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Harvest (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

by Jim Crace (Author), John Keating (Narrator)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (88 customer reviews)

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Product details

Audio Download
Listening Length: 8 hours and 30 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks
Audible.co.uk Release Date: 12 Sep 2013
Language: English
ASIN: B00F4NR0K6

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (88 customer reviews)

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Product Description

As late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. Over the course of seven days, Walter Thirsk sees his hamlet unmade: the manor house set on fire, the harvest blackened, three new arrivals punished, and his neighbours accused of witchcraft. But something even darker is at the heart of his story, and he will be the only man left to tell it...

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4.2 out of 5 stars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars As the villagers throw tomatoes... 13 Sep 2013

By MisterHobgoblin TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Harvest is a difficult book to judge. For the first two thirds, it is brilliant, stellar. It has a fantastic narrative voice and an atmosphere of cruelty through ignorance and neglect. But then it all unravels...

Jim Crace offers the reader no firm point in time or space. After a few paragraphs, the reader will assume the novel takes place in a village somewhere in central England, some time perhaps in the 17th or 18th century. The narrator, Walter Thirsk, is a mischievous man who is quick to judge or ridicule others whilst being blissfully unaware of his own shortcomings. Hence, he will watch the men with their fairy heads, high on magic mushrooms, set fire to a barn. But Walter will only involve himself when the damage has already been done. He will ridicule a visitor whose beard resembles pubic hair whilst merrily accompanying him as he surveys the village for redevelopment as sheep grazing. He will turn up to the harvest with an injured hand, lamenting his inability to join in as he tells others how they could do better.

The narrative voice drips with unreliability. It's a kind of cross between Notes on a Scandal and The Remains of the Day. This pompous, sanctimonious, meddlesome, indolent little man, for ever in need of a harsh dose of reality to be applied physically to his posterior. Walter hints of a previous life where he was freer, of higher station. He believes he has the special trust of Master Jordan, with whom he played as a child. But whilst Walter views this as some kind of equality - he deigns to work Master Jordan's fields through choice rather than compulsion - he would see that he was merely the servant's child. His station in life is also to serve.

Much is made of the isolation of the Village. Read more ›

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "...until I gain wherever is awaiting us." 27 Nov 2013

By Eileen Shaw TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This may be Jim Crace's best book. It's certainly my book of 2013. It is set, as another reviewer here informs us in the time of the Tudors, but in any case, in the August of some year between 1760 and the late 1800s, Most probably towards the beginning of the Acts of Enclosure, by which aristocrats appropriated land for their own profit and in village after village common rights were lost. Enclosure is simply the process whereby rich landowners used their control of State processes to appropriate public land. A process which E P Thompson in his book The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin History), called "class robbery". In future, no one had a right to pasture their animals, farm their lands to feed their families, or even catch a rabbit for the pot. In a single stroke, the under-classes became beholden to their Lord of the Manor, for everything. I often find myself reflecting on these Acts of appropriation with anger and disgust.

This book is set in one such village and is narrated with hypnotic beauty, by the protagonist Walter Thirsk, who is known as the Master's man, the helpmeet and aide of Master Kent. But title to the land is appropriated by Edmund Jordan and the clear rhythms of their year will be fatally disrupted. The harvest is brought in, but it will be the last, as Edmund Jordan's purpose is to clear the forests and land he has appropriated to herd sheep. It is a disaster of the greatest proportions and a breathtaking cruelty perpetrated upon a small village which had subsisted for generations on the tilling of the soil, the raising of corn and barley and the pasturing of animals, owned and cared for by the villagers. Read more ›

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story, surprising page-turner 9 Oct 2013

By Mme Suzanne Lageard

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was astounded by how simple and yet how marvellous this novel was. It was the story of Walter Thirsk, a labourer in a village at the time of Harvest. Strangers appear and with them a whole chain of events starts, which ends in a change for everyone, not least the protagonist.
And yet it seems that there are no specific, particular events which happen. Rather, it is organic, each day merging with the one before and the one after even if each day brings us a step further towards the end. One sees the colours and feels the atmosphere of the harvest, of the rain. I was completely caught up in the story, reading for hours at a time, pulled forward by the magnificent writing.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars full of promise - delivered not quite 19 Nov 2013

By Itsonlyme

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a big fan of historical fiction and I was initially gripped by the beauty of the writing and the promise of a good story. This delight was short lived, however, as I realised about half way through that it was becoming tedious. I did not empathise with the main character, Walter Thirsk, whose character was not fleshed out. He was always a bystander in the action, an observer, a man who did not belong - I guess that was the point but it did not make good reading. I was dissatisfied with the way the story meandered, there was no satisfying conclusion, a lot of unanswered questions. I did finish the book but it was a struggle.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and memorable creation. 30 Oct 2013

By Cattom

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is not a run of the mill novel which can or should be read speedily.The language is rhythmic and breath-taking. I found myself rereading certain passages, simply to savour the vocabulary and poetry and cadence of the lines. Superficially, it is the story of the ruination of a rural idyll by incomers but can be understood on many levels. Descriptions of both the bleakness of country life and beauty of the landscape are detailed and finely observed. There is wit in the observations of the characters and horror in the events which occur.
The brilliance of the book remains long after the last page has been read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written but cool

I found this book rather hard to like. It's cool distant tone makes it hard to really engage with, and though it's quite admirable and the writing is strong, it does fall down on... Read more

Published 4 days ago by Miss Smith

1.0 out of 5 stars Review of "Harvest"

I found this book more of a 12th century epic poem than a novel; too much description and characters without any depth or indeed interaction amongst one another. Read more

Published 10 days ago by U. A. Higham