The Long and Short of It: Harvest
BOOK: Harvest by
Jim Crace
Format: Hardback
Although some sources name it the favourite to take out
this year’s Man Booker prize, I have to say that Jim Crace’s Harvest was the title that interested me
the least out of this year’s bunch. It
is one of the few that was available for purchase long before the release of
the longlist, and although I’d seen it, I’d never picked it up to have a
look. From the title and the colouring
of the cover, I had it pegged as a kind of rural drama, probably set in outback
Australia, thus revealing my cultural bias. In fact, Harvest
is an English historical drama centred around the conversion of a small
nameless village from wheat and barley farming to sheep farming.
The story begins with a broad scope, describing the
landscape and the hard work being done before zeroing in to the privileged ‘I’
position of Walter Thirsk, although his name is not given away until a few
chapters in to the book. He was not born
in the village and does not come from one of its old families, but arrived with
the now-Master of the village, Charles Kent.
He and Kent are milk cousins, raised together and both suckled from
Mother Thirsk’s breast, though Charles as a nobleman has far more rights than
Walter. Kent is the owner of the village
manor by marriage only, and as his wife Lucy died giving birth to a stillborn
daughter, their only child, his grip on the land is tenuous at best. Change is signalled in the village by the
lighting of two fires; the first in the master’s dovecote, indicating trouble
afoot and the second on the village outskirts, announcing the arrival of
newcomers.
The plot immediately follows the pattern of ‘a stranger
comes to town’, beginning first with the arrival of Mr Quill (Mr Earle) who is
employed to map the nameless village for some unstated reason, Walter being
enlisted as his assistant. Next is the
arrival of ‘the Beldams’, two men and a woman who are accused of the trouble in
the dovecote and treated like prisoners, despite the fact that most of the
village seems to know it was some of their youths responsible. All keep mum about it. And Walter once again is set apart from them,
having injured his hand in the blaze, and not therefore being present at the
sentencing. Finally, a new lord rides
into the village, a Master Jordan who is Kent’s cousin-in-law by marriage and
the rightful heir to the land. He is the
one who wishes to convert to the more-profitable practice of sheep-farming.
The language of Harvest
is old fashioned yet lyrical and it is easy to see why this book may have
been tipped the favourite, as it bears the most similarity so far to the work
of previous winner, Hilary Mantel.
However, as a reader I often found my attention waning during the
perusal of run on sentences. Walter’s
position as observer gave him insight into the many happenings of this short
book, but his point of view was simply not compelling enough to have me hanging
off his every word. I found no reason to
feel sympathetic for him, because he clearly felt as if the village were both below
him and that they owed him something.
His sadness that they would set him apart at the first sign of trouble
is not surprising to the reader as he has been setting himself apart
unknowingly all along, first by referring to himself as the master’s milk
cousin, and then by sleeping with the desirable but unkind widow Gosse. When he injures his hand, he makes a show of
it so as no one will accuse him of shirking his duties, something no man with
the true friendship of his fellows should have to do. It is as if he expects them to think he is
faking to get out of work.
He is also set apart from them in his ideas; he does not
understand the need to punish the Beldams for the actions of others and only
does not dob in his neighbours because he fears the anger of all the others, I
believe. Fundamentally, Walter Thirsk is
a coward. He does not pull a stone up to
the pillory for the short man tethered there because he fears ruining his hand
and being useless for work in the future.
But he does not go for help either.
As a result, the man dies. I
learned a lot about Walter from what he did not manage to do while reading Harvest.
This book would not be my pick for the Man Booker Prize
of this year, although I do think that I would read more of Jim Crace’s books
in the future. I certainly recommend
this book to anyone who likes well considered historical fiction, particularly
as I said, fans of Mantel. Bodice-ripper
this is not. It is a work which is
deeply psychological, examining the human spirit in the face of tension and
change.