The Jeweller

Mari lives alone in a tiny isolated cottage on the coast alone except for her cat and pet monkey Nanw, and her collections of vintage clothes, trinkets and jewels, which she sells from her stall in the local indoor market. With her friend Mo she hunts through houses of the old and deceased when they come up for clearance, but her focus is often less on the wares of her trade and more on the personal and private letters and photographs to be found hidden in drawers and under beds. The mantelpiece in her damp and cluttered cottage is crowded with photographs of other peoples families. Her own few pictures she keeps in a box: her as a baby, and as a child with her father; no mother to be seen, just her severe father. She is borrowing other peoples families in a search for something to make up for her own lack, her unknown mother, her childless state. With subtle delicacy Caryl Lewis builds a sense of Mari and the people around her. There is no authorial judgement, so only slowly do we realise that Mari is no angel. Her little acts of cruelty, neglect and manipulation are mentioned only in passing, and the lack of emphasis on her faults makes them all the more shocking as they are slipped into the densely packed imagery. Only slowly do we realise that Mari is much older than the picture on the cover of the book might suggest, that what she tells herself and others is not necessarily true, that part of her needs to create a past for herself, that she is scavenging other peoples lives and histories. As the summer heat builds, the structures of Maris life start to unravel: the indoor market where she and Mo have their stalls is under threat of being developed; the young man Dafydd, whom Mari has adored since he was a baby, has found a girlfriend and has less time for her; the monkey Nanw is becoming ever more unhappy and, kept in a cage most of the time, she wails piteously. Mari escapes from all this into the task of cutting the emerald she has owned for years, finally finding the courage to start cutting its rough edges, to begin to reveal the heart of the gemstone. As she works on the emerald, the events in Maris life are cutting away her own rough edges. She is taken on an emotional journey which brings her up short against her own failings; the stories she has been telling herself are dismantled, and she must face up to the consequences of her actions and the pain she has caused. And in the midst of this there is a sense of redemption and resolution as a chance discovery leads Mari to find some of the missing pieces of her own history, and in turn she is freed from the weight of her own sense of abandonment. The poetic riches of The Jeweller have been beautifully translated by Gwen Davies; the writing is so dense with imagery that the subtleties of the plot are often partially hidden in this latticework of carefully crafted words. This is a book layered in shadows and meaning, where the reader must tread carefully and pay attention to tiny details to complete the picture of Maris history and emotional journey. Lucy Walter 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 Books Council of Wales. 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