HARVEST by Jim Crace (fic)

Jim Crace is an interesting author.  He writes of the everyday lives of people who lived long ago and far away with such skill, that the reader becomes immersed in a time that seems as real as today.  In Harvest he takes a microscope to life in an isolated medieval village with all its poverty and superstitions.  We don't find out why this village is so isolated or why it is losing prosperity, nor do we know for certain what century or year this story takes place. 

When we enter the village, it is on a downward spiral, perhaps the Black Death has been there before us, perhaps there were not enough young people left.  We meet our guide, Walter Thirsk, an outsider, who has been living in the village since he was a young man.  He is a widower and had been married to one of the village women. We learn that he came to the village with Master Kent, also a widower, to the manor which he had inherited.  Now with no issue, the manor is soon to be passed on to a thoughtless nephew who has newfangled ideas about enclosing the land and raising sheep rather than farming.  There was a huge world-wide demand for wool at this time, and farms were being broken up to accommodate sheep farming.

As the story opens, three strangers two men and a woman, are camped at the outskirts of the village.  Their presence coincides with the burning of the Master's storage barn and stable.  The strangers were blamed, though blameless, and pilloried in a torturous manner.  The townspeople, already full of anxiety about the looming loss of their land, exact their vengeance on the hapless trio.  Walter Thirsk suffers bouts of conscience as he witnesses the punishment of the trio and witnesses the breakdown of the the social order that has kept the townspeople in check up to this time. What follows shows the reader how readily a tight little society, which has existed and been productive for years, can crumble and fall apart when facing a threat that it has no power to control. 

I found this book interesting, though the ending doesn't resolve all the questions the reader might have.  It leaves one with more questions than answers.  It is an unusual book that will appeal to readers who appreciate what seems an accurate depiction of an old village lost to time.