Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Hiraeth, 19 Mar 2008
The book has been in my consciousness for the last 30 years and is something I have always wanted to read. The Library of Wales reprint in 2006 came at exactly the right time; as a 40 something London exile nothing has explained my mental state quite like Border Country. It's difficult for me to detach myself from the book and recommend it, but what the hell.

Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Hiraeth, 19 Mar 2008
The book has been in my consciousness for the last 30 years and is something I have always wanted to read. The Library of Wales reprint in 2006 came at exactly the right time; as a 40 something London exile nothing has explained my mental state quite like Border Country. It's difficult for me to detach myself from the book and recommend it, but what the hell.

a raw novel in every sense, 11 Apr 2006
This is the first book in the Library of Wales series, which aims to republish classics of Welsh literature 'to bring back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people' (Dai Smith, series editor). First published in 1970, Ron Berry's novel is the tale of an up-and-coming boxer who accidentally kills his wife's lover and is thus forced to go on the run. Like all the best sports writing, it's a novel that uses sport to tell a wider story.

It's a raw novel in every sense. The prose is Rhondda English: stark and cold, working to its own rules and rhythms. The story tells of people lost in worlds of drink, resentment, broken dreams and enduring emotional wounds. Yet, most of the characters, who each have their turn at narrating the evolving plot, possess a quiet dignity that transcends the physical and emotional brutality of the novel. They are also articulate in a way that way that defies their limited language; they reflect on their lives and situations and thus give the book an historical as well as literary value. Here is an ordinary people who seek solace in different ways, some at the bottom of a glass, some in the violence, glamour and excitement of the ring, some in the banal thrills and companionship of marriage and affairs.

The different perspectives Berry weaves together give the book a complex structure that, at first, is not easy to penetrate. It's probably for this reason that the novel is not better known but once the reader adjusts to ever-shifting camera and the slang of the narrators, the book becomes an absorbing human drama acted out against a background of valleys life and boxing. Although, boxing is a sport that has inspired much great writing in the United States, there is no classic piece of British boxing literature. But here is a novel that comes close and, like the sport itself, it both absorbs and disturbs the onlooker. The horror and delight boxing gives lies in what the sport says about the human condition and the same is true of So Long Hector Bebb. The human resolution and desolation of the book is not a uniquely Welsh condition but it is one that has helped make the Welsh experience.

Like Early Niall Griffiths, 10 Mar 2006
You can see on reading this book the very strong influence it had on a young Niall Griffiths ( Grits, Sheepshagger, Kelly & Victor etc ), who writes the introduction. This is a story of real people living a less than glamorous existence in the Welsh Valleys of the early? 1960’s.

The story is told by the characters in turn in the first person in the argot of the Valleys. Bebb is the star young boxer, that Sammy the trainer and Abe the Manager have hoped for all their lives. The story is what he means to them when all their hopes are tied up in “this one perfect fighting machine” and how he and circumstances affect those around him.

It is not a book that deserved to be lost – it fits the cannon of Welsh books written in English that describes a Welsh way of life far removed from the choristers colliers of “How Green was My Valley” schmaltz. It is true to life and smells of the sweat of the boxing gym, and sounds like the talk in the back bar.

William Williams this isn't., 17 Jan 2006
Strange that a book vaunted as a "forgotten Welsh literary classic" should contain so much American slang and Anglo-Saxon profanity. However the spelling could be described as Welsh; it certainly is not English.
This book was forgotten for a reason.

Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Hiraeth, 19 Mar 2008
The book has been in my consciousness for the last 30 years and is something I have always wanted to read. The Library of Wales reprint in 2006 came at exactly the right time; as a 40 something London exile nothing has explained my mental state quite like Border Country. It's difficult for me to detach myself from the book and recommend it, but what the hell.

a raw novel in every sense, 11 Apr 2006
This is the first book in the Library of Wales series, which aims to republish classics of Welsh literature 'to bring back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people' (Dai Smith, series editor). First published in 1970, Ron Berry's novel is the tale of an up-and-coming boxer who accidentally kills his wife's lover and is thus forced to go on the run. Like all the best sports writing, it's a novel that uses sport to tell a wider story.

It's a raw novel in every sense. The prose is Rhondda English: stark and cold, working to its own rules and rhythms. The story tells of people lost in worlds of drink, resentment, broken dreams and enduring emotional wounds. Yet, most of the characters, who each have their turn at narrating the evolving plot, possess a quiet dignity that transcends the physical and emotional brutality of the novel. They are also articulate in a way that way that defies their limited language; they reflect on their lives and situations and thus give the book an historical as well as literary value. Here is an ordinary people who seek solace in different ways, some at the bottom of a glass, some in the violence, glamour and excitement of the ring, some in the banal thrills and companionship of marriage and affairs.

The different perspectives Berry weaves together give the book a complex structure that, at first, is not easy to penetrate. It's probably for this reason that the novel is not better known but once the reader adjusts to ever-shifting camera and the slang of the narrators, the book becomes an absorbing human drama acted out against a background of valleys life and boxing. Although, boxing is a sport that has inspired much great writing in the United States, there is no classic piece of British boxing literature. But here is a novel that comes close and, like the sport itself, it both absorbs and disturbs the onlooker. The horror and delight boxing gives lies in what the sport says about the human condition and the same is true of So Long Hector Bebb. The human resolution and desolation of the book is not a uniquely Welsh condition but it is one that has helped make the Welsh experience.

Like Early Niall Griffiths, 10 Mar 2006
You can see on reading this book the very strong influence it had on a young Niall Griffiths ( Grits, Sheepshagger, Kelly & Victor etc ), who writes the introduction. This is a story of real people living a less than glamorous existence in the Welsh Valleys of the early? 1960’s.

The story is told by the characters in turn in the first person in the argot of the Valleys. Bebb is the star young boxer, that Sammy the trainer and Abe the Manager have hoped for all their lives. The story is what he means to them when all their hopes are tied up in “this one perfect fighting machine” and how he and circumstances affect those around him.

It is not a book that deserved to be lost – it fits the cannon of Welsh books written in English that describes a Welsh way of life far removed from the choristers colliers of “How Green was My Valley” schmaltz. It is true to life and smells of the sweat of the boxing gym, and sounds like the talk in the back bar.

William Williams this isn't., 17 Jan 2006
Strange that a book vaunted as a "forgotten Welsh literary classic" should contain so much American slang and Anglo-Saxon profanity. However the spelling could be described as Welsh; it certainly is not English.
This book was forgotten for a reason.

Ardderchog - excelent, 03 Mar 2001
This is in Welsh the English translation is at the bottom!

Hwn yw'r cyflwyniad llawnaf yn y maes sydd ar gael. Y mae'r awdur yn arbenigwr ar lên gwerin Cymru ac y mae'r llyfr yn arweiniad da i gyfoeth llên gwerin Cymru - a llyfr dwyieithog ydyw (Saesneg a Chymraeg), felly bydd o help i'r rhai sy'n dysgu Cymraeg hefyd.

This is the most comprehensive introduction to this field of study. The author is an expert on Welsh folklore and the book is a good guide to the richness of Welsh folklore - it is a bilingual book (Welsh and English)it will therefore be of use to people who are learning Welsh as well as those interested in Folklore

Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Hiraeth, 19 Mar 2008
The book has been in my consciousness for the last 30 years and is something I have always wanted to read. The Library of Wales reprint in 2006 came at exactly the right time; as a 40 something London exile nothing has explained my mental state quite like Border Country. It's difficult for me to detach myself from the book and recommend it, but what the hell.

a raw novel in every sense, 11 Apr 2006
This is the first book in the Library of Wales series, which aims to republish classics of Welsh literature 'to bring back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people' (Dai Smith, series editor). First published in 1970, Ron Berry's novel is the tale of an up-and-coming boxer who accidentally kills his wife's lover and is thus forced to go on the run. Like all the best sports writing, it's a novel that uses sport to tell a wider story.

It's a raw novel in every sense. The prose is Rhondda English: stark and cold, working to its own rules and rhythms. The story tells of people lost in worlds of drink, resentment, broken dreams and enduring emotional wounds. Yet, most of the characters, who each have their turn at narrating the evolving plot, possess a quiet dignity that transcends the physical and emotional brutality of the novel. They are also articulate in a way that way that defies their limited language; they reflect on their lives and situations and thus give the book an historical as well as literary value. Here is an ordinary people who seek solace in different ways, some at the bottom of a glass, some in the violence, glamour and excitement of the ring, some in the banal thrills and companionship of marriage and affairs.

The different perspectives Berry weaves together give the book a complex structure that, at first, is not easy to penetrate. It's probably for this reason that the novel is not better known but once the reader adjusts to ever-shifting camera and the slang of the narrators, the book becomes an absorbing human drama acted out against a background of valleys life and boxing. Although, boxing is a sport that has inspired much great writing in the United States, there is no classic piece of British boxing literature. But here is a novel that comes close and, like the sport itself, it both absorbs and disturbs the onlooker. The horror and delight boxing gives lies in what the sport says about the human condition and the same is true of So Long Hector Bebb. The human resolution and desolation of the book is not a uniquely Welsh condition but it is one that has helped make the Welsh experience.

Like Early Niall Griffiths, 10 Mar 2006
You can see on reading this book the very strong influence it had on a young Niall Griffiths ( Grits, Sheepshagger, Kelly & Victor etc ), who writes the introduction. This is a story of real people living a less than glamorous existence in the Welsh Valleys of the early? 1960’s.

The story is told by the characters in turn in the first person in the argot of the Valleys. Bebb is the star young boxer, that Sammy the trainer and Abe the Manager have hoped for all their lives. The story is what he means to them when all their hopes are tied up in “this one perfect fighting machine” and how he and circumstances affect those around him.

It is not a book that deserved to be lost – it fits the cannon of Welsh books written in English that describes a Welsh way of life far removed from the choristers colliers of “How Green was My Valley” schmaltz. It is true to life and smells of the sweat of the boxing gym, and sounds like the talk in the back bar.

William Williams this isn't., 17 Jan 2006
Strange that a book vaunted as a "forgotten Welsh literary classic" should contain so much American slang and Anglo-Saxon profanity. However the spelling could be described as Welsh; it certainly is not English.
This book was forgotten for a reason.

Ardderchog - excelent, 03 Mar 2001
This is in Welsh the English translation is at the bottom!

Hwn yw'r cyflwyniad llawnaf yn y maes sydd ar gael. Y mae'r awdur yn arbenigwr ar lên gwerin Cymru ac y mae'r llyfr yn arweiniad da i gyfoeth llên gwerin Cymru - a llyfr dwyieithog ydyw (Saesneg a Chymraeg), felly bydd o help i'r rhai sy'n dysgu Cymraeg hefyd.

This is the most comprehensive introduction to this field of study. The author is an expert on Welsh folklore and the book is a good guide to the richness of Welsh folklore - it is a bilingual book (Welsh and English)it will therefore be of use to people who are learning Welsh as well as those interested in Folklore

Wonderful, 06 Oct 2008
Wonderfully sad, you want Amy (the main character) to succeed in life but know when reading that despite everything she's going to end up exactly as she does; fat and lonely, looking after her brother whom her mother loved more than her. Somehow avoids being depressing and remains a beautiful story. Worth a read!

Disappointing..., 28 Nov 2008
I wanted to like this book, but the truth is, it just bored me. I couldn't see the point of it. It didn't seem to be about anything. I know some people might say I've missed the point of it or it's about a place and a moment in time, but I just look at all the praise it's garnered and wonder if they're talking about a different book. It's very well-written but it's just too sterile, too clinical. I never really felt anything about any of the characters and some of them I couldn't see the point of at all, most particularly the storyline involving Rotherham and Hess. It just didn't seem to do anything for the book and the link to Esther and Karsten's story was tenuous in the extreme.

One of those all-nighter reads., 29 Oct 2008
One of those gems, heard about it through the Richard and Judy bookclub, something I tried to steer clear of initially! The book deals with a Welsh village "invaded" by English soldiers and then prisoners of war. Themes include trying to keep a national identity and the sense of a village when English culture and the war are coming in by stealth. Confusion about who is the enemy, the English or the Germans. Another theme is about identity, how you see yourself and how others see you. There are 2 storylines going through the book, the first is about a girl living in the village and the second about a Jewish interpreter.

Patriotism and Identity, 09 Oct 2008
Be prepared for a slow read and you won't be disappointed. The prose is, at times, quite beautiful and Peter Ho Davies has a style all of his own. Through the novel he questions ideas regarding the way in which we view our loyalties and courage, as well as our identities. It also highlights the fact that war is a very masculine thing, during which the real nature of female nurturing comes to the forefront. The author is sometimes almost poetic when describing unremarkable actions; this is one passage I particularly liked : 'He starts to write. In the swaying candlelight the lines on the paper look like strips of bandages, and he has the strangest impression of his writing hand, unwinding them as it moves across the page, revealing the words beneath.' An unusual description, but so easily imagined. I enjoyed this novel, not just for the thoughts it provoked, but for its beautiful use of the English language (even though it's set in North Wales!).

It is a poor read where facts have gone out of the window., 28 Sep 2008
Having read the critics about this book,I bought it.What a disappointment,it dragged on,it repeated itself over and over again.Now that I have waded through it I am no wiser for what I have read,it said nothing.I am not the only one in the family who is of the same opinion,although we normally read totaly different books we both had a go at this to see if either of us had opposed ideas,we didn't.How it got on to the Richard and Judy list I cannot imagine although I have found previously, books seem to get on to that list without too much merit.I will think twice before I purchase a book recomended by them again.Thinking about it,maybe the auther tried to be too clever bringing into this tale,bits of world war two of which he knew only hearsay but few facts.The entire book was badly written and the story badly planned.Don't waste your time reading this when there are so many really good books available.

Richard and Judy clouded my judgement!, 01 Sep 2008
It sounded so good when they discussed it - but actually this novel is confused and confusing, without a central character with whom the reader can empathise.
I was really disappointed and ask myself who chooses these R and J titles?
If you are really interested in the war then you might find it tolerable, but as a rollicking good read - it fails.

Hiraeth, 19 Mar 2008
The book has been in my consciousness for the last 30 years and is something I have always wanted to read. The Library of Wales reprint in 2006 came at exactly the right time; as a 40 something London exile nothing has explained my mental state quite like Border Country. It's difficult for me to detach myself from the book and recommend it, but what the hell.

a raw novel in every sense, 11 Apr 2006
This is the first book in the Library of Wales series, which aims to republish classics of Welsh literature 'to bring back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people' (Dai Smith, series editor). First published in 1970, Ron Berry's novel is the tale of an up-and-coming boxer who accidentally kills his wife's lover and is thus forced to go on the run. Like all the best sports writing, it's a novel that uses sport to tell a wider story.

It's a raw novel in every sense. The prose is Rhondda English: stark and cold, working to its own rules and rhythms. The story tells of people lost in worlds of drink, resentment, broken dreams and enduring emotional wounds. Yet, most of the characters, who each have their turn at narrating the evolving plot, possess a quiet dignity that transcends the physical and emotional brutality of the novel. They are also articulate in a way that way that defies their limited language; they reflect on their lives and situations and thus give the book an historical as well as literary value. Here is an ordinary people who seek solace in different ways, some at the bottom of a glass, some in the violence, glamour and excitement of the ring, some in the banal thrills and companionship of marriage and affairs.

The different perspectives Berry weaves together give the book a complex structure that, at first, is not easy to penetrate. It's probably for this reason that the novel is not better known but once the reader adjusts to ever-shifting camera and the slang of the narrators, the book becomes an absorbing human drama acted out against a background of valleys life and boxing. Although, boxing is a sport that has inspired much great writing in the United States, there is no classic piece of British boxing literature. But here is a novel that comes close and, like the sport itself, it both absorbs and disturbs the onlooker. The horror and delight boxing gives lies in what the sport says about the human condition and the same is true of So Long Hector Bebb. The human resolution and desolation of the book is not a uniquely Welsh condition but it is one that has helped make the Welsh experience.

Like Early Niall Griffiths, 10 Mar 2006
You can see on reading this book the very strong influence it had on a young Niall Griffiths ( Grits, Sheepshagger, Kelly & Victor etc ), who writes the introduction. This is a story of real people living a less than glamorous existence in the Welsh Valleys of the early? 1960’s.

The story is told by the characters in turn in the first person in the argot of the Valleys. Bebb is the star young boxer, that Sammy the trainer and Abe the Manager have hoped for all their lives. The story is what he means to them when all their hopes are tied up in “this one perfect fighting machine” and how he and circumstances affect those around him.

It is not a book that deserved to be lost – it fits the cannon of Welsh books written in English that describes a Welsh way of life far removed from the choristers colliers of “How Green was My Valley” schmaltz. It is true to life and smells of the sweat of the boxing gym, and sounds like the talk in the back bar.

William Williams this isn't., 17 Jan 2006
Strange that a book vaunted as a "forgotten Welsh literary classic" should contain so much American slang and Anglo-Saxon profanity. However the spelling could be described as Welsh; it certainly is not English.
This book was forgotten for a reason.

Ardderchog - excelent, 03 Mar 2001
This is in Welsh the English translation is at the bottom!

Hwn yw'r cyflwyniad llawnaf yn y maes sydd ar gael. Y mae'r awdur yn arbenigwr ar lên gwerin Cymru ac y mae'r llyfr yn arweiniad da i gyfoeth llên gwerin Cymru - a llyfr dwyieithog ydyw (Saesneg a Chymraeg), felly bydd o help i'r rhai sy'n dysgu Cymraeg hefyd.

This is the most comprehensive introduction to this field of study. The author is an expert on Welsh folklore and the book is a good guide to the richness of Welsh folklore - it is a bilingual book (Welsh and English)it will therefore be of use to people who are learning Welsh as well as those interested in Folklore

Wonderful, 06 Oct 2008
Wonderfully sad, you want Amy (the main character) to succeed in life but know when reading that despite everything she's going to end up exactly as she does; fat and lonely, looking after her brother whom her mother loved more than her. Somehow avoids being depressing and remains a beautiful story. Worth a read!

A beautifully rendered novella, 31 May 2008
I came across this novella as a "Book at Bedtime" on Radio 4, and I'm so glad I did. I had never heard of this writer or book. It is the story of a dairy maid, Ann Goodman, living on the English/ Welsh border in the nineteenth century. She torn between her warring desires, her English and Welsh sides, as much as she is between the two men in her life, one English, one Welsh. You know that this is never going to have a happy outcome, but the economical rendition of Ann's words in her journal give the novella a beautiful elegance.