All Among the Barley

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And yes, I can see how someone like Constance would make an lasting impression on a young girl, especially an adolescent like Edie.

These interesting changes are presented to us with the imperfect understanding of a girl of 14 and as the woman of 70 she is to become. The farm is still largely run by horse power, and the book vividly describes both what has since been lost in the English landscape (for example Edith adopts an orphaned landrail or corncrake - these birds were very common then but are now almost extinct here) and the hardships endured by those that worked in it. The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, though the Great War still casts a shadow over the cornfields of her beloved home, Wych Farm. How times have changes in the way farming is approached and handled, not to mention the treatment of farm labourers, workers and family. The countryside is idyllic, the work is hard and unrelenting and there's a hint of menace, something not quite right, lurking just under the surface: fascism and anti-semitism are beginning to show their ugly heads, misogyny and male violence are in evidence and possibly there are mental health issues.Among The Barley delivered all I could wish for and tweaked my own memories of spending time growing up on ‘Manor Farm’ as a child. Along the winding course of the River Stroud the alder carrs were studded with earthstars and chanterelles and dense with the rich, autumnal stink of rot; but crossing Long Piece towards the Lottens the sky opened and into austere equinoctial blue, where flocks of peewits wheeled and turned, flashing their broad wings black and white. We and Edie also see more the tensions in the small farm community – her father’s struggle with despondency and alcohol, her mother’s odd relationship with John whose political differences with her father become increasingly open as the tensions between tradition and progress become greater. It was certainly evocative of the time that our land was still an agricultural land for the most part but also showed that change was very much in the air and the harshness of war already casting a sadness on the population.

In some ways, it’s quite similar to The Offing, which I’ve seen described (via Ben Myers himself) as an anti-Brexit novel disguised as a story about tea and scones.

However, the gradually revealed pressure combined with distrust of change, and the entry of worldly affairs gave an interesting viewpoint of the times. As the narrative progresses, we begin to realise – even if Edie remains blind to it – that Constance’s interest in the traditions of English life extends to holding prejudices against outsiders. I’m hoping this piece will qualify for Karen and Lizzy’s Reading Independent Publishers Month, which you can read about here. The hardness of the characters worlds as well as the peaceful landscape full of wildlife, are beautifully portrayed.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. All Among the Barley illustrates how the past can be interpreted in many different ways and highlights the dangers of nostalgia when a city dweller, Connie, makes a visit to Edie's village during harvest time in 1933. Some of the great themes of English life are tackled here - class division, the patriarchy, folklore and psychosis, creeping fascism - but rather than being simply ticked off they are instead woven into the narrative with great subtlety and beauty .Incidentally it was also Orwell who, in the late 1930s, shrewdly pointed out that Fascism had become an empty term of abuse used by anyone to describe anything they didn’t much like.