Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? One of the most beguiling novels of the year… Harvey’s language is poetic, in a way that’s brave rather than sentimental, and her intricate observations demand to be dwelled upon. . . [Harvey] is this generation’s Virginia Woolf.”—Gaby Wood, Daily Telegraph

John thoughtfully examines the tragedy of Newman, who had new ideas and a plan to build a bridge that would liberate the villagers from confinement and poverty. Some other residents were indebted to Newman, or had indeterminate ties to him. Additionally, Reve is praying for a western wind to blow away the evil spirits. He worries that the prevailing eastern winds would give Oakham more to tremble about and suffer.

Music Played

New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn wrote a string quartet in 1939 entitled Phantasy based on a reworking of Westron Wynde. He undoubtedly modelled the work on his teacher Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Lilburn was studying with Vaughan Williams at the time). Chitwood, Adam (August 9, 2018). "TIFF Midnight Madness Lineup Includes 'The Predator' and 'Halloween' Premieres". Collider . Retrieved August 10, 2018. Westron Wynde was put to music by Igor Stravinsky as a movement ( Westron Wind) of his Cantata (1952). [ citation needed] Reve stresses that he’s primus inter pares (“first among equals”), the chief parishioner, and therefore not separate from the other parishioners. The dean holds a different view and tells Reve: “You’re the parish priest—your word weighs a hundred times a normal man’s, two hundred times a woman’s, three hundred times a child’s” (p. 264). Further, the dean advises Reve: “Where there’s no right or wrong in a situation, you have to supply the answer yourself. This is the meaning of strength and leadership” (p. 227). Does Reve, in fact, do what the dean advises? How well do you think Reve balances the role he sees for himself as fellow parishioner with his role in a position of privilege and authority as priest? When are these roles in conflict?

The remaining musical examples above are adapted from versions given in the online version (2004) of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Kiang, Jessica (September 15, 2018). " 'The Wind' Review: Slow But Stylish Feminist Horror Western – Variety". Variety.com. Jessica Kiang . Retrieved December 7, 2018. His conversations with those coming to confess – although often for trivial sins or even to boast of their misdemeanors – Reve having been possibly the first person in England to adopt the idea of a confessional box (the idea taken from Italy) rather than confession being both face to face and largely in public;Palpable in the prose are smells, continual rain, frightened and small minded people and sadness. Intermingled with loving true characters. At the end of the first day and therefore the end of the story as we encounter it, Reve tells Townshend, “I’d sooner climb up and sacrifice myself before I saw a single of my parish die,” then doubts his own sincerity and decides it doesn’t matter whether he means what he’s said since it won’t happen. How does that affect your judgment of him? When the dean asks Reve to choose a scapegoat—to sacrifice one for the sake of the village—what do you think Reve ought to have done? How much of what happens do you hold Reve responsible for? What is the worst thing he does? How would you judge him by his intentions and also by his actions? Does it soften our judgment of Reve that we’ve been listening throughout the book to his voice? Did you trust him, and do you feel put in an uncomfortable position at the end?

Although The Western Wind is set in late fifteenth-century Somerset, Harvey isn’t a habitué of historical fiction. In an interview I read, she talks of having happened on her historical setting “by accident,” led by the theme she wanted to explore, that of confession. The chief character of the book is the parish priest of the hapless village of Oakham, about to be swallowed up for its pasture lands by a hungry monastery nearby. Shortly before Lent in 1491, the wealthiest man in the village vanishes overnight, presumed drowned; and the local dean, sent in to investigate the possible murder, incentivizes every parishioner to confess.

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Royal Appendix MS 58". British Library Digitised Manuscripts. British Library . Retrieved 19 April 2021. Mac, Sam C. (December 6, 2022). " Slant Magazine 's 50 Best Songs of 2022". Slant Magazine . Retrieved February 21, 2023. It can also be found in film and television. For example, in The Other Boleyn Girl starring Scarlett Johnson, released in 2008, and South Riding, a 2011 mini-series. Western Wind Westron wynde when wyll thow blow” looks forward longingly to spring, when the west wind will blow. Both medieval and renaissance literature is full of references to classical Roman and Greek culture and its symbolism. The personification of the “Westron wynde” in Greek mythology was Zephyrus, bringer of gentle breezes. There are many examples of this western wind of spring imagery. One such is in William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (1609-10), Act 4, Scene 2, spoken by Belarius:

Dear Thief is a hypnotic, beautiful and sometimes dark incantation. . . Samantha Harvey’s novel is a deftly drawn reminder of our deeply human desire for connection and the risk involved in the revelation of that desire.”—A.M. Homes An immersive 15th-century mystery, Samantha Harvey’s The Western Wind explores the value and vagaries of faith and the nature of secrets: the ones we confess and the ones we hide even from ourselves. John Reve, spiritual advisor to the residents of the hardscrabble English village of Oakham, relates the story in reverse chronology over four days before Lent. It’s a structure that Harvey uses to good effect in deftly building quiet suspense. Reve’s superior, a rural dean, arrives in Oakham to investigate the drowning of Thomas Newman, a wealthy resident who was both admired and relied on by the community. Though Reve suggests the death was either accident or suicide, the dean is convinced that Newman was murdered, and determines to use what Reve hears in confession to uncover the guilty party. The mystery embedded in the novel reveals itself subtly but effectively. Ultimately, though, what lingers is a deep appreciation for the many contradictions of the human condition, and the awareness that, in that respect, little has changed since medieval times.” —Clara Boza, Malaprop’s Bookstore After Reve learns of Cecily Townshend’s affair and she closes her hands around his, he thinks: “Those lustful hands … A heavy ring on every finger can’t keep a woman to her husband” (p. 172), though he offers no real censure of the man with whom she has the affair. What are Reve’s attitudes toward women and relationships between men and women? Consider Sarah Spenser, his sister and mother, and the unnamed woman from his youth. How do each of them show independence of spirit? How does Reve’s view that God is testing him interfere with his relationships with women? Are Reve’s relationships with men healthier?

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Zephyrus the western wind was also referred to by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Prologue of his Canterbury Tales, written c. 1388–1400 (first in Chaucer’s English then modernised): A village of scrags and outcasts, Oakham, Beastville, Pigtown, Nobridge. The village that came to no good; the only village for miles around that doesn’t trade wool, doesn’t make cloth, doesn’t have the skill to build a bridge. Here’s the village we pass by, with its singing milkmaids, we call it Cheesechurn, Milkpasture, Cowudder. It’s Lord is as pudgy and spineless as the cheese he makes. Its people are vagrants that were ousted form their own villages and are in most respects desperate. Its richest man was whisked off down the river and drowned. And here is its priest: young John Reve, roosting in the dark. For all that he’s overseen by Christ, he’s led his people to no further illumination