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Readers in general seem very mixed about this novel. Some loved it. Others were disappointed or bored. In this blog, I will briefly tease out what made this novel work, and what didn’t, as well as how to fix it. The story is a first-person narrative, the life in the village told by the eyes of a boy around 10 years old (the books is not very chronological, but it seems to span about three, four years of time). His father is dead and he lives with his mother. As he tells his story, he sees everything with the eyes of a child (the author is very successful in this), the good and the bad - he tells us about a game of football, then a suicide, then he getting lost in the valleys, the chase of a rapist, etc. His feelings and reactions are very well done. Crying without caring who was looking at me. Crying as though it was the end of the world. Crying and screaming the place down, not caring who was listening. And glad to be crying, the same way some people are glad when they’re singing, and others are glad when they’re laughing. Dew, I’d never cried like that before, and I’ve never cried like that since, either. I’d love to be able to cry like that again, just once more. Maddie and her daughter’s are forced to flee to Knyghton, family home of her missing husband following the bombing of their London home. Maddie, hadn’t even been aware of this side of her husbands family until an album was found in the remains of their bombed out house. With nowhere else to go, her husband missing presumed dead, her and the children are homeless. London is unsafe and so with little choice they make the journey to stay with her husband’s estranged aunt and cousin. Religion is also central to the novel: Church and Chapel, along with a fair amount of singing. There is a good deal of Biblical language and a fair amount of Church going (that wasn’t a trigger warning!). It is about a brutal childhood and about three boys: the narrator, and his friends Huw and Moi. There isn’t really a plot, more a series of episodes which move around within the time frame. Some of the episodes are almost hallucinogenic and comparisons have been made with Under Milk Wood, but the differences are greater than the similarities. And there is great power here:
Jesus, the people in the South talk funny, don’t they? said Moi when we went to see him the following day. Pass me that pot again. And there was poor Moi, still in bed and still spitting blood. And that was the last time we saw old Moi. The following Sunday night, Huw called round and his face was like chalk. Have you heard? he said at the door without coming in. Heard what? said Mam. Come in from the door, Huw, I said. What’s up? Moi’s dead, he said quietly. Moi? No, you’re telling lies, Huw. But I knew by his face that Huw was telling the truth. I just needed to say something, just like ages ago when I used to whistle as I went along Post Lane after dark, pretending that I wasn’t frightened of bogeymen. And we were talking to him on Monday night, I said, as though I still didn’t believe it. He was spitting a lot of blood that night, said Huw. That bloomin’ TB, said Mam. It takes young and old alike. Then I started to cry like a baby. I couldn’t stop for the life of me, though I tried my very best to stop cos I was embarrassed with Huw and Mam watching me. Moi and him were close friends, Huw said to Mam. But, of course, Huw was making excuses for me crying cos he was as close to Moi as I was. You never saw Huw crying like I did. But Huw cried, too, at the funeral though nobody saw him that time except me. It was only one little tear that rolled down his cheek and even I wouldn’t have seen that if he hadn’t wiped his eye with the sleeve of his surplice, as we both stood with the Choir at the graveside singing: My friends are homeward going Before me one by one And I am left an orphan A pilgrim all alone That’s what we sang at Griffith Evans Braich’s funeral, and Canon’s and all the others, too, but we were just singing cos we got tuppence for singing at those. It was different at Moi’s funeral cos he was our friend and the words were true. I couldn’t see anything when Hughes the Parson threw a handful of soil onto Moi’s coffin after they’d lowered it into the grave with a rope cos my eyes were just like two windows after it’s been raining." Why Simon & Schuster didn’t do these cuts, (which would have taken me 15 minutes max,) I have no idea.In chapter I, we meet the unnamed narrator, a naïve, curious, and at times uncannily perceptive boy who lives with his widowed Mam (mother), to whom he is utterly devoted. He speaks in broad North Walian vernacular – which remains perceptible to some extent in the English-language version. Thus, you will still find untranslated Welsh words in the text, especially the frequently uttered “Dew” (pronounced du or dyu), an exclamation of exasperation or annoyance. A Welshism, if you like – defined by some modern-day wags as Wenglish. In her 2009 afterword, the eminent Welsh historian, author and travel writer, Jan Morris, describes One Moonlit Night as “beyond rational analysis” and like “a sort of dream.” I’ve heard the book described as “Bethesda bildungsroman”, but it is also a full-flavoured confection of mental illness, religious zealotry and small-town parochialism – all shot through with plaintive lyricism. One of the reasons why Michael Palin's Four Yorkshiremen sketch goes down so well as that it is rooted in fact..
When the family home in London is bombed in the early 1940s, Maddie and her two young daughters take refuge in Norfolk, in the country house where Maddie’s husband Philip spent the summers of his childhood. But Philip is gone, believed to have been killed in action in northern France. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Maddie refuses to give up hope that she and Philip will some day be reunited. This extraordinary – some might say ‘odd’ – book, which in many ways recalls Under Milk Wood, was translated into English by Philip Mitchell in 1995. Chris Ross in The Guardian described it as “miraculously [conveying] the incantatory biblical and Celtic cadences of the original”, and indeed, his rendering brought this little-known contemporary classic to a far wider readership. The novel takes many twists and turns but always keeps the reader guessing, not falling into the trap of a predictable story! Prichard was also a wonderful writer but, unlike Thomas whose heart lies interred in the earth and whose soul is in Heaven (hopefully), Prichard's entire being, his entire life-force, his heart, his soul, his mind, his everything are contained - alive and vibrant - within the narrative of this book. Dramatisation of Caradog Prichard's Welsh classic novel about loss of innocence. A young boy is growing up in a remote slate quarry village in North Wales at the time of the First World War, where he has to navigate friendship, loss and his mother’s mental breakdown. But he is also surrounded by a mythical world of superstition and folklore. Dramatized by Rhiannon Boyle.
As the English translator of this book, I'm probably more than a little biased in my appraisal. That having been said, I remain firmly of the opinion that this is one of the greatest novels ever written. Maddie does not believe that Philip is dead and feels a little closer to him at Knyghton. However, Maddie soon discovers the reasons why Philip didn’t talk about his childhood. His cousin Lyle appears very cold when speaking of Philip and nobody will answer Maddie’s questions about the mysterious girl called Flora. This has been voted the greatest novel written in Welsh. It was published in 1961 and translated into English in 1995. The setting is the North Wales village of Bethesda, which was a community built around a slate quarry. The narrative voice is that of a young boy at various ages (well, it’s slightly more complicated than that …) and it happens around the time of the First World War, just before, during and just after. The author Caradog Prichard was born in 1904 and spent his childhood in Bethesda, so there is certainly an element of autobiography. One particular similarity is what happens to the child’s mother in the novel. As with Prichard’s own mother, she has mental health issues and ends up in the local asylum. The descriptions are vivid and harrowing. Prichard’s mother spent almost forty years in an asylum. He was a journalist, moving to London. He wrote some poetry and this novel. Cut the whole scene where the Nazis catch Philip and his companions as they attempt to cross the Pyrenees. Why not have Philip and his companions meet the guide at Perpignan, and disappear into the distance as they climb the Pyrenees without any Nazi thugs to interfere? That would have solved the whole problem of Philip’s return to England, because it would have seemed natural and not sudden. I feel like a reader voyeur. This boy (he’s too positive to be called Anonymous) sees all but understands very little. Roaming in the grown-up world, he is the absolute epitome of first-person POV, part memoir part literary license, the adult Caradog Prichard reliving his early life warts and all.
Prichard's prose works so well as there is usually a balance, a bad experience is followed by a good one; a football match, some humorous anecdote, or riotous outdoor adventures in what is now, Snowdonia National Park. By Paula Bardell-Hedley on 06/03/2020• ( 19 ) A brief introduction and a few shared thoughts on chapters 1-4 Llinos Griffin- Williams, Chief Content Officer S4C, said: “Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlit Night) is a powerful and courageous novel and one of Britain’s most significant pieces of literature. Flora’s grave is in the local burial ground, and she appears on photographs of Philip and Lyle as boys. Everyone at Knyghton is very tight lipped when she asks questions, so Maddie is determined to find out more.I think that’s why the book has such a strong sense of the child’s love for the village and its inhabitants. Pritchard’s narrator knows every inhabitant and how they are related. He knows too every inch of his village; each street and lane being but a playground for him and his best friends Huw and Moi. I won't spoil anything, but in the chapter before the last there is an incident that is basically the description of something that really happened to the author. It's very credible. But, unfortunately, in the last chapter there is a situation that doesn't seem credible - a conclusion that doesn't seem to fit with the character. Maybe some people will like it, but for me it was like another person writing the ending, or as if Prichard had no idea how to end - maybe he didn't want to tell what really happened to him, going to London to work, maybe he thought it was too banal - and decided to create something a bit exagerated. But this something is not satisfactory imho. I loved 'One Moonlit Night'. It is the first novel written in Welsh that I've ever read (this book was translated into English by Philip Mitchell) and I feel that I am breaking new ground today as a reader, reading my first novel in a new language. It is an exceptional book and it is one of the great stories about childhood, one of the great coming-of-age novels. It made me think of my favourite coming-of-age stories – Marlen Haushofer's 'Nowhere Ending Sky', the film 'Stand By Me' which was based on Stephen King's story, and the Tamil film 'Azhiyadha Kolangal'. I am glad I read it. It is the only novel that Caradog Prichard wrote and I feel sad when I think about that.
This book is beautifully written with wonderful characters you soon care about and an involving storyline. There’s enough going on to keep you interested, but not too much that you become confused. I especially liked Maddie and could relate to her trying to bring up her children by herself, while working as an illustrator. I also loved the setting of Knyghton and the farmland around it, the nature and countryside. I also enjoyed the novel being set in WWII and following what happened to Philip too. There was a varied cast of characters that lived at Knyghton and the surrounding village of Monkton and although Maddie knows full well the affects of war it’s like when the trio arrive at the manor house that the war seems to be on the outskirts. Yes, there is the farm where the Land Girls work and Philips cousin Lyle is struggling to keep it going and the war does affect them in that sense also. But Knyghton, as in the house itself, embraces Maddie and the girls and offers protection where they can try and forgot about being bombed out and try and establish a new life for themselves. But the inhabitants are all dealing with their own issues, worries, troubles and insecurities and Maddie doesn’t feel like she has received the welcome she would have liked. I had nothing but sympathy for Maddie. She tried her best to fit in her new temporary home, make friends with anyone close by and take care of her daughters. Often times she felt like a burden to others and couldn't stop thinking about her husband, whether or not he is alive and how her life would be without him. These were genuinely touching scenes.What has happened to Philip? We discover that too as the story unfolds and I loved the way Rachel develops all of the characters in this book and how they all interact with each other Yet their exuberance doesn’t mask the darker reality of their lives. In just the first chapter the narrator encounters an epileptic fit, suicide, illicit sex in the woods, and domestic violence. These don’t cause the boys any deep anxiety however; a sign perhaps that they are such common place occurrences they don’t warrant any commentary.
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