Sunrise in the West, by Edith Pargeter. Book review
First published 1974. Edition reviewed: The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet, Sourcebooks 2010, ISBN 978-1402237607. This edition includes all four of the Brothers of Gwynedd novels in one binding. Sunrise in the West, 186 pages. Complete quartet, 782 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy kindly supplied by publisher.
The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet covers the following four novels:
- Sunrise in the West
- The Dragon at Noonday
- The Hounds of Sunset
- Afterglow and Nightfall
Sunrise in the West is the first in Edith Pargeter’s series of four novels telling the story of Llewellyn ap Griffith, the last Prince of independent Wales, and his mercurial brother David ap Griffith in thirteenth-century Wales. Many of the major characters are historical figures, notably Llewellyn and David, their mother Lady Senena and their two other brothers Owen Goch (“Owen the Red”) and Rhodri, and King Henry III of England. The narrator Samson, clerk and secretary to Llewellyn, is fictional, as is his lover Cristin and her husband Godred. Sunrise in the West tells the first part of Llewellyn and Samson’s story, from their birth in 1228 to Llewellyn’s achievement of a (more or less) united Wales in 1258.
The result of a single night’s liaison between one of Lady Senena’s waiting-women and an unknown father, Samson is brought up by the monks of Aberdaron and educated as a clerk, learning to love books and music. When he is twelve, his life changes for ever when Lady Senena makes a bargain with the English King Henry III and Samson goes in her retinue to the English court in London. But far from buying her husband Griffith’s freedom as she intended, Senena finds she has only succeeded in exchanging his Welsh prison for an English one. A tragedy at the Tower of London results in Samson returning to Wales, where Senena’s second son Llewellyn has been carving out an independent princedom of Gwynedd in defiance of his mother. Samson becomes Llewellyn’s clerk and confidante, placing him at the heart of the turmoil in Gwynedd as Llewellyn strives to unite the notoriously fractious Welsh lords under his leadership – thwarted at every turn by his brothers, who vie ruthlessly for power.
I read the Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet years ago, and am pleased to see it reissued. Edith Pargeter’s writing style is deceptive. When I started re-reading Sunrise in the West it seemed excessively dry, especially the long and detailed opening account of Samson’s conception and birth. I began wondering if my memories of the novel from the first time round were absurdly rose-tinted. However, the writing has a quiet skill that soon drew me back into the complex, colourful, contradictory world of medieval Wales. Samson, first as a child and then as Llewellyn’s clerk, is more of an observer than a participant and recounts the twists and turns of politics and betrayal with a cool detachment that brings clarity to events that might otherwise be difficult to follow. It has to be said that Samson himself is not the most compelling of characters, especially in this first book of the quartet, and his star-crossed love for the noble Cristin is barely introduced. Centre stage belongs to Llewellyn and his charming and enigmatic youngest brother David, both fully developed as complex individuals. These two, and the fraught relationship between them, are the best features of Sunrise in the West (and I would say of the whole quartet).
Llewellyn is portrayed as a true hero, able, courageous, honourable, generous and intelligent, selflessly working for the good of his people. He is thoroughly admirable as well as likeable, though I occasionally found myself shaking my head over his apparently naïve determination to think the best of David’s actions. David is an altogether more complex and contradictory proposition. Like Llewellyn, he is able, brave and intelligent. He is also handsome and charming, but even though he is only about twenty by the end of the novel a darker side to his character is already apparent. This is shown not only in his dealings with Llewellyn, but also when he rebukes Samson for not murdering a defenceless man. It seems David is torn between noble instincts and baser ones, between his love and respect for his brother and his own greed and ambition. He reminds me of a fallen angel, half wilfully destructive, half striving towards the light. “He is as deep as the sea of Enlli, and as hard to know,” his mother Senena says of him when he is still a child, and that seems a fair summing up. If Llewellyn is the hero of the quarter, David is its star.
There is some battlefield action, though much of the conflict between the brothers is emotional and verbal rather than physical. Landscape descriptions are a particular feature in Edith Pargeter’s writing, and Sunrise in the West is no exception. The steely mountains of Snowdonia, the rolling sheep pastures, the salt marshes of the coast are all beautifully painted in words. There is no map, at least in the advance review copy, so readers who want to follow Llewellyn’s campaigns and Samson’s travels will need to have an atlas to hand. Also no author’s note, which is a shame but probably reflects the period when the novel was originally written. A glossary of Welsh terms at the back of the book will be helpful for readers unfamiliar with the setting, though I found the terms clear enough to understand from context. I expect the alarming number of typos in the advance copy will have been fixed in the final edition.
First in a thoughtful and evocative quartet of novels telling the powerful story of Llewellyn ap Griffith, last prince of independent Wales.
The four Brothers of Gwynedd novels are featured in the 2010 Sourcebooks Summer Reading Club, May – August 2010. For each novel, online reviews are posted in a specific week and an online discussion hosted a few days later. The discussion for Sunrise in the West will be held at Passages to the Past tomorrow, Monday May 24, at 7pm-9pm EST. The other reviews for Sunrise in the West are as follows:
May 17 Reviews
The Burton Review
http://www.theburtonreview.com/
The Bibliophilic Book Blog
http://www.bibliophilicbookblog.com/
Rundpinne
http://www.rundpinne.com/
A Reader's Respite
http://readersrespite.blogspot.com/
History Undressed
http://www.historyundressed.blogspot.com/
Linda Banche Blog
http://lindabanche.blogspot.com/
A Hoyden's Look at Literature
http://caramellunacy.blogspot.com/
Renee's Reads
http://theroyalreviews.blogspot.com/
May 18 Reviews
Between the Pages
http://www.betweenthelinesandmore.blogspot.com/
The Broken Teepee
http://www.brokenteepee.blogspot.com/
Books and Coffee
http://bookswithcoffee.wordpress.com/
Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell
http://books-forlife.blogspot.com/
Tanzanite's Shelf and Stuff
http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/
Passages to the Past
http://www.passagestothepast.com/
The Book Faery
http://tbfreviews.net/
A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore
http://agirlwalksintoabookstore.blogspot.com/
Martha's Bookshelf
http://marthasbookshelf.blogspot.com/
May 19 Reviews
Beth Fish
http://bfishreads.blogspot.com/
Deb's Book Bag
http://debsbookbag.blogspot.com/
Book Tumbling
http://booktumbling.com/
A Work in Progress
http://danitorres.typepad.com/workinprogress/
Stiletto Storytime
http://www.stilettostorytime.wordpress.com/
Queen of Happy Endings
http://alainereading.blogspot.com/
May 20 Reviews
The Literate Housewife
http://literatehousewife.com/
Reading Adventures
http://readingadventures.blogspot.com/
Books Like Breathing
http://bibliophile23.wordpress.com/
Kailana's Written World
http://myreadingbooks.blogspot.com/
Confessions of a Muse in the Fog
http://muse-in-the-fog.blogspot.com/
Wendy's Minding Spot
http://mindingspot.blogspot.com/
Mrs. Q Book Addict
http://web.me.com/quirion
The Life and Lies of a Flying Inanimate Object
http://www.haleymathiot.blogspot.com/
Starting Fresh
http://startingfresh-gaby317.blogspot.com/
May 21 Reviews
Loving Heart Mommy
http://www.lovingheartmommy.com/
Peeking Between the Pages
http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/
Celtic Lady's Ramblings
http://celticladysreviews.blogspot.com/
Bookfoolery
http://bookfoolery.blogspot.com/
One Literature Nut
http://mjmbecky.blogspot.com/
The Book Tree
http://thebooktree.blogspot.com/
My Reading Room
http://myreadingroom-crystal.blogspot.com/
6 comments:
Great review! I have read a number of ARCs over the last couple of years and I was shocked at the number of typos and weird characters that appeared - there was one practically every other page!
Daphne - yes, the typos were really distracting in this one, all the way through the whole volume. They look like the sort of errors you get from optical character recognition (or lack thereof....), so my guess is that they have scanned in an old printed copy for the re-issue. I do hope their copy-editors have fixed the errors in the final edition!
I have the final edition on my TBR pile - snatched it a few weeks ago when Amazon.de had three of them in stock. :) But I haven't got around to reading it yet.
Gabriele - let me know if the OCR errors have all gone! They were very distracting. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the book when it gets to the top of your TBR list.
Wasn't Pargeter the 'Ellis Peters' of the Cadfael books? From which I learned everything I know about the era of Stephen v Matilda, and the countryside around Shrewsbury.
I hope the typos aren't a testimony to the disappearance of copy editors. Lately the US media have taken to talking about the 'Labor' Party in Britain.
Rick - Yes, she was, and some of the same themes (e.g. undying love) are present here as well.
The publisher tells me the typos were OCR artefacts and have all been fixed in the final edition.
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