Part of the objective of this project was to wean me off buying every book that caught my fancy only to languish on my shelf and it has helped with this. I’ve certainly become much more dependent on my local (excellent) library for books. This is a good thing because a friend recommended The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey and it was in our library. He spoke very highly of it as a sort of murder mystery set in 15th century England and said it was very accurate theologically and religiously.
It took me a week to finish because it may be historically accurate but that period of history could be very depressing. I was not tempted by descriptions of mud and disease and poverty to stay up all night reading. This book really depressed me.
That said it is very well written and it may be that if the daily news was less depressing perhaps I would have had more energy for it. The narrative flows backwards. The book opens on Shrove Tuesday, moves to Shrove Monday, and then ends at the beginning on the Sunday. From the first pages you know that a member of the village has drowned but it isn’t clear whether it was suicide, murder, or accidental. The dean has arrived to ferret out the murderer (he may be wrong but he’s never in doubt) and much of the novel involves the village priest hearing confessions in preparation for Lent and then discussing those confessions with the dean who isn’t above eavesdropping either. When I found out at the end of the novel what the priest knew all along I wanted to reread the whole novel to see if he had been a reliable narrator or not. It felt a bit like The Sixth Sense except there was not quick flash through scenes to show you you had in fact misinterpreted what you had seen.
I really didn’t have the energy to reread the book and as a murder mystery it is frustrating to find out what the main character knew all along so the whodonit really isn’t. Yet it haunted me and messed with my head for a week so it is a worthy read too.
60 Before 60 