December 2016 - Harvest - Jim Crace

Walt has lived with the workers on Mr Kent's estate for 12 years, had a wife and buried her and now has a relationship of convenience with a widowed neighbour. It appears to be a feudal village very set in its ways and customs. 

The story details event in the village after the harvest. It starts with a fire in Mr Kent's barn which in all likelihood was set by a trio of likely village lads after a drunken night out. But with the arrival of family of three into the community these become the scapegoats for the fire and the 2 newly arrived men are placed in the stocks. The woman has her head shaved but is still attractive to many of the village men including Walt.

The next new arrival is Mr Kent's cousin who comes with a 'surveyor' to claim the estate, and wants to enclose it for sheep farming. This would mean the loss of grazing and other long held rights for the villagers. Walt is deputed to assist the surveyor.

Following the violent death of Mr Kent's horse a couple of women are accused of witchery and are imprisoned in the manor house by the cousin's soldiery who torture and- the inference is- rape them. This includes the 5 year old harvest queen.

The villagers flee with as many of their possessions as they can manage. Walt is left to try to negotiate the release of the hostages with Mr Kent and to search for the surveyor who has vanished and the shaven headed woman who continues to surreptitiously feed her husband still in the stocks. (Her father having died there and been partially eaten by a pig!)

Eventually Mr Kent and his cousin all leave in stages with the hostages still guarded by the soldiers and Walt hides to see them go. He then releases the remaining stranger from the stocks who reunited with his wife takes up residence alongside Walt in the manor house (where Walt has already found the surveyor, long dead.) 

Walt is supposed to be guarding the estate but with the village deserted except for the two strangers whom he distrusts, he decides to pack up his possessions and leave.

The strangers loot and set fire to the manor house and they too leave.

This was not an easy book to get into although the descriptive language conjured up both attractive and shocking images. Most of us persevered to the end but there was some dissatisfaction with the inability to locate the tale in either time or place. In discussion we mooted the idea of England at the time of the first enclosure acts in C18 but this was by no means certain.

Others liked the fact that the lack of time and place gave it universality.

Themes we discussed included:

• The impact of new arrivals – immigrants – on a closed and traditional community
• The way in which such strangers can evoke suspicion and become scapegoats
• The never changing behaviour of young tearaways
• Fear of and resistance to change
• Abuse of women