RHYS LEWIS
Minister of Bethel
By Daniel Owen
Translated by Stephen Morris
Brown Cow publishing. 480 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978 0 956 703 132
Very few writers of literary merit have managed to describe the character and inner thought processes of an evangelical Christian. Generally Bible Christians are portrayed as, at worst, hypocritical, harsh and full of cant or, at best, wet, unreal and one-dimensional.
But Daniel Owen, a Victorian Welsh writer, avoided those pitfalls and produced a story worthy of greater attention than it has formerly had. Written in Welsh in 1865, it has recently been translated by Stephen Morris and not least among its attractions is a wonderful study of a worldview and pattern of life in a North Wales mining town of the time, steeped as it was in Bible and chapel.
Rhys Lewis is a thumping great wet Saturday afternoon of a novel. Contemporaneous with the finest period of the writing of Charles Dickens, it tells the story of a life using first-person narrative. Like Dickens’s David Copperfield, it starts with the birth and significant early childhood memories of the epony-mous hero. And, like David Copperfield, it demonstrates the powerful impact of early experiences on the shaping of a character. Some of the episodes are broadly comic, others are poignant and there is a range of memorable characters drawn with a keen and tender eye. Chapel life looms large, but there is also a darker context of industrial unrest amongst miners against their English paymasters. Young Rhys’s life is also overshadowed by the menace of his largely absent father and the mystery of all that is a significant thread throughout the book.
Deep and full of wisdom
This is an absorbing story and a very Welsh one, not just in its content but in its style. There are whole chapters in which the only action is in the head of the hero. He is introspective and his soul-searchings are definitely in a minor key. But the book is deep and full of wisdom. Daniel Owen was able, through his own experience and understanding of chapel culture, to describe chapel life warmly and honestly. Certainly the story exposes the horrible shortcomings of mere formal traditionalism; equally there are rounded sketches of flawed but genuine believers, from the austere but kindly Abel Hughes to the humble and faintly ridiculous Thomas Bartley. The reader follows Rhys’s own tortuous journey to faith. Of particular interest are his discussions with his best but unbelieving friend, Wil, who is a key player in many of Rhys’s adventures and not always a benign influence.
All sorts of issues are touched upon in the course of the narrative: leadership in the church, the place of music, the call to ministry, training at Bible College and what makes a good sermon. Present-day Christian readers will find the arguments strangely relevant. This book deserves a wide readership and possibly a screenplay.
