12/19/2023 0 Comments Unbound worlds apart lost villagers![]() My favourite section was the one entitled ‘Papps Wedge’ which features couple, Sally and Bob (not Bob and Sally) whom we first in middle-age and then much later in 2043. The latter allows the author to give full rein to his wicked sense of humour in the often inconsequential chatter of the locals, the acerbic comments of one resident or the contributions of the mysterious Megan Beaker. The author employs a number of different narrative formats including journals, interactions with a search engine which has developed an unnerving ability to empathise and, most memorably for me, a community message board. It purred around the boulders beneath his feet’. There are wonderful descriptions of the local landscape and wildlife. ‘The last purple streaks of the sun toasted the hilltops and owls made lewd suggestions to one another down in the woods by the river.’ On the subject of flowing, I especially enjoyed the way the author gives the rivers a personality, at times rebellious – ‘One is being a thug out back of the Coop, hissing and swearing at the locals’ – at other times, placid – ‘Today, though, the river was a pussycat. I made a buddleia visibly ill at ease this morning’.Īn appreciation of nature and concern for the environment flow through the book. As ‘Me’ ruefully observes, ‘I don’t feel great today, and my not-greatness influences those around me. For example, the final nine holes of the golf course that has reduced many a player to swearing at sheep or hurling their golf clubs in the river. ‘The countryside looks on, bemused at the way it’s been outgrown, bludgeoned, smoothed over, suppressed, raped, waiting for the revenge it will surely enjoy when we are gone.’ At times the landscape fights back. (Have a peek at the cover and you might spot ‘Me’.) ‘Me’ observes the goings-on of the inhabitants, knows all their secrets and reflects on the changes that have been wrought on the landscape by mankind, changes which have often caused it something akin to physical pain. One of the most inventive elements of the book is that Underhill and the surrounding area is presided over by an omniscient narrator, referred to as ‘Me’, whom I took to be the landscape itself. Some meet him, others inhabit places he did, observe the same views as him or are inspired by his music. It’s a cocktail of different narratives, in a variety of styles, all of which are connected to the village of Underhill and to an American musician, RJ McKendree who visited the area in the late 1960s and composed music inspired by local folksongs. The novel ranges over a vast period from the dawn of time to the end of this century. Villager is a book which almost defies description due to its idiosyncratic style and non-linear structure. Therefore I didn’t know quite what to expect, a sensation that remained throughout the time I was reading the book. ![]() ![]() ![]() This is the first book I’ve read by Tom Cox so, unlike some other reviewers, I’m not familiar with his nonfiction writing and as I usually scroll past images of dogs or cats on Instagram or Twitter I’ve not come across him on social media either. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life. Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does.
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