John Reve is the priest in a small, dismal English town during the Middle Ages. When, on the day before Lent, the town's most prosperous and worldly resident is drowned without having confessed his sins, Reve invites his dean to investigate the death. The book provides a n engaging portrait of rural life in the Middle Ages.

The author utilized some unusual techniques in this book. First, we learn about the town and it's people from their confessions to Reve in the confessional. Second, the author starts the book four days after the drowning occurred and then moves backward in time to the day the drowning occurred. The problem with this approach is that once events are revealed at the end of the book, numerous threads are left dangling that would normally be addressed after the time point that the book begins. As a result of these dangling threads, I found the book to be disappointing. An epilogue set one year later would have addressed this problem. ( )

The Year of Our Lord, 1491. The hundred-or-so villagers of Oakham, in rural Somerset, are celebrating the raucous days of Carnival. This year, however, a tragic occurrence has cast a pall over the revelry. Thomas Newman has disappeared, likely carried away by the churning waters of the river which cuts of the village from the rest of the world. Newman was a relative newcomer to Oakham, having settled there upon the death of his wife and daughter. However, thanks to his financial clout, he acquired much of the surrounding land, meaning that most of the villagers depend upon him for their living. Moreover, despite his unorthodox ideas, he is considered a person bearing moral authority. His sudden death – whether through accident, murder or suicide – can only bring bad tidings to Oakham. Especially since the rural dean has descended on the village to investigate, and there are rumblings of monks setting their sights on Oakham’s fields.

Reading a skeletal outline of the plot, you’d be forgiven for expecting “The Western Wind” to be another “medieval crime novel”. But this is so much more than a “cozy historical mystery”. It is narrated by the village priest, John Reve, who as the repository of Oakham’s secrets, is the closest we get to a detective figure. Interestingly, Reve reveals more about himself than about the villagers – indeed, on one level, this novel could be read as a book-length character study of Reve. He comes across as a person with a mission, one who considers himself as chosen by God, but is torn by feelings of inadequacy. It seems that he is being continuously being weighed (including in a literal sense) and found wanting – whether by his flock, by his ecclesiastical superiors or by God himself. The 'western wind' becomes the metaphor for the deliverance for which Reve prays, to no avail.

A particular characteristic of the novel is the narrative timeline which, in a structure worthy of a Christopher Nolan movie, moves backwards from Shrove Tuesday to the Saturday before. It is a deliberately confusing ploy which leaves the reader feeling thrown into the deep end, much like Newman’s fatal dive into the river. But it’s a brilliant move – as it effectively evokes the feeling of loss and incomprehension shared by the villagers of Oakham.

Early readers praised the novel’s historical accuracy. I do not have enough knowledge of the period to comment about this. However, I did find some aspects of the novel unconvincing. What disturbed me most is the fact that Reve, who otherwise comes across as quite a decent and dedicated priest, displays an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude towards the secret of confession. By the time the events in the novel take place, the gravity of a breach of the “seal of confession” had been established for centuries, with severe canonical and spiritual consequences for whoever went against this strict rule. Yet, Reve lightly discusses penitents’ confessions with his superiors without any feeling of compunction or fear of worldly or otherworldly punishment.

Another slightly puzzling point is that, apart from the “confessions” which are central to the plot, and apart from his ruminations about whether he is a “good enough” shepherd of the Oakham flock, Reve rarely seems to discuss theology, or religious rites, rituals and prayers. Indeed, despite the narrator being a priest and in spite of the fact that the novel touches upon subjects such as faith and superstition, I wouldn’t classify this as a “religious” novel, and it does not delve into the type of theological discourse you will find in novels such as [b:The Diary of a Country Priest|63672|The Diary of a Country Priest|Georges Bernanos|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1436634216s/63672.jpg|1174195], [b:Gilead|68210|Gilead (Gilead, #1)|Marilynne Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451555787s/68210.jpg|2481792] or, for that matter, the more recent [b:Fire Sermon|35412371|Fire Sermon|Jamie Quatro|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1505931206s/35412371.jpg|55176666].

Then again, the feeling I got was that the primary concern of the novel is neither religious nor historical. What the Western Wind gives us instead is a complete immersion into the world conjured by the author. The novel creates an almost physical sense of oppression, of damp, of fetid air; of a sense of poverty and sickness; of helplessness in the face of impending catastrophic change. What counts at the end of the day is not strict historical accuracy - just as the narrative style sounds convincingly “archaic”, without necessarily accurately mimicking 15th century parlance, the novel definitely delivers a sense of “authenticity”.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/11/village-green-preservation-society-ta... ( )

The Year of Our Lord, 1491. The hundred-or-so villagers of Oakham, in rural Somerset, are celebrating the raucous days of Carnival. This year, however, a tragic occurrence has cast a pall over the revelry. Thomas Newman has disappeared, likely carried away by the churning waters of the river which cuts of the village from the rest of the world. Newman was a relative newcomer to Oakham, having settled there upon the death of his wife and daughter. However, thanks to his financial clout, he acquired much of the surrounding land, meaning that most of the villagers depend upon him for their living. Moreover, despite his unorthodox ideas, he is considered a person bearing moral authority. His sudden death – whether through accident, murder or suicide – can only bring bad tidings to Oakham. Especially since the rural dean has descended on the village to investigate, and there are rumblings of monks setting their sights on Oakham’s fields.

Reading a skeletal outline of the plot, you’d be forgiven for expecting “The Western Wind” to be another “medieval crime novel”. But this is so much more than a “cozy historical mystery”. It is narrated by the village priest, John Reve, who as the repository of Oakham’s secrets, is the closest we get to a detective figure. Interestingly, Reve reveals more about himself than about the villagers – indeed, on one level, this novel could be read as a book-length character study of Reve. He comes across as a person with a mission, one who considers himself as chosen by God, but is torn by feelings of inadequacy. It seems that he is being continuously being weighed (including in a literal sense) and found wanting – whether by his flock, by his ecclesiastical superiors or by God himself. The 'western wind' becomes the metaphor for the deliverance for which Reve prays, to no avail.

A particular characteristic of the novel is the narrative timeline which, in a structure worthy of a Christopher Nolan movie, moves backwards from Shrove Tuesday to the Saturday before. It is a deliberately confusing ploy which leaves the reader feeling thrown into the deep end, much like Newman’s fatal dive into the river. But it’s a brilliant move – as it effectively evokes the feeling of loss and incomprehension shared by the villagers of Oakham.

Early readers praised the novel’s historical accuracy. I do not have enough knowledge of the period to comment about this. However, I did find some aspects of the novel unconvincing. What disturbed me most is the fact that Reve, who otherwise comes across as quite a decent and dedicated priest, displays an uncharacteristically cavalier attitude towards the secret of confession. By the time the events in the novel take place, the gravity of a breach of the “seal of confession” had been established for centuries, with severe canonical and spiritual consequences for whoever went against this strict rule. Yet, Reve lightly discusses penitents’ confessions with his superiors without any feeling of compunction or fear of worldly or otherworldly punishment.

Another slightly puzzling point is that, apart from the “confessions” which are central to the plot, and apart from his ruminations about whether he is a “good enough” shepherd of the Oakham flock, Reve rarely seems to discuss theology, or religious rites, rituals and prayers. Indeed, despite the narrator being a priest and in spite of the fact that the novel touches upon subjects such as faith and superstition, I wouldn’t classify this as a “religious” novel, and it does not delve into the type of theological discourse you will find in novels such as [b:The Diary of a Country Priest|63672|The Diary of a Country Priest|Georges Bernanos|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1436634216s/63672.jpg|1174195], [b:Gilead|68210|Gilead (Gilead, #1)|Marilynne Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451555787s/68210.jpg|2481792] or, for that matter, the more recent [b:Fire Sermon|35412371|Fire Sermon|Jamie Quatro|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1505931206s/35412371.jpg|55176666].

Then again, the feeling I got was that the primary concern of the novel is neither religious nor historical. What the Western Wind gives us instead is a complete immersion into the world conjured by the author. The novel creates an almost physical sense of oppression, of damp, of fetid air; of a sense of poverty and sickness; of helplessness in the face of impending catastrophic change. What counts at the end of the day is not strict historical accuracy - just as the narrative style sounds convincingly “archaic”, without necessarily accurately mimicking 15th century parlance, the novel definitely delivers a sense of “authenticity”.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/11/village-green-preservation-society-ta... ( )

A bit of a mixed bag. Samantha Harvey's The Western Wind is set in an out-of-the-way village in 1490s England, and the first half of the book in particular is a careful portrait of a small medieval community, written with a keen eye for landscape and the mundane details of everyday life. In that early part of the novel, too, Harvey impressed me with her attempt to enter into a medieval mindset—there are some anachronisms, yes, but I'll take a more convincing mentality with some mistakes about days and clothes any day over a book where 21st-century characters are playing dress-up in perfect period attire.

However, the novel flags in the latter part, even its early lyricism fading; it read almost as if Harvey ran out of things to say earlier than her self-imposed chronological structure allowed. Still an interesting read, and I would pick up another book by Harvey if I came across it, but I finished The Western Wind feeling as if there were possible depths to it that she had never quite plumbed. ( )

What a beautiful, brilliant book!

Told in the first person by the priest of a hamlet that has found the body of its leading citizen/benefactor drowned. Starts on Day 4 Shrove (also Pancake) Tuesday 17th February, 1491 and moves backward in time, one day at a time.

When I finished, I cleared my reading deck and took the time to read it backwards: Day 1 to 4. Just as brilliant. ( )