Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

A note between the epigraph page and the first chapter page reads: ‘TIME, summer about seventy years ago, PLACE, Warwickshire.’Daunt Books' elegantly designed and reprinted volume of BARBARA COMYNS’ novel WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD tells us that the book was originally published in 1954 and a little research reveals that it was written after 1951. That would put the action – a sudden flood, a mysterious and terrifying plague ‘the madness’, and how it changes the WILLOWEED family – as taking place in the 1880s. But village Doctor Hatt has a car – a yellow one at that, so unless it’s imported that’s unlikely. There’s also something rather streamlined about the language EMMA, daughter of EBIN WILLOWEED - a miserably repressed man financially dependent upon his abusive ear trumpet-wielding mother – her younger sister Hattie and the maids Norah and Eunice use which would seem to point to a post Edwardian era. As the narrative unfolds, ‘the madness’ takes its grip and the villagers go ‘ape’, there’s a tantalising reference to the current ‘King George.’ Not in 1880! Ah, but wait a minute, supposing that time inscription wasn’t by the author but has been put there by the publishers Daunt Books in 2021 – 2021 minus seventy is 1951. Bingo! There’s your King George, except the ambience still doesn’t feel right. It’s not until page 168 – seven eighths of the way through the book that we get dramatic proof of what age we’re in. It comes in the form of a letter written by Ebin to the Daily Courier newspaper accepting a permanent job and thus assuring him of freedom from the terrible and tyranical reign of his mother. Ebin it seems has been supplying the Courier with written pieces about ‘the madness’, ranging from an eye witness account of the village butcher slitting his own throat, to hearsay testimonies of Old Toby being ‘burned to a cinder’ at the hands of a mob, and the screaming baker’s wife running through the village clad only in a tattered pink nightgown. The real, real date, I’m not going to tell you. To find out you will have to read – or at least acquire a copy of this strange novel whose mood is neither full on horror, nor is it slapstick black comedy. Comyns’ descriptive and storytelling style harks of the existential smugness of the UK children’s tv programme of the 1960s The Magic Roundabout combined with the dreamlike metaphysics of Under Milk Wood.Whether the note about TIME is contemporaneous or whether it was added by Daunt doesn't matter. The reason I pick on it is that time is what this novel is all about, it's a saga but all squashed into one summer, three generations of a family and how it changes. Make no mistake, I didn't give it 5 stars for nothing. It's unique, and it's priceless.It may well be the stuff of Grimm’s fairy tales but it’s no coincidence that a mass poisoning at Pont Saint Esprit – supposedly originating from hallucinogen-producing adulterated flour in the village bakery – took place in 1951 three years before publication of Comyns’ novel.

This is a wonderful book by an astonishingly good writer, Barabara Comyns, who deserves to be better known. From its first image, of the ducks swimming into the big house in a sudden flood, it teems with life and originality. It concerns an apparent epidemic, where people are randomly struck down, and yet she somehow makes you laugh in a rare combination of tragedy and comedy. The story races through in a lively manner so that many of the people's lives are dramatically changed. I really enjoyed this book.

Barbara Comyns was an artist and novelist of the mid 20th century. She is not very well known nowadays and this is one of her most obscure novels. It was banned in Ireland for some years although I can't think why as any accounts of 1950s Ireland far outweigh the cruelty and lunacy described in this book. A theme which runs through all of Comyns' fiction is cruelty - cruelty to unworldly women and children, most explicit in the Vet's Daughter but very apparent here. The portrait of a miserly self-righteous old woman is vividly alive. There are so many similar depictions in Comyns' other books that I think she must have experienced this in real life. She had a Swiftian eye for absurdity and also for the self-serving horror underlying respectable society and is well worth discovering or rediscovering. Good books to give to a teenage girl!

I was really enjoying this book until it made a mad dash toward the end :(

This was an unexpected, crazy, delight, conjuring up a mix of bucolic charm and almost medieval horror.The narrators voice feels authentic as Comyns young woman struggles towards adulthood.Why isnt this author better known?