Overview:
As so often in Crace's work, the setting of Harvest is vivid but not specific. It is simply The Village, a place of 58 inhabitants, many of them related. The nearest market town is "two days by post-horse, three days by chariot". Plague is still a threat. This is no arcadia: the villagers struggle to live on the products of their harvest, and on their livestock, and have learned to regard nature as "inflexible and stern". Even in a good year, winter is "the hungry months".
Walter Thirsk, the narrator, tells his story in rhythmical, incantatory prose, clearly not contemporary but not inflexibly antiquated either. Readers of Crace's previous novels will expect Walter's startling way with metaphor: a midnight storm "enamelling" puddles; air that is "stewed"; a woman's "finchy" voice. They will also be unsurprised to find a good deal of specialist vocabulary and may wonder, Crace being famous for playful inventions, what terms among ruddock, longpurple, eringe, pippinjay, sorehock and suffingale are genuine.
This is a novel with plenty of incident but little drama, creating its considerable power, instead, through Walter's mesmerising narrative. At the end, it may not be too fanciful to conflate Walter and Crace, as the narrator steps out of bounds and says farewell to a way of life.
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
Sincerelyours
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!
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