How Green Was My Valley

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Don't worry, though, I will be able to rest just fine tonight because I'm totally confident I didn't miss anything. Angharad’s loveless marriage to Iestyn did not stand in the way of continued friendship between Angharad and Mr Gruffyd which again became a source of gossips.

Several of his novels dealt with a Welsh theme, the best-known being How Green Was My Valley (1939), which won international acclaim and was made into a classic Hollywood film. The rhythm and pattern of Welsh speech, conversation and story telling is rendered into English with a deft and often humorous touch. It was no doubt a true enough refection on how badly miners and other such workers were treated in those days, it really made me glad not to live in such crappy, hopeless times. Yea, I'd rather read about Huw's family than grown-up-immoral-unfaithful-Huw-who-cares-nothing-for-his-childhood-or-the-lessons-he-learnt.

Try as you might to confine your reminiscences to a specific period in time, distant memories creep up on you and demand to be felt again. The 1941 Hollywood film adaptation, which was highly successful, had a cast that included Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Roddy McDowall (as Huw), Donald Crisp, and Barry Fitzgerald. Of course many authors are good at descriptions such as those - but where I believe Llewellyn truly distinguishes himself is in his descriptions of emotional states and experiences.

The 2 stars is really because I feel flat out terrible leaving just 1 star, so I rounded up from the barely 1. It aches because I long to be apart of something so perfect and wish for such beauty in everything I experience. One of my absolute favourites of the assigned novels I (as mentioned above) had to read for school, and yes, I am indeed very much personally pleased and tickled pink that my January/February 2019 perusal of How Green Was My Valley has stood the proverbial test of time for me and has been indeed in every fashion just as magical a reading experience this time around, for I was certainly more than a bit worried that I might not enjoy either Richard Llewellyn's prose style or the information he presents as much as I had as a teenager (but fortunately and gloriously, I need not have been worried, for How Green Was My Valley has indeed been a simply wonderful rereading experience for me, so much so that I will gladly give a five star rating, and yes, that said five star ranking pertains to both when I perused How Green Was My Valley as a teenager and now).I bought this especially for the challenge as I’d agreed with Mallika from Literary Potpourri that we would do a buddy read of it (we both read it at the same time and are sharing each other’s reviews but didn’t discuss it separately to these, mainly for reasons of my holiday! Her feelings were reciprocated, but Mr Gruffyd was keenly aware of his meager financial situations, which was in contrast to the wealth of another suitor of Angharad, Iestyn Evans. The original print run also included a glossary covering Welsh words and terms at the end of the book. I have come up here to tell you what I do think of you all, because I have heard you are talking against my husband. Not just because they have so much to teach us, not just because of all the world's history they contain, but just to remind us of what we have lost, and what we'll lose still.

My emotions become tied up in all of the books I have loved over the years, and it matters very little what genre they are or what the writing style is or when they were written and by whom. Truly the most lyrical and beautiful book I have ever read, I'll be all set to pick it up again in another ten years or so. Thankfully, Huw for the most part spent his time banging on about other more interesting coming-of-age stuff. Well, I'm rather disappointed with this apparent 'classic' as quite honestly it was such a slog to get through.It's a bitter sweet little story which I can already tell isn't going to end especially happily, but I've fallen in love with the characters and the setting so that doesn't matter. I loved this book when I read it decades ago, after seeing the 1941 film adaptation (which, by the way, is excellent! The latter was a cause for internal shame for Huw who acknowledged the impropriety of having feelings for one’s sister-in-law, even though he did not act on them. All I remember is sadness from it, and I’m quite sure from your review that I can’t bear to read it.