{"id":1093,"date":"2012-05-07T10:51:37","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T10:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1093"},"modified":"2012-10-22T17:12:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T17:12:40","slug":"the-life-of-rebecca-jones-by-angharad-price-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=1093","title":{"rendered":"The Life of Rebecca Jones by Angharad Price"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Lifeofrebeccajones.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1097\" title=\"Lifeofrebeccajones\" src=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Lifeofrebeccajones-209x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"209\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Lifeofrebeccajones-209x300.jpg 209w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Lifeofrebeccajones-715x1024.jpg 715w, http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Lifeofrebeccajones.jpg 1620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\" \/><\/a>Translated from the Welsh by Lloyd Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Published 26 April 2012 by Maclehose Press<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>176pp, hardback, 12.99<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Reviewed by Sian Miles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This generous, subtle and sophisticated work \u2013 Angharad Price\u2019s second novel, winner of several prizes and now available in English \u2013 is a celebration of the author\u2019s family&#8217;s thousand-year-old unbroken link to Maesglasau, a small sheep-farming valley in the Dyfi hills. Not often is such <em>dur\u00e9e <\/em>experienced, nor the concomitantly deep sense of place, referred to as \u2018continuance\u2019, described in this fictionalized autobiography of Price\u2019s great-aunt. The opening chapter, a reflection on the meaning and source of tranquillity, sets the valley in epic context by introducing the contradictions between the peaceful landscape and its geological birth: \u2018Who could imagine that this place was formed by volcanic fire? And that the bare slopes, the sheer cliffs and uneven pasturelands were worn to the bone by the gouging and scraping of ice?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; This skillfully-wrought amalgam of glorious invention and keen observation concludes with the brief and startling revelation of its central conceit and a return to the decreating self at the heart of its making: \u2018I too have lived in this valley&#8217;s quietness all my life&#8230;Cwm Maesglasau is my world. Its boundaries are my boundaries. To leave it will be unbearably painful. But this I know: when I move on and when my remains are scattered on the land of Maesglasau, I will have given my life to the fulfillment of this valley&#8217;s tranquillity. My obliteration will be its completion.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Translated from the Welsh by Lloyd Jones Published 26 April 2012 by Maclehose Press 176pp, hardback, 12.99 Reviewed by Sian Miles This generous, subtle and sophisticated work \u2013 Angharad Price\u2019s second novel, winner of several prizes and now available in English \u2013 is a celebration of the author\u2019s family&#8217;s thousand-year-old unbroken link to Maesglasau, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2891,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions\/2891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}