User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This will be a review that I will, no doubt, edit and add to a lot.
This is easily my most favorite and special book. It's something so beautiful that my heart aches to dwell on it. It aches because I long to be apart of something so perfect and wish for such beauty in everything I experience.
I feel I belong in that small Welsh mining town, that I should be spending all of my time supporting my family and town, singing with friends, learning voraciously, worshiping God intelligently and recognizing Him in every aspect of life, fiercely defending my friends, loving foolishly and uncontrollably, revering nature and losing myself in valleys, groves, creeks, and hill sides, or fighting and fighting and fighting with passionate words and quick fists for people, places and ideas that need me.
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So it's 2 years later and I haven't updated this review yet. A friend of mine asked why. I guess it's because talking about things - giving them words - sometimes destroys this weird illusion that they are more than just the words you give them.
I can't use the same medium as the book - words - to praise it in any way that is better than what the book does with that same medium.
Rating: really liked it
4.5/5 stars.
This is a wonderful and very clever piece of fiction about how we tend to remember things from our past fondly while forgetting about how bad things really were. "How Green Was My Valley" is a book about nostalgia and it is told from the point of view of Huw, who is now an elder, but who reflects back on his life and his childhood in the valleys of Wales.
This novel was wonderfully written with beautiful passages on life as well as note-worthy anecdotes on Huw's childhood and amazing family. A few passages became a bit too dense in their descriptions, but most of them were wonderful.
I think this book speaks to a lot of us because it talks about a universal subject, and I'm sure that's why it has become a classic and has survived through time. "How Green Was My Valley" comes with its brutalities where things that were not so "green" shine through the surface, but most of all it comes with a view on life which I think most of us share: a view of nostalgia and fondness.
Rating: really liked it
This is a very hard book to rate. I'm going with three and a half stars with caveats for some readers. Parts of it were five star brilliant. The rhythm and pattern of Welsh speech, conversation and story telling is rendered into English with a deft and often humorous touch. The descriptions of Wales and the countryside were exquisite and the sense of place and time so intense and immediate that I was often completely transported. The best parts are in the first half of the book as a man looks back at his childhood in a once-green valley.
"I will say it was lovely, because it was so green and fresh and clean, with wind from off the fields and dews from the mountain. The river was not very wide...but so clear that you would see every inch of rock through the bubbling water, and so full of fish that nobody thought of using a rod. My father taught me to tickle trout up on the flat rock down by Mrs Tom Jenkins'."
As the industrial revolution transformed Britain, the coal-mining regions of South Wales fairly basked in prosperity. And food in plenty.
"There is good dripping toast is by the fire in the evening. Good jelly dripping and crusty, home-baked bread, with the mealy savour of ripe wheat roundly in your mouth and under your teeth, roasted sweet and crisp and deep brown, and covered with little pockets where the dripping will hide and melt and shine in the light, deep down inside, ready to run when your teeth bite in."
I put on five pounds reading that....
I loved the many characters and scenes of village life. Huw (the narrator) and his struggles with rheumatic fever are moving and filled with warm insight. Mining is a way of life here, and there is pride in the skill of the work and in the role Wales plays in Britain's growing power.
As Huw matures the tone of the book darkens. Labor and management conflicts come to the valley and its mines and Huw's family is drawn into disputes that threaten to tear father from son, brother from brother.
The history lesson was terrific and an excellent complement to Elizabeth Gaskell's brilliant North and South, as well as my non-fiction reads on industrialization and populist and socialist movements in Britain and the U.S.
As Huw grows, so does the vast heap of mine tailings--slag mountains that tower over the town, pressing in relentlessly on his home, the refuge that he and his family love so well. In 1966 one of these coal-tip mountains collapsed in an avalanche that killed nearly an entire school house full of children and teachers in Aberfan.
[For another harrowing view of the history behind this moment see The Crown, Season 3 Aberfan.]
Somewhere near the midpoint the book started to fade for me and I grew lost as family members left home, found spouses, fought their own battles. It just got really confusing. I longed at least for a family tree and a timeline. The verbal round-abouts and endless descriptions began to wear away my patience. When a rather wonderful preacher describes the facts of life to Huw without ever naming a body part I mostly viewed it with astonished admiration for the inventive circumlocutions. Does Huw figure it all out? Well...at the risk of spoilers...I sort of
think so....but then again, maybe not.
But by the last 200 pages I found myself skipping and skimming....thinking "Get on with it, man! Can't you, for the love of Heaven, just tell us what
happened?" There were also some glaring plot holes that bothered the heck out of me (view spoiler)
[Why would a mother, knowing her village's Puritanical, gossip-addiction, actually encourage her teenage son to move in with the family's young, comely widow? (hide spoiler)]Content rating G: Despite the fact that this is ostensibly a coming of age novel the sex is so obscured that no one under the age of consent will be able to figure out what's happening. Some mild violence, scenes of starvation.
Rating: really liked it
I've only re-read a handful of books in my life, and I've read this one at least 5 times. If I had to pick a favorite book of all time (sacrilege!) - it would be this one. Never have I seen prose that has this much POETRY in it. How Green is a unique, lyrical beauty.
The coming-of-age narrator, Huw, so well paints a picture of his everyday struggles in a rapidly-industrialized Wales that you can literally hear the birds and smell the blackberry pie. Of course many authors are good at descriptions such as those - but where I believe Llewellyn truly distinguishes himself is in his descriptions of emotional states and experiences. He'll describe a self-righteous man looking up with eyes "hurting in goodness" or innumerate the beatings of his heart and lyrics tumbling away to Forgot as he stands in church to sing a solo... and I just want to scream inside because I've felt EXACTLY that way before and never been able to process it into such perfect words. The moral messages are amazing. The characters are unforgettable. Somehow I understand life better when I read this book.
MY FAVORITE SECTION OF ANY BOOK EVER WRITTEN:
"I am Beth Morgan," my mother said, and her voice was as deep and strong as any man. "I have come up here to tell you what I do think of you all, because I have heard you are talking against my husband. Two things in this world I do hate. One is talking behind the back, and the other is lice. So you should know what I do think of you... You are a lot of cowards to talk against my husband... How some of you can sit in the same Chapel with him I cannot tell. I would look for a flame of fire upon me, indeed. But there is one thing more I will say and that is this. If harm do come to my Gwilym, I will find out the men and I will kill them with my hands. And that I will swear by God Almighty. And there will be no Hell for me. Nobody will go to Hell for killing lice."
FAVORITE QUOTES:
I never met anybody whose talk was better than good food.
It is strange how loud little sounds become when you are in the dark and doing something wrong.
"Trouble will not stop in a man whose lungs are filled with fresh air." (Papa Gwilym)
After that, it was like trying to talk through a net. Words seemed to stick in the air. Nobody seemed willing to look at anybody else. And when somebody laughed, you could tell how hard they were trying.
"Man was made in the image of God. Is God a sheep? Because if He is, I understand why we are all so damned stupid." (Ianto)
I saw her face as she bent to blow out the candle with her mouth in the shape of a kiss, still the smile in the eyes, but now as a mother will look at her child that cries in the arms of another woman, softer, and with more of want.
He cleared his throat as though pain had been his only meal for hours.
"You cannot blame ignorant men. You might as well kick a dog for not wishing good morning." (Mr. Gruffydd)
"I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ever dreamed of, not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind. With truth. With the golden sound of the Word. But only a few heard the trumpet. Only a few understood. The rest of them put on black and sat in Chapel." (Mr. Gruffydd)
"It is only when men forget to fight for right that they fail. There are plenty to fight for wrong." (Ianto)
They could not have had more happiness in their eyes, and my heart could not have known more lightness, or I would have been off the earth and drinking the skies.
Rating: really liked it
Richard Llewellen's writing is akin to Welsh singing, so beautiful it takes your breath away. In the beginning it seems like it will bog down in talk of forming a union, but read on. Although important to carry the story, it never does get tedious with that! This story is written so beautifully it has a lilt and cadence that will lift you up. Examples:
Page 88, "O, blackberry tart, with berries as big as your thumb, purple and black, and thick with juice, and a crust to endear them that will go to cream in your mouth, and both passing down with such a taste that will make you close your eyes and wish you might live for ever in the wideness of that rich moment."
Page 159, "There is beautiful to watch a mountain sleeping, and other mountains in the other valleys rising up like bits of blue velvet to make you feel you could cut a piece and wear it for a coat, to dance in above the fat clouds."
Page 165, "Sing then. Sing, indeed, with shoulders back, and head up so that song might go to the roof and beyond to the sky. Mass on mass of tone, with a hard edge, and rich with quality, every single note a carpet of colour woven from basso profundo, and basso, and baritone, and alto, and tenor, and soprano, and alto and mezzo, and contralto, singing and singing, until life and all things living are become a song. O, Voice of Man, organ of most lovely might." Makes me long to hear the rich Welsh tones of yesteryear.
Page 231, "The more he whistled, the more the trees tried to hush him, and the bigger the tree, the bigger the hush, and beating at him with their arms to stop him tickling them, but no use, for he was in one side and out the other, and nothing they could do only wave at him, and hush more."
And on page 234, after the poetry of the words fills your soul, you can whip up some brandy broth to fill your belly: "O Brandy Broth is the King of Broth and royal in the rooms of the mouth. A good chicken and a noble piece of ham, with a little shoulder of lamb, small to have the least of grease, and then a paste of the roes of trout with cream, a bit of butter, and the yolk of egg, whipped tight and poured in when the chicken, proud with a stuffing of sage and thyme, has been elbowing the lamb and the ham in the earthenware pot until all three are tender as the heart of a mother. In with the carrots and turnips and the goodness of marrow bones, and in with a mixing of milk and potatoes. Now watch the clock and every fifteen minutes pour in a noggin of brandy, and with the first a pint of home-brewed ale. Two noggins in, and with the third, throw in the chopped bottoms of leeks, but save the green leaves until ten minutes from the time you sit to eat, for then you shall find them still a lovely green."
Page 249, "If there shall come a time when you leave this house without a proper something to eat," said my mother, "look for me on the floor."
Please read this book!
Rating: really liked it
Although as an older and more critical reader I do somewhat understand those reviewers who have found Richard Llewellyn's
How Green Was My Valley perhaps not quite nitty gritty and harshly descriptive enough with regard to showing and presenting what life used to be like in the mining towns of Wales, personally, I still have to admit that rereading
How Green Was My Valley for the first time since I totally devoured this novel when we read it for school in 1982 has been in every way as much of a pleasure now as it had been then. For while Richard Llewellyn might have penned his words with not as much fire-and-brimstone like immediacy and often visceral pain as many more contemporary writers of working-class fiction tend to do (and especially those authors who feature and depict the often dangerous working and living conditions that coal miners face or have faced), Llewelyn (at least in my opinion) still manages in ALL ways to depict the bitter along with the sweet, shows the pain and multiple threats and dangers of mining work and how Huw Morgan's family is both defined by coal mining and ultimately also and sadly quite destroyed by it (describing Huw and his family's struggles, their trials, tragedies and tribulations but also their joys and simple pleasures caressingly, beautifully, descriptively and NEVER at least in my opinion with a tendency to either tedium or over exaggeration). One of my absolute favourites of the assigned novels I (as mentioned above) had to read for school, and yes, I am indeed very much personally pleased and tickled pink that my January/February 2019 perusal of
How Green Was My Valley has stood the proverbial test of time for me and has been indeed in every fashion just as magical a reading experience this time around, for I was certainly more than a bit worried that I might not enjoy either Richard Llewellyn's prose style or the information he presents as much as I had as a teenager (but fortunately and gloriously, I need not have been worried, for
How Green Was My Valley has indeed been a simply wonderful rereading experience for me, so much so that I will gladly give a five star rating, and yes, that said five star ranking pertains to both when I perused
How Green Was My Valley as a teenager and now).
Rating: really liked it
An enjoyable story with lovely characters! I didn't want it to end!
A big thank you to my Goodread friends, Marilyn and Tracey, for the push to read such a delightful, warm hearted book!
Rating: really liked it
My sister gave me her copy of this book in a big sack of books and snacks and magazines the morning my husband and I set out to drive across the country, moving to Delaware from Utah. I started out reading it silently to myself, but after a chapter or so I had to start reading it aloud to my husband. The writing was so gorgeous, so tender and deeply felt, that I couldn't not share it. Even now, almost seventeen years later, I can remember entire passages word for word. I'm pretty sure I could tell you each episode of the book, in order. There's no plot here, it's a series of episodes or vignettes in the life of young Huw, growing up in a mining town in Wales. His family, his friends, are all here, painted with loving clarity. Such a beautiful book . . . now that I'm writing this I think I need to get my own copy and reread it. I kept my sister's copy for years, and would occasionally take it down to read a page or two.
Rating: really liked it
Arguably the finest book I have ever read.Llewellyn's novel of a young boy growing up in Welsh coal mining country at the turn of the 20th Century is so realistic it was believed for years to be autobiographical, a myth Llewellyn himself did not discourage.
The prose is so lyrical I found myself reading it aloud to my dogs, who are used to my declamations, often in dialect. Fortunately, I do not do Welsh, so they only had to hear me speak Educated North American.
If you have not read this treasure, do so with all haste.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 Stars
So is this a good book?
Yes.
Did I feel the magic of it?
Sadly, No.
Why not?
I wish I knew.
Sometimes, a book pulls you and holds you and it becomes your special possession forever more. Many people have that kind of experience with How Green Was My Valley. I truly thought I would as well. But it didn't happen for me.
It
was worth reading but....what can I say?
There is something missing, there is. My heart never became involved.
Rating: really liked it
I read this book on a cold weekend in a house built on a rock on the heights of Meghamalai, a mountain in the range we call the Western Ghats in southern India. And the whole time I was in another world. A world of simple people, simpler lives, great food, family, values and a connection to nature that has since then been completely lost.
I found myself lamenting the loss of the time Huw Morgan speaks of, cursing the slag heaps, mourning Ivor's death, and watched in horror as communism clashed with market forces in the collieries of Wales.
I know Richard Llewellyn wasn't Welsh, but that doesn't take anything away from the story he has told us. It echoes with meaning, with poetry and the smell of the mountain air. It reminds us of the life we are capable of living and contrasts it with the life we choose to live. It is less a story, more a portrait of a way of life.
I was struck most by the emotion which binds the book, start to finish. There is no point, not one, when the author's words do not feel charged and laden with meaning. There are electrifying passages, scintillating sentences, and all this time, there is a certain music in the background, a slow buzzing that means something. Reading the book was an experience.
Reading How Green was my Valley reminded me again why I read the classics, why I go back to these old books. Not just because they have so much to teach us, not just because of all the world's history they contain, but just to remind us of what we have lost, and what we'll lose still.
The last 50 or so pages had me in tears. When Davy and Ianto leave home and aren't able to say goodbye to their mother, when Huw tries to rescue his father from the pit, his mother's cries. Emotions laid bare, cold, powerful, timeless. This book is treasure.
Rating: really liked it
A few times in my reading life I have been so been so touched by a book that when it is over I feel a great loss and literally clasp the book to my chest like a loved-one just departed.
Some one once said, after seeing the beauty of Alaska, that he wished he had seen it as an old man, for it's magnificent beauty would surely spoil any scene he would ever see after. That's how I feel about this lovely, beautiful, wonderful book. I am afraid nothing I read will ever make me feel like this. I feel quite touched by it.
It's about a small coal-mining village in Wales and the people in it. The focus is on a big wonderful family that loves each other very much though they sure do have their share of trouble. The point of view is that of Huw, beginning when he is just 6 years old and going all the way to his middle age. The prose is, well, poetry. I collected my favorite bits in a list on the bag page but there are too many to fit here. Here's but a few:
"Beautiful were the days that are gone, and O, for them to be back. The mountain was green, and proud with a good covering of oak and ash, and washing his feet in a streaming river clear as the eyes of God. The winds came down with the scents of the grass and wild flowers, putting a sweetness to our noses, and taking away so that nobody could tell what beauty had been stolen, only that the winds were old robbers who took something from each grass and flower and gave it back again, and gave a little to each of us, and took it away again."
"...a tidy house, but open to the weather, and the winds had choir practice whenever they could on every side of it."
"Ceinwen was in my mind, and I kept her there as men keep libraries of rare books, seldom to be touched but happy to know you have got."
I wonder if anyone could ever write such a masterpiece again. If I ever thought I could be a writer, I don't now. I suppose I am just a reader, a proper bibliophile. With books like this, it's enough.
Rating: really liked it
The title,
How Green Was My Valley is a giveaway. We know the beautiful green valley is going to change and probably not for the better. This isn't going to be a happy story—or anyway, not one with a happy ending. Or so were my thoughts going into this book. Somehow I missed the 1941 movie* of the same name—and it had Maureen O'Hara no less, one of my all-time favorite actresses. Although Richard Llewellyn's book was first published in 1939 and sounded really familiar I don't remember ever reading it before now. Unusual for me, I waited to read anything about HGWMV until after I finished it. My only 'background', if you can call it that, were the several times back in the early 1980's when I visited Wales. It
is truly beautiful!
So everything is there for the perfect book: haunting coming-of-age-story; immensely likable main character, Huw; large, varied and loving family; idyllic setting—the 'green valley' of a Welch mining town; romance, drama and humor, even if it's all set to change. It's hard to say much about the book without giving the story away which I don't appreciate so I won't. But I keep seeing the green valleys of Wales in my mind now in a new way. When I drove there as a young US Air Force Lieutenant on a holiday they were beautiful scenery, lovely to look at and photograph. Now I see and remember them as homes, workplaces and graves of real people.
An unforgettable story.
*I'm going to have fix that!
Jun 28, 2016: This is my book-candy when Apologia Pro Vita Sua gets my head too fogged up! It's a bitter sweet little story which I can already tell isn't going to end especially happily, but I've fallen in love with the characters and the setting so that doesn't matter. I have to read it.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars - SpoilersA rather lovely and quaint coming of age story. It did take a while to get into and was quite slow and boring towards the end, but other than that it was a great read.
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How Green Was My Valley seemed like less of a story and more like a pleasant stroll through the early years of someone's life. More specifically Huw Morgan's life, with him reminiscing about his childhood and the valley that was his home. There was no real solid plot, just Huw looking back at his family, and the many changes/ups and downs he (and his family) had to face. It was delightful to just read about Huw growing up and his everyday life in the valley and the simplicity and struggle of it all.
-I adored the old fashioned, picturesque setting. The valley and mining community was portrayed so vividly and beautifully, it was easy to see why Huw loved his valley/home.
-I enjoyed Huw's character for the most part, he was much more endearing when he was younger though. I didn't find him as interesting when he was older, he seemed to lose all his charm and depth and just wasn't all that likeable. Thankfully, most of the book was about his childhood rather than his adulthood.
-I found Huw's parents quite irritating, Gwilym was so self righteous and Beth was so backwards, I guess that was realistic though for the time. Gwil and Beth's relationship was beautiful though, the love they had for each other was so pure and sweet. Even though they were great together as a couple, they were rubbish parents, I hated how they ruined Angharad's life by pushing her to marry Iestyn instead of Gruffydd. They should have known better than anyone that love would have made Angharard far, far more happier than marrying someone rich. I also hated Gruffydd for not fighting for Angharad, if he had trusted her and had faith in her (and himself) he could have saved them both from a soulless existence, instead they both ended up depressed and lonely.
-I didn't enjoy all the melodramatic metaphorical nonsense that Huw monologued about when it came to romantic love, sex, and singing/choir stuff. It was so over the top, flowery and ridiculous. Thankfully, Huw for the most part spent his time banging on about other more interesting coming-of-age stuff.
-The Marged story arc was beyond ridiculous, I didn't buy her going crazy and setting herself on fire just because of Owen. Her whole relationship with Owen occurred over the course of a few days, they didn't have a long romance or a deep connection of any kind. Their relationship consisted entirely of a few kisses and half-hearted promises over the course of a week. But for some bizarre reason Marged never recovered from his rejection, even when she got married to Gwilym (who she knew better and had far more of a bond with). Yea, Owen was barely in her life long enough for him to have such an effect on her. The whole thing was daft, if their courtship had been longer or they'd been childhood sweethearts or something then her Owen-related madness/death might have been plausible but that wasn't the case. Ugh, I hated what happened to Marged, so bloody nonsensical.
-Even though it was all fictional, the insight into the mining world, and the struggle and fight for fair wages was fascinating (as well as infuriating). It was no doubt a true enough refection on how badly miners and other such workers were treated in those days, it really made me glad not to live in such crappy, hopeless times.
-Loved the Welsh brogue, it added to the atmosphere and really gave the tight knit community a genuine feel.
-I was disappointed with where the story ended, I would have liked to know more about Huw's family and the valley. What happened to Ceinwen? Did she get to go to London and act? Did Bronwen remarry? Did Angharad and Gruffydd ever find some kind of peace and happiness in Patagonia/Cape Town? How did Beth cope without Gwil? Did the Morgan family ever reunite or keep in contact with each other or did they stay apart their whole lives? I really wanted to continue on with their stories and find out what happened to them.
-Apparently, there's three more books about Huw's life but they sound like utter rubbish, and seem to revolve solely around Huw being rich and horny. Yea, I'd rather read about Huw's family than grown-up-immoral-unfaithful-Huw-who-cares-nothing-for-his-childhood-or-the-lessons-he-learnt. I'll have to make do with just this book.
Rating: really liked it
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to rate this book.
On the one hand I recognize that it is beautifully written. Possibly the most beautifully written prose I've ever read. But beautiful prose isn't really that exciting to me. It kept putting me to sleep and it was taking FOREVER to get through the book. Finally after almost a month when I was at around page 300 I decided to start skipping "the irrelevant stuff." My husband asked how I knew I wasn't missing anything important. I told him I'd already read more than 300 pages so I had a pretty good feel for what I need to read in order to follow the plot.
I felt like I had been very patiently waiting for the author to set the stage and give me all of the background and let me get to know the characters. But I was out of patience and I was ready to find out what this book was really about. I wanted to know "what happens."
But nothing ever does. Not really. I mean all of the little story lines were interesting. I liked all of the characters and I genuinely cared about what happened to them. But I really missed the big picture. It just wasn't enough for me.
And so I can't rate the book very high, because that would be like recommending it, which I don't really. But I can't rate it low because that would be like saying it's not a good book which it obviously is. I just didn't love it.
