The Testament Of Yves Gundron (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a highly imaginative fable about a village called Mandragora on an island somewhere off the coast of Scotland that has been cut off from society at large for an untold number of years. The inhabitants (of which Yves is one) have remained stuck in a rut, with hardly any change to their basic ways of farming for hundreds of years. Yves and his brother (Mandrik) are considered weird and otherly for the fact that they think outside the usual traditions, yet it is Yves and Mandrik who ultimately hold the village’s way of life most dear.The hardness of life in the village is all too real - horses aren’t named because they die so frequently, children are only named when they reach a certain age, and Yves himself says at one point “Wives and children are so fragile, how can expect these two to outlive me?” It is within this world that Yves manages to find some time to invent. His first invention is a harness for the horses - previously the one wheeled carts were pulled by horses with ropes directly around their necks. The impact of this invention is enormous - suddenly horses live long enough to be named and life in Mandragora starts to change.Soon after this invention a stranger reaches the village from The Beyond. Ruth Bloom is an anthropologist from Boston, MA and she has followed her mother’s bedside stories to find the lost village of Mandragora. Following all the best traditions of her trade she tries not to influence her subjects, but it is not long before she becomes inextricably bound into the ways of the village…I could go on about this book for hours… The imagination that has created the novel’s world is extraordinary - the complete otherness combined with the total coherence make Mandragora and its inhabitants utterly real. The beautiful density of the language is utterly compelling - every scene holds a new surprise, a new tiny detail or a heartstopping insight into the Mandragoran’s world view.Ultimately it’s a fable about progress vs. tradition, about status quo vs. change and about the preservation of innocence. I’ve read a couple of reviews of this book that suggest that the author punishes her characters for not holding on to their traditions hard enough. I don’t agree, but then this book is very carefully written to ensure that it’s open to interpretation. Personally I took a much more optimistic view of it - the inevitability of change was perfectly matched against village life.Whatever - I was gobsmacked by this book. I found myself reading it at every possible opportunity, overlooking other things to make sure that I could get another fix and immerse myself in the villagers’ lives. It’s whimsical, surprising and incredibly imaginative. This is yet another great book from Canongate and one that I can’t recommend highly enough.
This is a pretty interesting and unique book that was a really fun read, but I think a reader's enjoyment of it is in direct correlation to how much you're willing to suspend your disbelief. There are some fine themes and viewpoints here, but if you're the type of person who simply cannot focus on anything other than the seemingly obvious impossibilities of the environment, then you may end up throwing this book into a local chasm.I don't think I'm spoiling anything by giving away the premise here: we are introduced to a small primitive farming village, whose entire universe revolves around farming. There's no time for anything as simple as contemplation, because they gotta get the crops in before winter. When I say primitive, I mean primitive: at the beginning of the book, our narrator tells us of his invention that will change the course of history -- a harness for the horse. Before that, everyone just had their horses die routinely because they tried to get them to pull a cart that was heavy. So you get an idea of where these people are at in terms of technology.So this little tale is going on and it's nice, and just when you're about to get bored, Barton throws a big twist in there; one that isn't so surprising maybe, but necessary to what comes next. What follows is a little predictable, but still very readable, resulting in some excellent character work and decent intrigue. I was going to write more here, but am starting to realize that maybe giving away the plot twist is a bad idea, even if it does make the rest of the book hard to talk about.At any rate, it's a nice story about the price of progress -- the novel, almost a fable, serves to ask what is the price of moving forward so quickly? Are some things that are lost in the forward thrust precious enough to fight for? It was interesting for me personally, because I've always been a "yes, the future sounds awesome, let's get there ASAP please, any and all cool technologies that can be implemented, the sooner the better" kind of guy. But in this pursuit, Barton argues, we are leaving some important things behind. The money quote comes towards the end of the book: "There was no shame in this life, no lack of work and entertainments; but it had somehow ceased to be enough."It's a cool story and an entertaining read, but as I said -- be warned: your mileage may vary based on how well you take the plot twist.
What do You think about The Testament Of Yves Gundron (2001)?
As a one time student of folklore, this is an interesting book. It's the story of a man and a community cut off from the rest of the world. Like the movie The Village, it was a conscious choice of people who were not happy with how the world was progressing. Their descendants, however, do not know that their life is different from people in the outside world with whom there is almost no contact.A woman comes to study the group and inadvertantly puts into motion a series of events, led by an inventive farmer. Change comes crashing (at times literally) into the community. In the end, individuals must decide what is best for themselves and their families and just how much change is enough.
—Jeanne
This book promises wit and inventiveness but gets too wrapped up in itself to fully deliver. There are some great descriptions of burnt toast and large frame backpacks from the perspective of an isolated farmer whose village could've existed in the middle ages.But by the end I felt like I was plodding. It's still worth it, though, and I plan to read Brookland, Emily Barton's more recent novel.As a side note, I heard Emily Barton speak at Paragraph and was totally impressed by how unassuming and smart she is. She woke up at 5am every morning to write the Testament of Yves Gundron! Plus she is a yoga instructor AND she learned everything about bridge making that was known in the 18th century in order to write Brookland.
—Chloe
I think I found this book in a library book sale. It was pretty much a random impulse buy - sometimes these work out well, and sometimes they're terrifying.This was the first, and not the latter. Charlie may not agree with me - I believe his descriptive was "I just couldn't get into it", or some such nonsense - but I enjoyed this book.A small town in a small country, seemingly in a simpler time. Before harnesses. Before horsecarts as we understand them. Before any and all technology that we take for granted.This book chronicles what happens as Yves, one of the main characters and a simple farmer, begins to dream of new ways to do things. He becomes an inventor, much to the alternating delight and chagrine of his fellow townsfolk, and improves his farming, his cart, and a great deal more.Whether or not advancement and newness is to truthfully be considered an improvement remains to be seen, however. This book's reader experiences something of a tearing, a push and pull between wanting to thrill with Yves in his new discoveries and, also, to help him (and everyone else who experiences them) to forget any of them ever existed. His world, his town, his country - they all seem simple and peaceful in a way this world has forgotten and/or degraded ages ago, and some part of the reader aches for them to stay that way.As it turns out, this world is not too far at all from the world of Yves, as is found out in ways both fascinating and heartbreaking. The outside world, unaware of Yves' country, suddenly becomes aware, much by accident, of who Yves is and just where and how his countrymen live and function.This can be a magical and tragic book if you let it. I'd recommend doing so.
—Adam
