12/05/09 - A stunningly good book -- Language, character, plot, sensibility, depth of understanding .. a true wonder of a book. I will put this on my "re-read every couple of years list," a list which has very few entries, and those only the very very best. ( )

A standard-bearer for all literature to follow. In fact, this book ruined my ability to read banal crap. It set the bar high for all my future reading with its eloquent sentence construction and strong theme continuity.

And, can anyone ever forget the book's protagonist shouting out the title of the book after taking a maiden in the meadow for the first time?

Ahh, the sweet exuberance. ( )

This is a stunningly beautiful book. The prose is amazing - it captures the lilt of the Welsh language, and the Welsh love of poetry and song.

The plot is about the unionization of Welsh coal miners and labor conflicts. The story follows the Morgan family, and their role in the conflicts in their valley. But what the book is really about is love between family and friends. Llewellyn portrays many different relationships in painfully real terms - the characters are incredibly vivid, and he finds amazing ways to describe relationships that most people would consider indescribable. ( )

Surprisingly poor. Also darker than I expected - the whole family is a little wrong-headed.

Beautiful language, beautiful writing. I only wish Huw's brothers would have been more strongly developed, since they all bled together for me. And then, sometimes it would be revealed that a character had gone away (for example) and I couldn't remember whether this departure had actually been previously addressed. Sometimes important details are thrown into one sentence, and if you blink, you'll miss the connecting plot line. But those are mostly minor details.

Ultimately, this would probably have been a five-star book for me if more of the episodes had been related in greater detail. Not necessarily expanded by pages, but just a little bit more to delve deeper into the incidents Llewellyn chooses to relate. ( )