Set in Chepsford, a fictional industrial Border town characterised by drunkenness and brawls, it takes suffering as its subject matter. Domestic life is unsettled by strong opinions on love and sin, while notions of religion and fate are debated with passionate intensity.At the same time as Margiad Evans draws a compelling portrait of Chepsford&;s violence and dissipation, her interest in the very process of writing and the possibilities and limitations of language are also inscribed in the novel. Her fiction is the result of &;translating what I have learnt into scribbled words on thin paper, pinned together with ordinary pins from a pink card&;.Published in 1936, Margiad Evans&;s fourth and final novel.
Industry Reviews
This final novel by Margiad Evans is an extraordinarily passionate and intense piece. The tortured love affair, which is one of its strands, was inspired by Emily Brontes work and, as with Brontes moor, the landscape is very much a character in the novel. Creed is set in the semi-rural slum district of a border town whose ugly vitality (and terrible weather) surrounds and colours the action.
Creed is a story of unrelenting pain and isolation. All the main characters are thought-tormented by their inherited faith, their past crimes, present obsessions or physical fears. The only fairly comfortable characters are those who live in the upper town: John Bridges and his mistress (though somewhat socially isolated) enjoy a life not only of material comfort but also one not haunted by the fear of God a fear which drives Bridges clerk, Dollbright, almost to madness. Dollbright is the central character and readers first encounter him at his most judgemental. He curses Rev. Morriss as a blasphemer. Later, Morriss describes him as a wild enemy to us and to our century, with the primitive strength to condemn. Dollbrights total lack of human sympathy, his contempt and hatred for other men, expose his faith as unchristian, but his human weakness and redeeming feature is his love for his wife. This conflict drives him close to suicide, but finally to a kind of freedom and humanity.
The opening of the novel, Ifor Morrisss extraordinary sermon, asserts the redemption of all, however sinful, through Gods presence in every soul. This could be seen as special pleading by a flawed priest but is rather played out as a true revelation at the heart of the novel. Creed depicts almost unendurable suffering and, in one character, it is totally self-inflicted: Gwen Trouncer is drawn as vile in every way, a living nightmare, but ultimately there is pity even for her.
The language of the novel is as extreme as its emotions and sometimes it is definitely over the top, but its almost surreal vitality is a result of trying to depict states of mind far beyond verbal expression. Dollbright, feeling suicidal, runs home in the dusk: He felt he was running down an open throat, that he could not bear it if the sky too closed upon his eyes and squeezed him between two meeting masses. [] He had no hearth in his thought.
The author is well aware how far from most of her readers this world is, and every now and then she breaks the conventions of narration to assert her presence, her personal knowledge of such a place and the truth that only fiction can tell. Of the dregs of society she depicts, she also says, What are the dregs if they are not the essence of the whole. She sometimes struggled to depict the mental states of that essence but, for all its excesses, in Creed she produced a powerful and compelling work.
Caroline Clark
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council
