**United Kingdom: Wales

Wales! Land of Martin Amix, Mary Balogh, Richard Llewellyn and Ken Follett - to name a few.

If you are exploring Welsh authors and literature, here's the place to talk about it.

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

This was a totally immersive pleasure. I savoured every word - and they're in abundance as they come at you almost without pause for thought or breath in this extended prose poem - 'a play for voices'. The tempo and rhythm matches that of a day's span: gentle and deliberate at times, busily frenzied at others. I don't know if this is Thomas' masterpiece as I'm only at the beginning of reading his work, but it must surely have been hard to better. It is a small piece of perfection - short in length but leaving a lasting impression. A day in the life of the backwater seaside town of Llareggub. I should say that it is a fictional town, but that almost seems ungrateful on my part - such is the power and vivid impression of his rendering of that place. It is a place alive with spirit and flavour, sounds and smells, tones and tastes. There are ghosts and poetry, dreams and gossip. Hopes and memories abound. At times I was struck by an almost Chagall-like sense of imagery. There are equal parts tragedy and wonder, as well as the fantastic and the banal; and a fair dollop of fruity humour to boot.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook version remade by the BBC in 2003, featuring the pitch-perfect original recording of Richard Burton as 'First Voice', together with a new all-Welsh cast of many wonderful voices - including Sian Phillips as 'Second Voice'. I've seen the 1970s film adaptation before but this audio recording was superlative. Now I want a printed edition - and I hope there'll be a suitably designed commemorative one out in 2014 for the Thomas centenary - as I know that I will want to savour this all again, line by line, over and over. As soon as I finished it I put the first disc back in and had to listen to it all over again. It is a magical and beautiful thing.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas

With a title nodding at James Joyce, Thomas' first prose collection (after several volumes of poetry) was published in 1940. Also autobiographical, these ten somewhat bittersweet stories cover different periods in the author's childhood, later youth and early adulthood. These stories are tenderly written, though they have more than a fair share of humour and are definitely written with a twinkle in the eye. They give an interesting insight to the lower-middle class childhood and coming of age Thomas had in 1920s & '30s south Wales. Here is a little flavour of the stories:

The Peaches -

Young Dylan is staying with Aunt Annie, Uncle Jim and older cousin Gwilym at their farm. The dusty and snug summer country routine is broken when arrangements are made for the apparently posh Mrs Williams' son Jack to come and play.

'Is Mrs Williams very rich?' asked Gwilym.
I told him she had three motor cars and two houses, which was a lie. 'She's the richest woman in Wales, and once she was a mayoress,' I said. 'Are we going to have tea in the best room?'
Annie nodded. 'And a large tin of peaches' she said.
'That old tin's been in the cupboard since Chistmas,' said Gwilym, 'mother's been keeping it for a day like this.' 'They're lovely peaches,' Annie said. She went upstairs to dress like Sunday.

A Visit to Grandpa's -

It was the first time I had stayed in grandpa's house. The floorboards had squeaked like mice as I climbed into bed, and the mice between the walls had creaked like wood as though another visitor was walking on them.

Dylan's eccentric (and probably senile) Grandpa proceed's to behave very strangely - in a way that alerts a well-drilled corps of villagers to prompt action: 'Dai Thomas has been to Llanstephan, and he's got his waistcoat on' is the uncoded cry that goes up shop by shop...

Patricia, Edith, and Arnold -

A winter scene this time as young Dylan is witness to the family help's despair. The reality dawns on her best friend (the next door girl) and her that their beau-in-common has been a cad. Tears and snowball sodden letters.

The Fight -

Two boys have a fight and end up the best of friends. Dylan visits Dan at his house later that day and they decide to start a magazine called 'The Thunderer'. Dylan reads some of his poetry at the family dinner table.

Extraordinary Little Cough -

One afternoon, in a particularly bright and glowing August, some years before I knew I was happy, George Hooping, whom we called Little Cough, Sidney Evans, Dan Davies, and I sat on the roof of a lorry travelling to the end of the Peninsular.

So begins an entertaining tale of adventure and girls as the boys go on holiday in the Gower.

Just Like Little Dogs -

An off-season seaside town. Three men shelter from the rain under a railway arch one windy and dark evening.

Families sat down to supper in rows of short houses, the wireless sets were on, the daughters' young men sat in the front rooms. In neighbouring houses they read the news off the table cloth, and the potatoes from dinner were fried up. Cards were played in the front rooms of houses on the hills. In the houses on tops of the hills families were entertaining friends, and the blinds of the front rooms were not quite drawn. I heard the sea in a cold bit of the cheery night.

One of the strangers said suddenly, in a high, clear voice: 'What are we all doing then?'
'Standing under a bloody arch' said the other one.

Where Tawe Flows -

Mr Humphries, Mr Roberts, and young Mr Thomas knocked on the front door of Mr Emlyn Evans's small villa 'Lavengro', punctually at nine o'clock in the evening.

The four men proceed to sit and discuss their collaborative attempts at writing a novel together chapter by chapter and week by week each Friday at nine o'clock sharp.

Who Do You Wish Was With Us? -

Dylan and his friend Ray embark on a walking trip - once again it's the beautiful Gower Peninsular, so close to Thomas' Swansea.

Old Garbo -

Now Cub reporter at the Tawe News, just before Christmas, Dylan is reviewing a performance called 'The Crucifixion' on his Saturday afternoon off. A masterful character study follows where we see the young writer observing the comings and goings in various local drinking holes.

One Warm Saturday -

Possibly the strongest piece in this collection, it's well suited closing out the collection as it's atmosphere and imagery really linger long after the reading. In a seaside-set story, a young man falls heavily for a girl he sees briefly sitting on a bench reading a book. By chance they meet again later in a nearby pub. An ensuing 'party' sees the frustrated love-struck couple accompanied by a bevvy of other drinkers, chaperones and assorted hangers-on. In an unexpectedly Kafka-esque denouement they somehow manage to lose each other.

Overall, this was an interesting collection I'm glad to have read. I didn't like all of it, but there was enough here to make me want to read more of Thomas' short stories. I particularly liked 'The Peaches', 'A Visit to Grandpa's', 'Just Like Little Dogs', and 'One Warm Saturday'

I can add to the list of authors from Wales:

Roald Dahl
Sarah Waters

I finished Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill, which is about two-thirds an historical novel, as it follows a Welsh farming family, and particularly a pair of twin brothers, from the turn of the 20th century into the 1980s. Lovely writing with lots of acute insight into human nature, but also the psychological dangers of living too insular a life. I found it to be a very enjoyable book in many ways, but not a relaxing novel. Chatwin was born in England rather than Wales, but he seems to have had a strong if somewhat romanticized grasp of Welsh farm life through the 20th century.