How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewellyn

Years ago when I was a child, CCTV imported a series of US movies, and "青山翠谷" was one of them. I still had the impression of the super-sized movie title with mountains as the background. However, I did not finish the entire movie, even it was replayed for a couple of times. Only some separate scenes of dark-faced miners remained in my mind. But the name "青山翠谷" became permanent in my memory since then，and it became stronger when I longed for the greens in this desert-like Los Angeles.

Several months ago, when I browsed the DVDs in the Santa Monica Public Library, the movie "How Green Was My Valley" caught my eyes. Yes, that was it. It was a fine movie, but more like a Broadway show, not something I had been expecting, something as light as daily life, but so rich that it would go back to your mind again and again.

This brought me to read the book. The story was told through the eyes of Huw Morgan, a young boy in a big mining family, poor but very respectable in their valley. It told us the life of Huw growing from a boy to a young man, including the unfairness he encountered in a town school and his fighting back, and his first dating in a nightingale singing night and his love in his sister-in-law. It also covered what happened to Huw's family members, marriage, child birth, departure, and death. The storied was set in a background that the life value in the valley (and the world) was changing, through the big events of the establishment of minors' unions, of which Huw's brothers were two of the leaders, the starving and even death after strike, and the arising of socialism. The story started with a happy family with other villagers singing in a green valley, and ended with one after another leaving and death, with valley being devoured by slags.

Llewellyn succeeded in telling many small stories involved with a big number of characters in a well organized well. Also, some depth was reflected in this work, in particular, the awaking of Huw's sexual sensation and his complicated feeling to his sister-in-law. Also, the nice mixture of the family events, the changing of the valley, and some hint from the big world outside enriched the story, and extended its meaning with marks of that age.

However, to my personal taste, I felt disappointed with this novel even thought it was not a bad reading. The main problem was that I felt that the author made this story, and too many places I could see that Llewellyn tried to please readers; it was like many spices were added in order to appeal the readers' attentions -- this might explain why the movie was like a Broadway show. Second, Llewellyn's skills in language were not impressive. The narration was not vivid; there always something preventing readers entering the world of the story. This became more annoying since the book was so long. If the length of the story could be cut to half, I might have a little higher opinion of it. Lastly, I personally did not appreciate moral lessons that Llewellyn tried to preach, and it sounded narrow-minded to me by criticizing others just because they did not follow the so-called "noble" principle of life.

The book was published by Scribner in 1997, ISBN 0684825554.