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    Withered Root
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    Withered Root
    Unavailable
    Withered Root
    Ebook341 pages5 hours

    Withered Root

    By Rhys Davies

    5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The Withered Root recounts the troubled life of Reuben Daniels, reared in a south Wales industrial valley, in the bosom of the Nonconformist culture. Therein lies his downfall and that of his people, for The Withered Root is as thoroughly opposed to Welsh Nonconformity as My People (Caradoc Evans), though for different reasons. Revivalist passions constitute nothing but a perverse outlet for an all too human sexuality which chapel culture has otherwise repressed. Nonconformity has withered the root of natural sexual well-being in the Welsh, and then feeds off the twisted fruits.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherParthian Books
    Release dateOct 31, 2014
    ISBN9781910409268
    Unavailable
    Withered Root
    Author

    Rhys Davies

    Rhys Davies was born in 1901 in Blaenclydach in the Rhondda Valley. Leaving school at the age of 14, he managed to live by his pen for fifty years. He was among the most dedicated, prolific and accomplished of Welsh prose authors, writing over a hundred short stories, eighteen novels, including The Withered Root (1927) and The Black Venus (1944), the autobiography Print of a Hare's Foot (1969), and the play No Escape (1954). He died in 1978.

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    • 5/5
      The Withered Root is, like Queen of the Rushes by Allen Raine, a story of the Welsh Revival -- the renewal of religious feeling in the people of Wales. Like Queen of the Rushes, it seems half-disgusted by the excess of feeling it all stirred up, the wildness of it, and the hypocrisy. The Revival brings out senseless madness in so many of the people in these two books, rather than any true religious feeling.

      Rhys Davies was supposed to be better at short stories than novels, but I've enjoyed both. His writing vividly brings to life what he's writing about. The only jarring thing, to me, is the way that he has Welsh people speak -- but at the time he was writing, it was like that. It just seems faintly Yoda-like to someone of my generation who didn't grow up in Wales in any case...

      He wrote the novel using his own experiences, so it all rings very true -- the speech, the characters, the situations. I'll read more by Rhys Davies, when I get chance.