ARTFUL READING CLUB SEPTEMBER

A PLACE OF MEADOWS AND TALL TREES  by Clare Dudman

Bought on Kindle for 99p

SEPTEMBER REVIEW FOR THE ARTFUL READING CLUB

I bought this book when I first got my Kindle and downloaded several books that looked promising.  I'm interested in social history and the synopsis looked as if it would be worth reading.   It's a well-researched book about the problems faced by the first Welsh emigrés to Patagonia to set up a colony, a Utopian land where the Welsh language and way of life would be safeguarded, well away from the desperate conditions they lived in back in Wales.  I had heard of these Welsh colonists, so I added it to my list of 12 books for the Artful Reading Club.

The brave migrants were promised 'a place of meadows and tall trees' by their charismatic leader who claimed he had been to the area they were to settle in and seen the rich, fertile green fields and trees.  In fact they arrived, after a horrific journey by sea, at the cold Patagonian desert, which is the largest desert in all the Americas.

The fact that they were claiming land that belonged to the nomadic Tehuelche Indians and dispossessing them, just as they had been dispossessed, didn't seem to occur to them.  They had heard of the Indians and feared them and what they might do.

I found the book slow and monotonous, and was continually irritated by the way the settlers responded to their terrible hardships, and even after they realised time after time that they had been duped they still kept faith in their leader and struggled on.  Yes, it is historically accurate, but it made such miserable reading, I just felt as though a black mist descended on me every time I forced myself to go back to reading the book.  I would have given up except for it being one of my ARC choices.

The story alternates between the events as experienced by settler Silas and one of the Indians, a mystical Shaman who eventually helps them to survive just a little better, though the weather conditions they faced never changed.

All in all, I was glad I had only paid 99p for it, and would recommend you to avoid it unless you are Welsh and have Patagonian Welsh ancestors.

ARTWORK

When it came to being inspired to create my artwork I was stumped, and I mean completely stumped.    Looking at the book cover, I feel even the cover artist had problems in deciding how to visually sum up the story.  There wasn't a character who had seemed real enough to me to 'see' them in drawing or painting terms.  The only character who seemed to have anything at all I could interpret was the ancient Indian shaman, Yelue, so here he is:

Yelue, the ancient Indian Shaman
Mixed Media - Jez

I found a very tiny and very blurred black and white photograph of an old Patagonian Indian 'on tinternet' and took my inspiration from that.  In the end he doesn't look much like the photograph, though I tried to show how wrinkly he was.  I'm not happy with him, and he looks as miserable as I felt when I had finished the book.

Here's my original drawing, which I was much more pleased with:

For October I really must choose one of my 'list' books that will be a little more interesting.  I think it will be 'The Drawing Book' by Sarah Simblet.  If I can't get interested in that there's no hope for me!