Lebensraum for
sheep - that was a major aim of England’s Enclosure movement which cleared the countryside
of people and replaced them with wool-producers. The people ended up in towns
and cities - forced draft urbanisation – and often enough, working with wool.
Or else, drowning their sorrows in drink.
Jim Crace has imagined the arrival of Enclosure through the
eyes of one man, Walter Thirsk, the first-person narrator of this 270 page
novel. Positioned as someone ranking a bit above the ordinary peasantry but as
much a helper than a servant to the old Master, Walter is not a hero, has many
flaws and faults – but not any shortage of vocabulary.
Crace succeeds in filling his narrator with fine descriptive
powers, a lucid ability to express his inner turmoil, well-turned phrases and,
perhaps above all, a sense of pace.
As in other novels by Crace that I have read, the pacing is
extraordinary. A tired reader will occasionally want the pace to quicken but
Crace always takes his time and always uses it well. He has a story to tell and
he wants you to attend to it. It’s not going to be complicated and he’s not going
to try to mislead you or bamboozle you. He’s a story teller.
Like Quarantine
and The Pesthouse, which I have also
read, this is a very fine book.
