Book review: Rape of the Fair Country by Alexander Cordell

Desmond Clifford

It’s a strange experience reviewing a novel which is 75 years old and is itself a historical fiction set in the 1820s/30s.

A lot has changed but context is important. ‘Rape of the Fair Country’ was originally published in 1959 into a world where coal and steel still dominated the Eastern Valleys.

Cordell described the origins of a community which still existed and had decades to run. Today, that world is gone, vaporised, and, outside the museums and World Heritage preservation, little enough remains. Society has changed, and so has the novel.

‘Rape of the Fair Country’, brought back into print now as part of the Library of Wales series, was popular in its day and remained so for years. Cordell wrote lots and sold loads.

He was a writer who had the Welsh Lit community scratching their heads. Emyr Humphreys and Raymond Williams, they insisted, should be considered the national novelists of Wales, while readers just carried on buying Alexander Cordell.

‘Rape of the Fair Country’ is a family saga following the fortunes of the Mortymer family, and especially the maturing son, Iestyn. It’s set against the birth and rapid development of the iron industry around Blaenavon and the Eastern Valleys in the 1820s/30s.

This is the world of iron masters, chapels, Irish immigration under-cutting pay rates, company-owned shops and currency, hovel-housing, violence (domestic and political), drink-as-release, emerging unions and politicisation as people try to make sense of their circumstances.

The Mortymers typify a generation gap. The father is well-disposed towards the iron-master Bailey, believing him to be better than his peers in other industrial towns, and he cultivates a philosophy of “be thankful for what you’ve got” and don’t rock the boat. His son Iestyn is gradually politicised and sees the world differently, through the lens of the union and solidarity.

The political and personal are side-by-side. The story is filled with casual violence of the “a-good-scrap-will-clear-the-air” variety, the roots of what today we call toxic masculinity.

There’s much lust, heaving breasts, lascivious glances, quickies behind the shed and rolls in the hay. Sex and suggestion were new to the novel – the Lady Chatterley trial was still a year away in 1959 – and the style is feverish, self-conscious, and male.

Problematic

It’s a problematic novel in some ways. The story is dramatic, the birth of industry in south Wales, and the experience which defined much of Wales over two centuries. Cordell uses his imagination to create a way of speaking; we don’t quite know how an industrial melting pot 200 years ago sounded, ordinary working people had little formal education and left no records. Their world was small, the length of their valley, and a trip to Newport is a memorable day.

The story is told primarily through speech. Although there is richness of imagination at work, the invented mode of speech can be irritating: “Very confident you are looking Owen.”

“I will warm the breeches of the pair of them if they are late.”

“There’s bad! A wife should be humble on her knees before the Lord before she can hope to be obedient to a husband, eh, Mr Mortymer?”

“Warm and quick was Mari beneath me, responding in wildness and a murmuring joy as I divided her body, and the lightning of youth flashed between us.”

It’s there on every single page and can be just too much. If feels at times like a plum pie with too much sugar, you have to put the spoon down and come back later.

But any annoyance is worth enduring. Cordell makes a real effort to tell the story from the perspective of the ordinary working people and their communities. Many novelists would have built a story around the iron-masters with their big houses and drawing rooms, their caddish sons and conscientious daughters in muslin dresses, confused by life. Cordell is manifestly on the side of the angels.

Newport

One of the best passages in the book describes the village’s annual outing to Newport. It captures the excitement of even a short journey from familiar to unfamiliar terrain, punctuated by a fight on the way between Welsh and Irish gangs – not quite Gangs of New York, but a hint of similar social constructs based on tribal and ethnic identities.

What comes across in the hectic portrait of Newport – bear-baiting, women-wrestlers, brothels, carnival – is the sheer newness and strangeness of towns. Pre-industrial Wales had few towns, and those few were not much more than a couple of streets to service ports, and a network of market towns, a crossroads with a mart and some pubs, shops and chapels.

Cordell brings early period industrial Newport vividly to life. The Mortymers face complex industrial and political dilemmas. They stand out as blacklegs in a strike, and suffer physical abuse for it, where the issues at stake are presented as multi-faceted. They are intimidated by a gang of predominantly Irish labourers who, Mortymer’s group contends, exacerbate pay disputes by under-cutting the going rate.

Most disputes in this book are settled by violence and Mortymer senior fights his adversary, Enforcer-style, and brings the village onto his side of the page.

Stereotypes abound. Young Iestyn falls in love and, this being a Welsh novel, he cuts his beloved a love spoon – as don’t we all.

Cordell did meticulous research, but it sometimes feels as if he’s ticking off a list of Welsh tropes; the love spoon, the hypocritical preacher, the cold-eyed iron master etc. But look you, a good read it is.

Neglected

Alexander Cordell is neglected and barely recognised by academics, so far as I can see, and little has been written about him. His background was English, a child of the colonies, though his relationship with Wales was profound, real and long-lasting. ‘Rape of the Fair Country’ was first in a trilogy including “Hosts of Rebecca” (1960) and “Song of the Earth” (1969).

He was prolific and wrote many other books set in Wales and elsewhere. Academic critics may be wary, but the public loved him; he sold well in his lifetime and some books have remained sporadically in print.

Although his writing is dated in some ways, he records vital and dramatic chapters in Welsh history with verve. Indeed, his novels should be of equal interest to the history and literature classes. Schools should be bulk-buying this book.

The story reaches a climax with the villagers caught up in John Frost’s Chartist march on Newport in 1839. It ends in violence at the Westgate Hotel. Iestyn is injured and taken away to prison in Monmouth – to await Cordell’s sequel.

The book is exasperating in various ways. Drama is piled upon melodrama, deep seams of cliché are mined, stereotypes abound and there is a patrician, if not sexist, tone to the narrative. Yet, for all its weaknesses, this is an easy book to love.

Sincere

Alexander Cordell makes a sincere and powerful effort to give a voice to ordinary people who left no memoirs or records.

Yes, it’s hammy, but it hands narrative power to the people who built industrial society in Wales. It’s a remarkable effort and Cordell contributed very meaningfully to Wales’ literature.

More fuss and care should be taken of him. Newport, Blaenavon and the Eastern Valleys are missing a trick – this is “Cordell country” and should be proudly known as such.

Rape of the Fair Country is published by Parthian and is available here and at all good book shops.