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This month’s Book Club choice is Fieldwork, Selected Essays by Ronald Blythe published in 2007 by Black Dog Books of Norwich. These essays, were published to celebrate the Benson Medal for Literature awarded to the author in 2006 by the Royal Society of Literature.
Blythe was born in Suffolk in 1922, and became a full time writer in 1955 having worked as reference librarian in Colchester for ten years. As a young man he worked for Benjamin Britten at the Aldburgh Festival. His first book A Treasonable Growth was published in 1960 and in a long career his writing has included poetry, history, short stories, essays, literary criticism and novels.
He is principally known for Akenfield, Portrait of an English Village published in 1969 which was described by the publisher at the time as a ‘colourful, perceptive portrayal of English Country Life’ which ‘reverberates with the voices of the village inhabitants, from the reminiscences of survivors of the Great War, evoking days gone by, to the concerns of a younger generation of farm workers..’ Blythe used the technique of transcribed interviews and linked commentary which made Akenfield such a bestseller in The View in Winter: Reflections on Old Age published in 1979. More recently The Wormingford Trilogy, based on his regular column for the Church Times has been published to great acclaim.
In the introduction to Field Work Blythe writes “I see these essays as a lingering comment on my life as a writer. They form a continuous response to what has been important to me, East Anglia, literature, Anglicanism, and my artist and writers friends….Re-reading these pieces which stretch across my lifetime, I recognise a little altered hand.’ The majority of the essays were written during the last thirty odd years. The earliest dated one is I think from the early seventies.
I must confess that before I read any of these essays my knowledge of Ronald Blythe was poor. I thought I’d read Akenfield but having recently looked at a copy I don’t think I have. Probably one of those ‘classic’ books I thought I ought to have read. The Book Club recently had Dead Men Talking also published by Black Dog Books which included a couple of previously published short stories by Blythe. So before starting Field Work my view of Ronald Blythe was mainly taken from bibliographical accounts of his life which generally described him as the sage of East Anglia. Seeing the odd impressive looking hard back in the Local Interest section of various Norwich book shops underlined this view of the author.
Now having read Field Work I feel that that I’ve unearthed an ancient artefact and that my reading has allowed me to clean it and reveal something which looks fairly precious. The problem with such finds is that unless you are an expert on such things it is just that - something which looks precious. I feel that I need to read more of Ronald Blythe’s writings and dig back through the decades to find out whether he is as important as his friendly reviewers say. I don’t think Field Work allows me to do that.
I will start with Akenfield although Hugh Massingberd described it in The Spectator some years ago as ‘overrated’.
Jeff Taylor
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