn't affect my enjoyment of this wonderfully enticing read that I found an immersive and thought provoking experience. Readers who love historical fiction or who have a love of the medieval period will enjoy reading this. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.
August 7, 2018
This was my first look at the novelist whom Gaby Wood (the Booker Prize Foundation’s literary director) somewhat rashly labeled “this generation’s Virginia Woolf.” I wasn’t particularly convinced, although Samantha Harvey’s writing is certainly well crafted stylistically—as one might hope from someone who earns her living as a writing tutor (she teaches on an MA program in Creative Writing at Bath Spa).
Although The Western Wind is set in late fifteenth-century Somerset, Harvey isn’t a habitué of historical fiction. In an interview I read, she talks of having happened on her historical setting “by accident,” led by the theme she wanted to explore, that of confession. The chief character of the book is the parish priest of the hapless village of Oakham, about to be swallowed up for its pasture lands by a hungry monastery nearby. Shortly before Lent in 1491, the wealthiest man in the village vanishes overnight, presumed drowned; and the local dean, sent in to investigate the possible murder, incentivizes every parishioner to confess.
I am probably not the ideal reader for this kind of uncommitted historical novel, which wanders into its historical setting in the spirit of a tourist, takes a few selfies, and gets out. There are many historical solecisms. Harvey has her priest protagonist, John Reve, relish his modish new confessional box on the “Italian” model, disregarding the fact that confessional boxes weren’t introduced for another seventy years, and Italy, as a unified entity, barely existed outside the pages of Ptolemy at this time. We also hear of people being avid for sugar in their tea in the 1490s, when tea is first recorded in England in around 1650. More problematically, Harvey portrays a priest who seems unaware of the theological status of suicide in this period as a mortal sin.
These lapses grated on me, as did the similarly anachronistic feel of some of the language (“feisty” indeed!) I found myself constantly propelled out of the narrative as a result, into some tetchy, pedantic place outside it. That was a shame, since Reve is an engaging and nuanced character initially, and he has many of the makings of a good voice. I wanted to be more immersed than I was.
Another thing that impeded my pleasure was the over-intrusive nature of some of the parallels Harvey would like to have us make with modern Britain. Thinking about the British Isles’ relation with “Europe” (meaning continental Europe, not a usage anyone in this period would have recognized), Reve muses Only somebody with a mind like a rock could go on with the idea that we on our little island are separate from those others … Our little land is flecked with foreignness, the Lord wants our colourful mingling. It is bad enough having to live with Brexit in reality, without having to relive it in fifteenth-century proxy form.
My patience was already running thin because of this, but Harvey’s tricksy temporal structure (we go backwards in time, across four days) finished this novel for me—and perhaps for the author too. As twist piles on twist, and the novel defies us to look back to the beginning and try to make sense of its narrative logic, I had a feeling that Harvey was flagging as much as I was as reader. Even the writing was getting laxer by the end.
Although The Western Wind is set in late fifteenth-century Somerset, Harvey isn’t a habitué of historical fiction. In an interview I read, she talks of having happened on her historical setting “by accident,” led by the theme she wanted to explore, that of confession. The chief character of the book is the parish priest of the hapless village of Oakham, about to be swallowed up for its pasture lands by a hungry monastery nearby. Shortly before Lent in 1491, the wealthiest man in the village vanishes overnight, presumed drowned; and the local dean, sent in to investigate the possible murder, incentivizes every parishioner to confess.
I am probably not the ideal reader for this kind of uncommitted historical novel, which wanders into its historical setting in the spirit of a tourist, takes a few selfies, and gets out. There are many historical solecisms. Harvey has her priest protagonist, John Reve, relish his modish new confessional box on the “Italian” model, disregarding the fact that confessional boxes weren’t introduced for another seventy years, and Italy, as a unified entity, barely existed outside the pages of Ptolemy at this time. We also hear of people being avid for sugar in their tea in the 1490s, when tea is first recorded in England in around 1650. More problematically, Harvey portrays a priest who seems unaware of the theological status of suicide in this period as a mortal sin.
These lapses grated on me, as did the similarly anachronistic feel of some of the language (“feisty” indeed!) I found myself constantly propelled out of the narrative as a result, into some tetchy, pedantic place outside it. That was a shame, since Reve is an engaging and nuanced character initially, and he has many of the makings of a good voice. I wanted to be more immersed than I was.
Another thing that impeded my pleasure was the over-intrusive nature of some of the parallels Harvey would like to have us make with modern Britain. Thinking about the British Isles’ relation with “Europe” (meaning continental Europe, not a usage anyone in this period would have recognized), Reve muses Only somebody with a mind like a rock could go on with the idea that we on our little island are separate from those others … Our little land is flecked with foreignness, the Lord wants our colourful mingling. It is bad enough having to live with Brexit in reality, without having to relive it in fifteenth-century proxy form.
My patience was already running thin because of this, but Harvey’s tricksy temporal structure (we go backwards in time, across four days) finished this novel for me—and perhaps for the author too. As twist piles on twist, and the novel defies us to look back to the beginning and try to make sense of its narrative logic, I had a feeling that Harvey was flagging as much as I was as reader. Even the writing was getting laxer by the end.
August 4, 2024
A village of scrags and outcasts, Oakham, Beastville, Pigtown, Nobridge. The village that came to no good; the only village for miles around that doesn’t trade wool, doesn’t make cloth, doesn’t have the skill to build a bridge. Here’s the village we pass by, with its singing milkmaids, we call it Cheesechurn, Milkpasture, Cowudder. It’s Lord is as pudgy and spineless as the cheese he makes. Its people are vagrants that were ousted form their own villages and are in most respects desperate. Its richest man was whisked off down the river and drowned. And here is its priest: young John Reve, roosting in the dark. For all that he’s overseen by Christ, he’s led his people to no further illumination
This novel is set in 1491 in Oakham, a small Somerset village isolated by its position on a river, a river that the village has twice tried and failed to bridge, a village whose kindly but ineffectual Lord of the Manor Townsend is convinced can make money in poorly produced cheese as opposed to the wool trade which enriches the surrounding villages with their better transport links, and a village which ends up attracting a collection of misfits.
The exception to this is the much travelled and industrious Thomas Newman – who has lost his wife and child and who gradually starts to but up Townshend’s land, but like Townshend is a kindly landlord seemingly prioritising the welfare of the village over his own riches. The book opens on Shrove Tuesday. four days after a body is seen to have fallen in the river, and a search of the village quickly reveals him to be missing – on this fourth day a body is seen briefly caught on a fallen tree downriver and Townshend’s shirt discovered in some nearby bulrushes, these are bought to the village priest Reve by Carter (who was effectively adopted by Newman). Reve is under pressure from the rural Dean to either identify a murderer or find some proof that Newman has passed through purgatory – and has offered a pardon for all of Lent to anyone who comes to confession (in an effort to see if the confessions reveal what happened to Newman) – the Dean increasingly keen to settle on a murderer (with Carter, Townshend and also Sarah, a seriously ill woman, best friend of Reve’s recently married sister, who in her illness has confessed to the murder all identified by him as potential people he can accuse).
Find something, the dean said, and by that he meant: find me the murderer. I’d assured him I would. What I’d neglected to tell him was this: the murderer isn’t who you think. Who is it that invariably takes life? Death, of course. Death itself is the murderer, and birth its accomplice. Men die because they’re born to die. By drowning, by disease, by mishap, by all God’s assassins. What was either of us going to do to change that?
The book works slowly backwards over each of the previous four days finishing with the day of Newman’s fall – told in the first person by Reve, and much of it dominated by:
His conversations with those coming to confess – although often for trivial sins or even to boast of their misdemeanors – Reve having been possibly the first person in England to adopt the idea of a confessional box (the idea taken from Italy) rather than confession being both face to face and largely in public;
His discussions with the Dean – who is concerned that the murder will give a nearby monastery the excuse it needs to seize the village lands and to whom Reve reports on the confessions he has heard;
A number of his sermons to the villagers whose superstition seems stronger than their orthodox belief and who have recently alternated between visiting itinerant monks to confess unofficially and being seduced by a part new age/part protestant reformation doctrine spread by Newman.
As the book moves backwards the relationships between Sarah and Reve, Newman’s own thoughts, and the indirect part both Carter and Reve played in Newman’s death emerge and cast greater light on the actions of these players at the start of the book (on the eve of Lent) and a quote at the literal end of the book which casts a new light over the (earlier in pages, later in time) chronolgical end of the book.
I’d sooner climb up and sacrifice myself before I saw a single of my parish die. What a thing to say, if it was said with meaning. I didn’t know if I meant it. It didn’t matter, it would never come to be
One theme that emerges through the book is the Western Wind – for Reve a wind inextricably bound up with his birth and faith. As he was being born, the village where he lived was in danger of being engulfed by fire and reluctantly he and his mother were abandoned by the villagers only to be saved by a last minute change of direction of the wind to the West, something this mother linked to Exodus 10: 12-20
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...
My mother told me that the priest told her that no such miracle had been performed with the wind since the Lord sent in a westerly to banish the plague of locusts. When the priest explained that it was Moses who’d been the instrument of God in the miracle, first spreading his hand to bring the east wind, then spreading it again to bring the west, my mother made association between the newborn Moses who’d been left in a basket of rushes .. and her newborn, and saw me as Moses refashioned, and surmised I might be an instrument of God. I grew up supposing that there was only way of testing the truth of her wildly leaping faith, which was to see if I could, after all, summon that wind again at will. The wind came plenty but never at will. The ambition died with failure and adolescence .. and it was only when my Mother died (in a fire) the grief led me .. to what she’d wanted me to be and I began my training for the clergy and made it the ultimate standard of my closeness to God that he would, one day, and perhaps only once, bring a wind from the west because I asked.
Reve decides to implore the village to pray for a Western Wind – as a sign of God’s grace and favour on the village and to blow Newman through purgatory.
There is much to like in this book – the writing is slow and deliberate but weighted with detail and colour and meaning. The character of Reeve is a subtle but interesting one, and some of the period detail is initially fascinating such as the traditions of weighing the priest or the village game of camp-ball, and the various, cyclical and seasonal village traditions
But the seasons come back, don’t they …. they come back every year. We’re flooded, we’re parched, we’re thirsty, we’ve enough, we’ve nothing, it’s winter, then spring, it’s Lent and Holy Week, it’s the summer bonfires, Rogation, Embertide, Corpus Christi. The sun is high, the sun is low, the wheat is green, then gold, then gone. And no year is more tired than the last – have you noticed that? No year is old or tired ….. The River of time, isn’t that what they call it … But it’s no river at all. Time comes back on itself always new”
At first, this quote resonated with me as reminding me of Reservoir 13 – but later struck me as oddly anachronistic. The strength of Reservoir 13 was how it re-instated and re-validated the importance of the rhythmic nature of village life and nature, in a modern world (and modern literature) which regards time as an arrow and progress as both inevitable and desirable – but it struck me here that the view Reve expresses (and which is written such as it is an unusual view) was in fact likely the way that most people thought of time.
And that in turn lead me to consider and ultimately negatively evaluate some other striking aspects of the book – I was surprised at a female church warden at this time, I was intrigued by the idea of the confessional box and surprised to read of some of the theological ideas that Newman had adopted (also from Italy). Good historical novels often cause me to do follow up reading to explore some of the ideas further – the best even leading to me buying a number of non-fiction books.
Here however some cursory Googling seemed to show a female church warden unlikely, the confessional box not actually invented in Italy until a century later. Newman seemingly falling between Jan Hus/John Wycliffe and the later Martin Luther -so the choice of Italy as to where he picked up some of his ideas seems odd. Normally in such a book I would then perhaps expect to read an afterword by the author justifying her choice of apparent anachronisms but that too was missing here. Some of this could be said not to matter – but the concept of confession is completely central to the whole novel and further to the above point about the confessional box seemingly invented before its time, the very concept of the Dean encouraging the pious Reve to us the confession to flush out information appears to me to entirely contradict the fundamental principle of the Seal of the Confession.
So a book with much to like, and one I enjoyed reading, but with unsatisfactory elements which reduce my overall rating.
Read
June 13, 2019I thought I had the measure of this book early on, but it kept getting better. More intricate and more profound. A strange omission from prize lists, for me.
September 26, 2020
3.5 stars
This is a historical novel set in 1491 in the imaginary village of Oakham in Somerset. It is a sort of whodunit (or whydunnit). The narrator is John Reve, the village priest and it is set in the four days before Ash Wednesday. The wealthiest man in the village Thomas Newman has died in the river, but was it suicide, an accident or murder? The antagonist is Reve’s superior, the Dean, who wants a reason for the death and pokes around the village being nosey and generally unpleasant. One thing to note, the story is told backwards, starting on Shrove Tuesday and working back four days. The village is a poor one, unlike surrounding villages.
The prose is rich and some of the descriptions are really good, particularly the cold wet February weather!
“As I waited in silence I felt the universe fall about me in timeless cycles, I heard planets roll and hawthorn come to bud; the church’s stone smelt of a vast deep lake, and the oak panel smelt of autumn woodland, and the pain in my bruised knees was a surge of sweet, hard life”
The relationship between Reve and the Dean is a tense one, the reasons for which become clear only gradually. The strands within the novel are complex and woven together well. There are tensions between new ideas and tradition, the importance of ritual, the vital importance of the Church and its structures, the ever present threat of disease and death and grief and loss. Harvey has said that one of her purposes was to explore the nature of confession (and Confession).
I had a few problems with this in terms of historical accuracy (I’m a historian by original training). Reve has a confessional box in his Church, seventy years before they were actually first used. In the descriptions of things European, it feels way too modern and probably owes more to Brexit. There was particular mention of other nearby villages trading in sugar. This was before sugar beet (three hundred years or more before) and before sugar was widely available for anyone but the rich. There was also mention of tea again way before it was available (the first tea houses opening in the mid-1600s). There were other minor niggles in relation to clothing. Although these might be fairly minor they were an irritant.
The relationship between Reve and the Dean is interesting and moves the novel along with their contrasting views of religion and humanity. Some of the other local characters are less well defined. I did enjoy this, but was niggled by the historicity. There are plenty of descriptions of human functions and disease which might make it not for the squeamish but there is a humanity and depth that was warming.
This is a historical novel set in 1491 in the imaginary village of Oakham in Somerset. It is a sort of whodunit (or whydunnit). The narrator is John Reve, the village priest and it is set in the four days before Ash Wednesday. The wealthiest man in the village Thomas Newman has died in the river, but was it suicide, an accident or murder? The antagonist is Reve’s superior, the Dean, who wants a reason for the death and pokes around the village being nosey and generally unpleasant. One thing to note, the story is told backwards, starting on Shrove Tuesday and working back four days. The village is a poor one, unlike surrounding villages.
The prose is rich and some of the descriptions are really good, particularly the cold wet February weather!
“As I waited in silence I felt the universe fall about me in timeless cycles, I heard planets roll and hawthorn come to bud; the church’s stone smelt of a vast deep lake, and the oak panel smelt of autumn woodland, and the pain in my bruised knees was a surge of sweet, hard life”
The relationship between Reve and the Dean is a tense one, the reasons for which become clear only gradually. The strands within the novel are complex and woven together well. There are tensions between new ideas and tradition, the importance of ritual, the vital importance of the Church and its structures, the ever present threat of disease and death and grief and loss. Harvey has said that one of her purposes was to explore the nature of confession (and Confession).
I had a few problems with this in terms of historical accuracy (I’m a historian by original training). Reve has a confessional box in his Church, seventy years before they were actually first used. In the descriptions of things European, it feels way too modern and probably owes more to Brexit. There was particular mention of other nearby villages trading in sugar. This was before sugar beet (three hundred years or more before) and before sugar was widely available for anyone but the rich. There was also mention of tea again way before it was available (the first tea houses opening in the mid-1600s). There were other minor niggles in relation to clothing. Although these might be fairly minor they were an irritant.
The relationship between Reve and the Dean is interesting and moves the novel along with their contrasting views of religion and humanity. Some of the other local characters are less well defined. I did enjoy this, but was niggled by the historicity. There are plenty of descriptions of human functions and disease which might make it not for the squeamish but there is a humanity and depth that was warming.
March 30, 2018
I did not like what the autor made me do: Read a story backwards, haltingly, with quite a bit of effort, trying to keep people and stories apart. Trying to make sense of what happened, trying to figure out a plot that was not unfolding itself before my eyes, but had to be searched and dug for like a hidden core or nugget of wisdom. Against the grain, against the flow, even against my will as it were - albeit the story is finely executed, alive with fully drawn characters (especially its narrator) and giving deep insights into medieval thinking - "The Western Wind" simply did not do it for me. I do not care for open endings and do not like that I have had to read a whole book only to be left in the end (i.e. beginning) with a lot of unanswerable questions of a mainly spiritual nature.
December 27, 2018
Thoughts soon.
January 4, 2018
A quiet, serious story set in 1491, the year Henry VIII was born, of conscience, guilt, desire, and the struggles between religion and superstition, the body and flesh. Harvey sets her tale in the run-up to Lent, and tells it through the voice of a village priest and confessor, privy to the secrets of his congregation but keeping his own to the last. With the machinations of church men and the shade of the nearby monastery foreshadowing events we know will come in the next 40 or so years, this is aware of history in a subtle way.
Controlled, careful writing keeps this restrained and internally-focused.
Thanks to Random House/Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.
Controlled, careful writing keeps this restrained and internally-focused.
Thanks to Random House/Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.
April 9, 2018
Maybe 4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this one - a brilliant historical fiction with a really interesting structure (it works backwards in time). The explorations of morality and religion were very well done, as are each of the characters. I would highly recommend.
June 18, 2018
An amazing 15th century whodunnit that is so atmospheric that you can't put it down. Beautiful language, intrigue and unusual chronology - all these kept me reading (nearly) non-stop.
September 5, 2018
A most beloved book, read slowly and hungrily. No, it’s not historically accurate; no, it’s not realistic. What it is is thematically precise, emotionally acute, deliberately agonising. I found the story of the death of Thomas Newman and the slow unravelling of the community he leaves behind absolutely essential; and the character of John Reve carries it all. Clever, compassionate, humble but also fanatical, self-deluding, egotistical. I’ve liked what Harvey wrote before this but The Western Wind is a new favourite.
April 7, 2018
This was a strange one. The reader does have to work, it's a little bit trying. Through the middle I found it drawn out, repetitive and slow moving at times. The structure of going backwards in time day-by-day makes the middle a slog, and the end, kind of, a revelation. I've seen this book described in press reviews as a 'cozy mystery' a 'medieval whodunit' or 'murder mystery' and think these labels are utterly inaccurate. It is a character study of a man, and a town, in an era when religion held a perverse power.
I found it confusing, conflicting, but definitely, definitely kept me thinking about it after I'd finished. I have the feeling it is a book that someone with much more literary and religious knowledge than I could analyse with much greater accuracy and adeptness. It would be a good book for a high school AP English class to gnaw on -- religion, history, the cycles & nature of time, the play on names -'reve'= dream, politics, coercion, compulsion, god, sacrifice, progress, isolation, .......
Generally - I did not love it, but it kept me thinking which is good; I ended with more questions than answers. (Maybe I could sit in on that high school class!!)
I found it confusing, conflicting, but definitely, definitely kept me thinking about it after I'd finished. I have the feeling it is a book that someone with much more literary and religious knowledge than I could analyse with much greater accuracy and adeptness. It would be a good book for a high school AP English class to gnaw on -- religion, history, the cycles & nature of time, the play on names -'reve'= dream, politics, coercion, compulsion, god, sacrifice, progress, isolation, .......
Generally - I did not love it, but it kept me thinking which is good; I ended with more questions than answers. (Maybe I could sit in on that high school class!!)
December 21, 2019
The Year of Our Lord, 1491. The hundred-or-so villagers of Oakham, in rural Somerset, are celebrating the raucous days of Carnival. This year, however, a tragic occurrence has cast a pall over the revelry. Thomas Newman has disappeared, likely carried away by the churning waters of the river which cuts of the village from the rest of the world. Newman was a relative newcomer to Oakham, having settled there upon the death of his wife and daughter. However, thanks to his financial clout, he acquired much of the surrounding land, meaning that most of the villagers depend upon him for their living. Moreover, despite his unorthodox ideas, he is considered a person bearing moral authority. His sudden death – whether through accident, murder or suicide – can only bring bad tidings to Oakham. Especially since the rural dean has descended on the village to investigate, and there are rumblings of monks setting their sights on Oakham’s fields.
Reading a skeletal outline of the plot, you’d be forgiven for expecting “The Western Wind” to be another “medieval crime novel”. But this is so much more than a “cozy historical mystery”. It is narrated by the village priest, John Reve, who as the repository of Oakham’s secrets, is the closest we get to a detective figure. Interestingly, Reve reveals more about himself than about the villagers – indeed, on one level, this novel could be read as a book-length character study of Reve. He comes across as a person with a mission, one who considers himself as chosen by God, but is torn by feelings of inadequacy. It seems that he is being continuously being weighed (including in a literal sense) and found wanting – whether by his flock, by his ecclesiastical superiors or by God himself. The 'western wind' becomes the metaphor for the deliverance for which Reve prays, to no avail.
A particular characteristic of the novel is the narrative timeline which, in a structure worthy of a Christopher Nolan movie, moves backwards from Shrove Tuesday to the Saturday before. It is a deliberately confusing ploy which leaves the reader feeling thrown into the deep end, much like Newman’s fatal dive into the river. But it’s a brilliant move – as it effectively evokes the feeling of loss and incomprehension shared by the villagers of Oakham.
Early readers praised the novel’s historical accuracy. I do not have enough knowledge of the period to comment about this. However, I did find some aspects of the novel unconvincing. What disturbed me most is the fact that Reve, who otherwise comes across as quite a decent and dedicated priest, displays an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude towards the secret of confession. By the time the events in the novel take place, the gravity of a breach of the “seal of confession” had been established for centuries, with severe canonical and spiritual consequences for whoever went against this strict rule. Yet, Reve lightly discusses penitents’ confessions with his superiors without any feeling of compunction or fear of worldly or otherworldly punishment.
Another slightly puzzling point is that, apart from the “confessions” which are central to the plot, and apart from his ruminations about whether he is a “good enough” shepherd of the Oakham flock, Reve rarely seems to discuss theology, or religious rites, rituals and prayers. Indeed, despite the narrator being a priest and in spite of the fact that the novel touches upon subjects such as faith and superstition, I wouldn’t classify this as a “religious” novel, and it does not delve into the type of theological discourse you will find in novels such as The Diary of a Country Priest, Gilead or, for that matter, the more recent Fire Sermon.
Then again, the feeling I got was that the primary concern of the novel is neither religious nor historical. What the Western Wind gives us instead is a complete immersion into the world conjured by the author. The novel creates an almost physical sense of oppression, of damp, of fetid air; of a sense of poverty and sickness; of helplessness in the face of impending catastrophic change. What counts at the end of the day is not strict historical accuracy - just as the narrative style sounds convincingly “archaic”, without necessarily accurately mimicking 15th century parlance, the novel definitely delivers a sense of “authenticity”.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
Reading a skeletal outline of the plot, you’d be forgiven for expecting “The Western Wind” to be another “medieval crime novel”. But this is so much more than a “cozy historical mystery”. It is narrated by the village priest, John Reve, who as the repository of Oakham’s secrets, is the closest we get to a detective figure. Interestingly, Reve reveals more about himself than about the villagers – indeed, on one level, this novel could be read as a book-length character study of Reve. He comes across as a person with a mission, one who considers himself as chosen by God, but is torn by feelings of inadequacy. It seems that he is being continuously being weighed (including in a literal sense) and found wanting – whether by his flock, by his ecclesiastical superiors or by God himself. The 'western wind' becomes the metaphor for the deliverance for which Reve prays, to no avail.
A particular characteristic of the novel is the narrative timeline which, in a structure worthy of a Christopher Nolan movie, moves backwards from Shrove Tuesday to the Saturday before. It is a deliberately confusing ploy which leaves the reader feeling thrown into the deep end, much like Newman’s fatal dive into the river. But it’s a brilliant move – as it effectively evokes the feeling of loss and incomprehension shared by the villagers of Oakham.
Early readers praised the novel’s historical accuracy. I do not have enough knowledge of the period to comment about this. However, I did find some aspects of the novel unconvincing. What disturbed me most is the fact that Reve, who otherwise comes across as quite a decent and dedicated priest, displays an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude towards the secret of confession. By the time the events in the novel take place, the gravity of a breach of the “seal of confession” had been established for centuries, with severe canonical and spiritual consequences for whoever went against this strict rule. Yet, Reve lightly discusses penitents’ confessions with his superiors without any feeling of compunction or fear of worldly or otherworldly punishment.
Another slightly puzzling point is that, apart from the “confessions” which are central to the plot, and apart from his ruminations about whether he is a “good enough” shepherd of the Oakham flock, Reve rarely seems to discuss theology, or religious rites, rituals and prayers. Indeed, despite the narrator being a priest and in spite of the fact that the novel touches upon subjects such as faith and superstition, I wouldn’t classify this as a “religious” novel, and it does not delve into the type of theological discourse you will find in novels such as The Diary of a Country Priest, Gilead or, for that matter, the more recent Fire Sermon.
Then again, the feeling I got was that the primary concern of the novel is neither religious nor historical. What the Western Wind gives us instead is a complete immersion into the world conjured by the author. The novel creates an almost physical sense of oppression, of damp, of fetid air; of a sense of poverty and sickness; of helplessness in the face of impending catastrophic change. What counts at the end of the day is not strict historical accuracy - just as the narrative style sounds convincingly “archaic”, without necessarily accurately mimicking 15th century parlance, the novel definitely delivers a sense of “authenticity”.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
November 17, 2020
2.5 Stars
This is a beautifully written and very descriptive novel, but it just did not keep my interest.
I’ve decided I have to stop signing up for literary lectures. It’s great when the book ends up being outstanding, but when said book ends up being a waste of precious reading time, it infuriates me.
The premise of this book sounded so good- a medieval mystery set in Somerset in 1491. The author starts 4 days after the fact and works backwards, to the day Thomas Newman, the richest man in the village, dies.
Was it foul play? Was it an accident?
Our narrator is John Reve, the local priest. Faith and religious customs are definite themes in this book. It is Lent, and we get to spend 4 days listening to everyone’s confessions. Big yawn inserted here:)
We know what happens by the end but it feels so inconclusive. I actually went back to the beginning to see if I had missed anything. I am interested to see what the talk is about and if it makes me appreciate the book more.
I sincerely doubt it!
This is a beautifully written and very descriptive novel, but it just did not keep my interest.
I’ve decided I have to stop signing up for literary lectures. It’s great when the book ends up being outstanding, but when said book ends up being a waste of precious reading time, it infuriates me.
The premise of this book sounded so good- a medieval mystery set in Somerset in 1491. The author starts 4 days after the fact and works backwards, to the day Thomas Newman, the richest man in the village, dies.
Was it foul play? Was it an accident?
Our narrator is John Reve, the local priest. Faith and religious customs are definite themes in this book. It is Lent, and we get to spend 4 days listening to everyone’s confessions. Big yawn inserted here:)
We know what happens by the end but it feels so inconclusive. I actually went back to the beginning to see if I had missed anything. I am interested to see what the talk is about and if it makes me appreciate the book more.
I sincerely doubt it!
March 7, 2018
4.5 stars rounded up to 5
The Western Wind really is an extraordinary book. I was drawn into the story right from the start. Samantha Harvey’s writing brings to life the sights, smells and sounds of the daily life of the ordinary people living in Oakham, a small village in Somerset in 1491. So often in historical fiction it’s about the notable historical figures of the period that are the main characters – here there none (although there is a reference to their bishop who is in prison for trying to put a pretender on the throne (Perkin Warbeck had first claimed the English throne in 1490).
A man disappears, presumed drowned – but how and why did he die? Oakham, an impoverished village is isolated, cut off from the surrounding villages and from the monks at the abbey in Bruton by the river with its bends and oxbows, and the long woody ridge to the north-east edge of the village. There are no outsiders.
I thought the way Samantha Harvey reveals how Thomas Newman died telling the story moving back day by day to the day of his death was very effective, although at first I was a bit puzzled. By the end – that is – on the day Thomas Newman disappeared – we know so much about him and his neighbours, mainly through the confessions they made to the narrator, John Reve, the village priest. And the sequence of events, the why and the how are revealed.
The people are superstitious, living in fear of the whims and punishments of God and taking everything as a warning. Reve tries to reassure them that the creatures they fear, such as wolf-men and grotesque sea creatures don’t exist, but that there are ill spirits to test us and strengthen us; that what we call good or bad luck are spirits, that live in the air or in the water and that we can conquer them. Reve prays for a sign that Newman was on his way through purgatory safely to heaven. The wind is blowing from the east, a strong and bitter wind, so he prays for a wind from the west to blow the ill spirits away.
This is in some ways an allegorical tale, with the characters standing for symbolical figures, and events as symbols of change. Hence there is Newman, a relative newcomer to the village the bringer of change as he gradually bought land off Townshend, the lord of the manor, now impoverished. Does this make him a suspect for Newman’s death?
The monks, who it is said are keen to buy the village land, also foreshadow the changes that are to come in the next half century or so. Reve, the priest (my Local Historian’s Encyclopedia tells me a reeve was usually a man of villein status who organised the daily business of the manor) is concerned that people are no longer coming to him for confession but paying a travelling friar, who didn’t know them, for a confession incognito. The people are losing their faith in God.
I loved other details, setting the book in the 1490s – the techniques of bridge building, the traditional games such as ‘campball’ (the precursor of football) played by all the young men of the parish with a pig’s bladder up and down the village road, the cock-fighting, the food and drink – spiced beer and metheglin (a variety of mead), giving out the sweetness of honey, and the music – the tinkling of tambourines, pipes and drumming on goat-hide.
I came to the end of this book and immediately wanted to start it again. What seems at first to be a simple tale is actually a multi-layered and complex book. I really enjoyed reading it.
The Western Wind really is an extraordinary book. I was drawn into the story right from the start. Samantha Harvey’s writing brings to life the sights, smells and sounds of the daily life of the ordinary people living in Oakham, a small village in Somerset in 1491. So often in historical fiction it’s about the notable historical figures of the period that are the main characters – here there none (although there is a reference to their bishop who is in prison for trying to put a pretender on the throne (Perkin Warbeck had first claimed the English throne in 1490).
A man disappears, presumed drowned – but how and why did he die? Oakham, an impoverished village is isolated, cut off from the surrounding villages and from the monks at the abbey in Bruton by the river with its bends and oxbows, and the long woody ridge to the north-east edge of the village. There are no outsiders.
I thought the way Samantha Harvey reveals how Thomas Newman died telling the story moving back day by day to the day of his death was very effective, although at first I was a bit puzzled. By the end – that is – on the day Thomas Newman disappeared – we know so much about him and his neighbours, mainly through the confessions they made to the narrator, John Reve, the village priest. And the sequence of events, the why and the how are revealed.
The people are superstitious, living in fear of the whims and punishments of God and taking everything as a warning. Reve tries to reassure them that the creatures they fear, such as wolf-men and grotesque sea creatures don’t exist, but that there are ill spirits to test us and strengthen us; that what we call good or bad luck are spirits, that live in the air or in the water and that we can conquer them. Reve prays for a sign that Newman was on his way through purgatory safely to heaven. The wind is blowing from the east, a strong and bitter wind, so he prays for a wind from the west to blow the ill spirits away.
This is in some ways an allegorical tale, with the characters standing for symbolical figures, and events as symbols of change. Hence there is Newman, a relative newcomer to the village the bringer of change as he gradually bought land off Townshend, the lord of the manor, now impoverished. Does this make him a suspect for Newman’s death?
The monks, who it is said are keen to buy the village land, also foreshadow the changes that are to come in the next half century or so. Reve, the priest (my Local Historian’s Encyclopedia tells me a reeve was usually a man of villein status who organised the daily business of the manor) is concerned that people are no longer coming to him for confession but paying a travelling friar, who didn’t know them, for a confession incognito. The people are losing their faith in God.
I loved other details, setting the book in the 1490s – the techniques of bridge building, the traditional games such as ‘campball’ (the precursor of football) played by all the young men of the parish with a pig’s bladder up and down the village road, the cock-fighting, the food and drink – spiced beer and metheglin (a variety of mead), giving out the sweetness of honey, and the music – the tinkling of tambourines, pipes and drumming on goat-hide.
I came to the end of this book and immediately wanted to start it again. What seems at first to be a simple tale is actually a multi-layered and complex book. I really enjoyed reading it.
September 21, 2018
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.”
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.”
March 28, 2022
Another review disappears
October 12, 2018
Set in the English village of Oakham in 1491, this is narrated by local priest John Reve, who learns more than he might prefer to know about his neighbors through his time in the confession box. Thomas Newman, the richest man in town, has recently been found drowned. In this superstitious era, people wonder if Newman’s death and/or the recent flooding are God’s punishment for the arrogance of daring to build a bridge over the river. The archdeacon is eager to find someone to blame for Newman’s death so there can be a public execution to reinforce the Church’s authority. The dean even suggests that Reve finger one of his parishioners, whether he or she guilty or not.
The writing and the period detail are strong, but there’s little narrative drive despite Harvey’s unusual strategy of proceeding backwards and this ostensibly being a (murder) mystery. Reve writes of the “endless watermill of days,” and though the action takes place over just four days it still has that repetitive quality: a cycle of confessions, meals, and village rituals that doesn’t feel like it’s going much of anywhere. [I read about the first 60 pages and briefly skimmed the rest.]
In any case, this has the best first line of the year: “Dust and ashes though I am, I sleep the sleep of angels.”
Potential readalikes: Harvest by Jim Crace and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
The writing and the period detail are strong, but there’s little narrative drive despite Harvey’s unusual strategy of proceeding backwards and this ostensibly being a (murder) mystery. Reve writes of the “endless watermill of days,” and though the action takes place over just four days it still has that repetitive quality: a cycle of confessions, meals, and village rituals that doesn’t feel like it’s going much of anywhere. [I read about the first 60 pages and briefly skimmed the rest.]
In any case, this has the best first line of the year: “Dust and ashes though I am, I sleep the sleep of angels.”
Potential readalikes: Harvest by Jim Crace and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
May 21, 2021
Прежде всего считаю необходимым отметить, что содержание книги имеет весьма призрачное отношение к собственной аннотации. Мне обещали детективное расследование силами местного священника (отец Браун, это вы?), в средневековых декорациях. К тому же, написанное изысканным языком в утонченном стиле.
Штош. Средневековые декорации есть, и весьма недурные. Грязь, невежество, бытовуха, и даже погода соответствующая — пробирающие до костей дожди. Утонченный стиль уже под сомнением, ибо сложно оттопыривать мизинчик, когда всё время кто-то дрочит или мочится в кустах орешника (Оукэмцы, забейте на сыр, продавайте орехи, stonks!). Детективная составляющая и вовсе отходит на второй план, являясь фоном для метаний и размышлений главного героя.
И вот это было богоподобно, прости за богохульство, Джон Рив. Тебе, как священнику, было ой как непросто в эти темные времена, с этими наивными, простыми деревенскими людьми. Тебе-то нужно провести их к свету, позаботиться об их душе после смерти, ведь тебя этому и учили. А они, с одной стороны, хоть и тянутся изо всех сил к тебе и к Богу, но с другой — по уши в навозе и собственных суевериях. И вот ты, такой же человек, как и все остальные, из кожи вон лезешь, чтобы помочь своей деревеньке. Надеешься при этом, конечно, на Бога, ведь ты священник... но всё-таки немного, в самой глубине души — на себя одного.
События описываются от конца к началу, и паззл у автора сходится весьма удачно. На вотэтоповоротах не заносит, сюжет логичен и украшен иронией, оригинальными эпитетами и философскими размышлениями. Что важно, без душных нотаций в духе "если бог всемогущ, почему дети болеют раком".
Экспертом-криминалистом книга вас не сделает, и в религиозного фанатика не обратит, однако если вы не против помесить грязь и покопаться в шкафах у соседей по деревне — смело принимайтесь за чтение.
Штош. Средневековые декорации есть, и весьма недурные. Грязь, невежество, бытовуха, и даже погода соответствующая — пробирающие до костей дожди. Утонченный стиль уже под сомнением, ибо сложно оттопыривать мизинчик, когда всё время кто-то дрочит или мочится в кустах орешника (Оукэмцы, забейте на сыр, продавайте орехи, stonks!). Детективная составляющая и вовсе отходит на второй план, являясь фоном для метаний и размышлений главного героя.
И вот это было богоподобно, прости за богохульство, Джон Рив. Тебе, как священнику, было ой как непросто в эти темные времена, с этими наивными, простыми деревенскими людьми. Тебе-то нужно провести их к свету, позаботиться об их душе после смерти, ведь тебя этому и учили. А они, с одной стороны, хоть и тянутся изо всех сил к тебе и к Богу, но с другой — по уши в навозе и собственных суевериях. И вот ты, такой же человек, как и все остальные, из кожи вон лезешь, чтобы помочь своей деревеньке. Надеешься при этом, конечно, на Бога, ведь ты священник... но всё-таки немного, в самой глубине души — на себя одного.
События описываются от конца к началу, и паззл у автора сходится весьма удачно. На вотэтоповоротах не заносит, сюжет логичен и украшен иронией, оригинальными эпитетами и философскими размышлениями. Что важно, без душных нотаций в духе "если бог всемогущ, почему дети болеют раком".
Экспертом-криминалистом книга вас не сделает, и в религиозного фанатика не обратит, однако если вы не против помесить грязь и покопаться в шкафах у соседей по деревне — смело принимайтесь за чтение.
April 29, 2023
What a great story. Set in 1491 ( I have say I like this period of time for books) John Reve is a village priest who is woken one day to be told a body has drowned in the river. Reve is put under pressure to find the murderer, even though not sure if accidental or suicide. The story is told over 4 days - in reverse order. Clever and sometimes a bit confusing to an old man.
The writing style and prose is wonderful.
‘I emptied my bladder in the hazel scrub…’
‘I’ll speak to my cousins.’
‘Are they rich, your cousins?’
‘Richer than us.’
‘There are goats richer than us.’
‘I smelt the odour that was all his own - a sharp blossomy soap, a hint of horse…’
Reve needs to seek out the culprit by use of his confessional box. But it is difficult when more than one person confesses. And from others the confession amounts to:
‘Father, I forgot to come to Mass, I forgot to say my prayers, I forgot to feed my pig…’
Palpable in the prose are smells, continual rain, frightened and small minded people and sadness. Intermingled with loving true characters.
Cracker of a read👍
The writing style and prose is wonderful.
‘I emptied my bladder in the hazel scrub…’
‘I’ll speak to my cousins.’
‘Are they rich, your cousins?’
‘Richer than us.’
‘There are goats richer than us.’
‘I smelt the odour that was all his own - a sharp blossomy soap, a hint of horse…’
Reve needs to seek out the culprit by use of his confessional box. But it is difficult when more than one person confesses. And from others the confession amounts to:
‘Father, I forgot to come to Mass, I forgot to say my prayers, I forgot to feed my pig…’
Palpable in the prose are smells, continual rain, frightened and small minded people and sadness. Intermingled with loving true characters.
Cracker of a read👍
November 20, 2018
This is a character study type of book, both the individuals - the priest John Reve, the dead man Thomas Newman, the pedantic rural dean; and the collective - Oakham’s wayward parishioners.
The Western Wind
is also incredibly atmospheric: all that rain, fog and mud reminded me of Aleksei German’s imagery for “Hard to Be a God.”
Set in the 15th century, the story is narrated backwards, from Day 4 (Shrove Tuesday, 17th February) to Day 1 (Shrove Saturday, 14th February), when, in the early hours, the news that the wealthiest man in the village had been swept away by the river reached John Reve and the rest of his parishioners.
This is a slow burn and you wouldn’t think that this kind of structure - made up of confessions, secrets, and other digressions - would work well enough to keep you engaged, but it’s so cleverly done that you soon become invested in these characters, particularly John Reve, who I think became one of my favourite narrators featured in a historical novel. John’s little ironies and musings, his own acknowledged sins and weaknesses make him a likeable, albeit morally questionable, character.
I loved the subtle humour in the way the priest imagines Oakham seen through the rural dean’s eyes and how he seems to cherish his little village even more, in spite of it all. The pestilent rural dean was utterly unlikable, but a welcome balance for John. He is an outsider, who disturbs the peace of Oakham, set on finding (if not fashioning) a culprit for Newman’s death.
The prose style clicked with me from the start: this is a literary historical novel with a mystery twist, and I absolutely lived for it!
*Thanks to NetGalley & Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Western Wind RELEASED NOVEMBER 13, 2018.*
“‘Word got round that there was a little village called Oakham,’ he was saying, ‘where anybody could go, no matter how unwanted in life. A village of scrags and outcasts. So they took this foul beauty there – though nobody seemed to know where Oakham was, and they ended up in Wales before they found it after two weeks of looking. When they got there and asked if any men were keen to marry, they were told there was a miller, a poor miller who hadn’t yet found time in all his milling to have a wife and was handsome enough, but not that picky – and her father was desperate to sell her by now.’”
Set in the 15th century, the story is narrated backwards, from Day 4 (Shrove Tuesday, 17th February) to Day 1 (Shrove Saturday, 14th February), when, in the early hours, the news that the wealthiest man in the village had been swept away by the river reached John Reve and the rest of his parishioners.
This is a slow burn and you wouldn’t think that this kind of structure - made up of confessions, secrets, and other digressions - would work well enough to keep you engaged, but it’s so cleverly done that you soon become invested in these characters, particularly John Reve, who I think became one of my favourite narrators featured in a historical novel. John’s little ironies and musings, his own acknowledged sins and weaknesses make him a likeable, albeit morally questionable, character.
I loved the subtle humour in the way the priest imagines Oakham seen through the rural dean’s eyes and how he seems to cherish his little village even more, in spite of it all. The pestilent rural dean was utterly unlikable, but a welcome balance for John. He is an outsider, who disturbs the peace of Oakham, set on finding (if not fashioning) a culprit for Newman’s death.
The prose style clicked with me from the start: this is a literary historical novel with a mystery twist, and I absolutely lived for it!
*Thanks to NetGalley & Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Western Wind RELEASED NOVEMBER 13, 2018.*
August 23, 2018
I really, really liked this book, which follows a fifteenth-century village priest in the days after the mysterious death of one of his congregation, Thomas Newman. It's broken up into four sections for the four days before Lent, but you read the days backwards, starting on Tuesday and working back in time to Saturday. This is the rare case where the first-person narration and the structure of the book work seamlessly together to create a compelling story. Our protagonist, Father John Reve, offers a convincing argument near the end of his tale as to why this reverse timeline was necessary. It's certainly possible to find it gimmicky, but I was so drawn into the writing, the characters, and the slow reveal of the cause of death that it worked for me.
Father John Reve tells us the story from his vantage point as guardian of the parish's souls. Oakham is in a difficult spot with the death of Newman - who owned much of the land in the village - because the neighboring monks are looking over at Oakham's land and the village's natural protector, the bishop, is in jail. This puts some pressure on Reve to find out the exact cause of Newman's death, though he's also dealing with his feelings about his sister, who's moved out after getting married. And Reve and Newman were friends, with Newman a worldly man who thinks that one might be able to speak to God without the intervention of a priest (nearly heretical), and Reve the religious foil who's trying to bridge the gap between leading the village spiritually and in matters of business. If the role of the priest is to lead the parish, then shouldn't he be trying to improve their lot, too?
From reading other reviews, it looks like there are some historical inaccuracies. I'm by no means an expert on fifteenth-century England and the comment that Reve should have is definitely valid. What really drew me into the book was the exploration of Reve's role as the priest. Looking at Christianity in 1491 is looking into a warped mirror, where the villagers' top concern is if Newman died shriven, or if he at least saw the mural of St. Christopher the same day (since that will speed him through purgatory, naturally, and save him some torment). Reve worries about if Newman needed to see the mural, or just look at it, and it's these questions ultimately leading to deeper moral quandaries that I found fascinating, and explored in an interesting way. Reve is the best person to lead us through the village's grief. It's not that he's unreliable - it's that he's fully realized and has a real perspective that drives the plot of the book.
Anyway, all of this makes me want to reread this book soon, which is a plus in my opinion but may be a negative for someone else. I will be thinking about this for awhile.
Father John Reve tells us the story from his vantage point as guardian of the parish's souls. Oakham is in a difficult spot with the death of Newman - who owned much of the land in the village - because the neighboring monks are looking over at Oakham's land and the village's natural protector, the bishop, is in jail. This puts some pressure on Reve to find out the exact cause of Newman's death, though he's also dealing with his feelings about his sister, who's moved out after getting married. And Reve and Newman were friends, with Newman a worldly man who thinks that one might be able to speak to God without the intervention of a priest (nearly heretical), and Reve the religious foil who's trying to bridge the gap between leading the village spiritually and in matters of business. If the role of the priest is to lead the parish, then shouldn't he be trying to improve their lot, too?
From reading other reviews, it looks like there are some historical inaccuracies. I'm by no means an expert on fifteenth-century England and the comment that Reve should have is definitely valid. What really drew me into the book was the exploration of Reve's role as the priest. Looking at Christianity in 1491 is looking into a warped mirror, where the villagers' top concern is if Newman died shriven, or if he at least saw the mural of St. Christopher the same day (since that will speed him through purgatory, naturally, and save him some torment). Reve worries about if Newman needed to see the mural, or just look at it, and it's these questions ultimately leading to deeper moral quandaries that I found fascinating, and explored in an interesting way. Reve is the best person to lead us through the village's grief. It's not that he's unreliable - it's that he's fully realized and has a real perspective that drives the plot of the book.
Anyway, all of this makes me want to reread this book soon, which is a plus in my opinion but may be a negative for someone else. I will be thinking about this for awhile.
July 2, 2018
Set in Somerset in 1491 this is a crime story told backwards. Harvey’s knowledge of that time is hugely impressive and was a large part of the enjoyment I got from the book. The actual crime aspect works less well. In some novels that may be a problem, but less so here as in addition to the history, the setting and some wonderful characters there is good humour also. The backwards structure requires some effort from the reader. Its few moments of resolution are outweighed by threads left undone. It may make more sense to read it twice for those who really enjoy it.
Narrated by the patient and empathetic village vicar, religion plays a big role, as does the church, which has one of the only confessional boxes in England at the time,
Narrated by the patient and empathetic village vicar, religion plays a big role, as does the church, which has one of the only confessional boxes in England at the time,
Father I slept all day. I cut a hole in a wall to spy on a woman. I shovelled some of my no-good-clay onto my neighbour’s plot. I stole the last spoonful of honey instead of offering it to my husband, I ate the lucky egg, I cursed my father, I swore, I snored, I farted, I doubted.
I didn’t say Grace, I overslept, I put my right shoe on my left and the left on the right, I thought the devil was in my ale, I drank it all to be sure he wasn’t, I thought the devil was in my second and third ale, I drank them too, I shaved my husband’s face and left stubble in shape of a heart, he doesn’t know it yet, I fancied a cloud was in the shape of a buttock. I lobbed a stone at a bird. I burped Ave Maria to amuse my boy.
December 27, 2018
I’m genuinely baffled by the unanimity of praise for this book. For me it seems a case of the Emperor’s new clothes. An irritating and pointless reverse-narrative structure. The table of contents in mirror form looks clever, but on closer inspection the chapter heads are so vague and unrelated to action and development that it’s no great narrative achievement to have arranged them thus.
It’s billed as a mystery or detective story, but if there is any detection OR solution, I seem to have missed them.
The characters don’t rise above epithets and stereotypes (the lecherous man, the pregnant girl, the sick woman, the feckless rich man, the well-traveled intellectual newcomer, the prissy dean). They appear periodically and repeat themselves, but the repetitions add nothing. Even the priest, “John Reve” — not to be confused with the REEVE of the village who is periodically mentioned - doesn’t quite rise to the level of a character... no real goal or flaw or conflict or resolution.
As for meditations on faith and reality and confession and change, I don’t see them.
Quite honestly it feels like an imitation of the mystical passages and elliptical narrative voice of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” - but while that difficult book was exceptionally rewarding, this book is just pretentious and aggravating.
It’s billed as a mystery or detective story, but if there is any detection OR solution, I seem to have missed them.
The characters don’t rise above epithets and stereotypes (the lecherous man, the pregnant girl, the sick woman, the feckless rich man, the well-traveled intellectual newcomer, the prissy dean). They appear periodically and repeat themselves, but the repetitions add nothing. Even the priest, “John Reve” — not to be confused with the REEVE of the village who is periodically mentioned - doesn’t quite rise to the level of a character... no real goal or flaw or conflict or resolution.
As for meditations on faith and reality and confession and change, I don’t see them.
Quite honestly it feels like an imitation of the mystical passages and elliptical narrative voice of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” - but while that difficult book was exceptionally rewarding, this book is just pretentious and aggravating.
October 22, 2020
>>1491. In dem kleinen Dorf Oakham, ein Ort in dem es Ziegen gibt, die reicher sind als die Bewohner, bereitet man sich gerade auf die bevorstehende Fastenzeit vor, als eines Nachts ein Unglück geschieht: Thomas Newman, der wohlhabendste und einflussreichste Mann im Dorf, wurde von der tödlichen Strömung des Flusses mitgerissen. War es ein Unfall, Selbstmord oder gar Mord? Dies herauszufinden, obliegt dem örtlichen Priester John Reve, einem geduldigen Hirten seiner eigensinnigen Herde...<<
„Westwind“ von Samantha Harvey empfand ich thematisch sehr interessant, denn hier begegnet der Leser mal einer ganz anderen Herangehensweise zur Aufklärung eines Todesfalls.
Priester John Reve übernimmt hier sozusagen die Ermittlungen und die gestalten sich eben doch anders als wir aus den üblichen Krimis kennen und lässt Religion und was damit einhergeht in den Vordergrund treten.
Ich finde, man kann das Buch nicht wirklich einem Genre zuordnen, es hangelt sich für mich persönlich so zwischen Krimi, Roman & Spannungsroman. Die Erzählweise insgesamt ist eher ruhig und teilweise sehr ausschweifend. Insgesamt hat mit das Buch aber gut gefallen, es war einfach mal etwas anderes.
„Westwind“ von Samantha Harvey empfand ich thematisch sehr interessant, denn hier begegnet der Leser mal einer ganz anderen Herangehensweise zur Aufklärung eines Todesfalls.
Priester John Reve übernimmt hier sozusagen die Ermittlungen und die gestalten sich eben doch anders als wir aus den üblichen Krimis kennen und lässt Religion und was damit einhergeht in den Vordergrund treten.
Ich finde, man kann das Buch nicht wirklich einem Genre zuordnen, es hangelt sich für mich persönlich so zwischen Krimi, Roman & Spannungsroman. Die Erzählweise insgesamt ist eher ruhig und teilweise sehr ausschweifend. Insgesamt hat mit das Buch aber gut gefallen, es war einfach mal etwas anderes.
June 11, 2021
очень медленное чтение, реверсивное повествование, совсем негромкий детектив. главные герои - средневековое дождливое захолустье ранней весной, грустный священник, немудреные исповеди накануне поста, тихая тоска по любимым людям и очень большая живая вера - как способ жить.
тот роман, к котором к достоинствам и недостаткам отнесут одни и те же вещи. мне повезло с ним встретиться.
тот роман, к котором к достоинствам и недостаткам отнесут одни и те же вещи. мне повезло с ним встретиться.
Shelved as 'never-really-finished'
June 8, 2018DNF!
Unfortunately, this book was not for me. Although the premise of the story is interesting (small town, man drowns under mysterious circumstances, who did it??), the blurb did not (in my opinion) accurately describe the plot. The blurb (at least on Goodreads) makes it sound like the village priest is actively trying to figure out what happened to the murdered man. I've read till about half the book, and so far, it's more about his guilt of over his past and his inability to do anything to help the village in the present. His griping gets a bit tedious after a while, especially if you (like me) picked up this book because you that it was going to be more about the murder. In the end, I had to put this book down - there's too many murder mysteries I want to read that are actually going to be about the murder!
Unfortunately, this book was not for me. Although the premise of the story is interesting (small town, man drowns under mysterious circumstances, who did it??), the blurb did not (in my opinion) accurately describe the plot. The blurb (at least on Goodreads) makes it sound like the village priest is actively trying to figure out what happened to the murdered man. I've read till about half the book, and so far, it's more about his guilt of over his past and his inability to do anything to help the village in the present. His griping gets a bit tedious after a while, especially if you (like me) picked up this book because you that it was going to be more about the murder. In the end, I had to put this book down - there's too many murder mysteries I want to read that are actually going to be about the murder!
June 17, 2019
Set in a small village in 1491, the book’s narrator is the priest John Reve. As he hears the confessions of his parishioners, the reader learns both about life in the village and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of one of its wealthiest inhabitants. The most intriguing aspect of the book is that the story unfolds in reverse. Although there was a lot to enjoy and admire about the book, such as its picture of life in a small village, I didn’t find the eventual reveal completely satisfying.
October 23, 2021
A bit of a mixed bag. Samantha Harvey's The Western Wind is set in an out-of-the-way village in 1490s England, and the first half of the book in particular is a careful portrait of a small medieval community, written with a keen eye for landscape and the mundane details of everyday life. In that early part of the novel, too, Harvey impressed me with her attempt to enter into a medieval mindset—there are some anachronisms, yes, but I'll take a more convincing mentality with some mistakes about days and clothes any day over a book where 21st-century characters are playing dress-up in perfect period attire.
However, the novel flags in the latter part, even its early lyricism fading; it read almost as if Harvey ran out of things to say earlier than her self-imposed chronological structure allowed. Still an interesting read, and I would pick up another book by Harvey if I came across it, but I finished The Western Wind feeling as if there were possible depths to it that she had never quite plumbed.
However, the novel flags in the latter part, even its early lyricism fading; it read almost as if Harvey ran out of things to say earlier than her self-imposed chronological structure allowed. Still an interesting read, and I would pick up another book by Harvey if I came across it, but I finished The Western Wind feeling as if there were possible depths to it that she had never quite plumbed.
May 29, 2018
I really like Harvey's writing - she paints a very vivid picture of fifteenth century Somerset. I loved the character of Reve, and the various villagers who come to him for confession. What I wasn't so sure about was the plot. With her previous book, Dear Thief, I didn't mind at all that the plot was slight - it was all about the language, but in The Western Wind it feels (and I've read) that she's trying to make the plot stronger, and in fact she tells the story backwards. This makes it feel as though something astounding should be revealed on the final pages (the beginning on the story), but that doesn't really happen, or what is revealed isn't strong enough for the type of story she seems to be trying to tell. All that said, I still really enjoyed it, and I'll definitely search out her earlier novels.
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