The Dig by Cynan Jones |
Published: May 7th, 2015
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Written by: Dylan Emerick-Brown
What moves a story forward can be any number of things. The cheap trick is action and suspense. The most common way is to breed drama between characters. However, once in a while it is the writer’s voice for his characters that gently tugs the reader’s sleeve. In his poetically written new novel, The Dig, Cynan Jones uses his incredible skills as a writer to set scene after scene, guided by internal monologue. The reader feels as though he or she is glimpsing into the lives, rather than the story line, of two characters: the big man and Daniel. The prose in the novel reads more like poetic vignettes. Admittedly, this could lose a reader’s interest if they’re expecting a faster pace. This is a novel for someone looking for a character-driven novel filled with internal conflict and the resolution or lack thereof that comes with the continuity of real life. However, to assist the reader along, Jones cut up the novel into parts, chapters, and sections so each paragraph is just one more gentle step through the story. The two protagonists are the big man and Daniel. The big man, who is never named, is a surly, anti-social character who prefers the company of his dogs to that of other people. His passion is hunting badgers for dog fights and one of his most prized possessions is a map he’s marked with all of the setts in the area. Hunting badgers, however, is illegal and so his avoidance of people must extend also to the law. Forever on the hunt and forever hunted, the big man lives on the fringes of society while seeking his prey on the fringes of Daniel’s land. Daniel is mourning the loss of a loved one, elegantly revealed in the beginning of the novel. This self-exiled endeavor to cope with a life lived without “her” is beautifully paired with the symbolism of raising innocent ewes – which contrasts the ferociously defensive badgers – and caring for the young lambs being born. His attempts to save the lives of his vulnerable stock attempt to give meaning to the lack of control in his own personal struggle. The pairing of these two characters is brilliant. Both their life circumstances and their professions compliment and contrast beautifully like the rural setting of the farm and country: rustic trials of identity, showing the delicate relationship between nature and man, independence and conformity. And, of course, getting to read Jones’s expertly crafted prose is a pleasure all in itself. |