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204:. His efforts are frustrated by his family ties and the indefinable, unbreakable tie to the land. Chatwin also tells the reader of the brutality involved in farming at the time in this area. Amos, the father of the two twins, shows how his day-to-day job has brutalised his once caring and loving attitude, and we see this later in the novel when he hits his wife Mary on the temple with the book she is reading â
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and confusion, social, religious and cultural repression, hate and the historic social values of that era, as is shown when Amos finds out that his daughter
Rebecca has become pregnant by an Irishman. His religious fanaticism, social pressure, economic forces and an inability to express love results
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Rosie
Fifield â Lewis has a crush on her as they were childhood playmates. She instead decides to pursue Reggie Bickerton, who has recently returned from the war, he is from a local aristocrat family and wealthy. She begins working for him, he seduces her and proposes but refuses to tell his family
196:
The story is told through the technique of flashback, and portrays the lives of twin brothers, Lewis and
Benjamin Jones, on their isolated upland farm called The Vision. The twins develop a bond that is shown throughout the novel as very special. Lewis is portrayed as the stronger or dominant twin,
233:
Hannah Jones â Sam's wife. Hostile to her daughter in law. She had five children (a daughter who died of consumption, another daughter who married a
Catholic, the eldest son died in a Rhondda coalpit and her favourite son, Eddie, stole her savings and ran away to Canada. She was left living with
29:
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Mary Jones (née
Latimer). Daughter of a preacher. She is well educated and well travelled. She has spent time in India. After her father died she needed to get married to support herself, and so she married Amos, a local farm boy. They have three children, twin sons and then a
221:
in him throwing her out of the household, and she is not mentioned in the novel again until the latter part. The novel can also be seen as
Chatwin's autobiografictional utopia, in which each of the twins represents one of the author's bisexual subject positions.
210:. A jealous man, Amos attacks his wife with the very material that shows her intelligence; he feels threatened by this, feeling that the man is supposed to be the head of the family in all things, and he feels anger because of his limited education.
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Joy and Nigel
Lambert, married artists renting a cottage in the area. Nigel is making some etchings of Benjamin for a series of poems about a year as a shepherd. Joy takes an interest in Lewis Jones and seduces him, before she moves
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footpath on it, down into the fields of
Herefordshire, and on the English side. The Black Hill is known locally as 'The Cat's Back' as viewed from Herefordshire it looks like a crouching cat about to pounce. On the same map at
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Mr Haines â He seduced Gladys Musker, and is thought to be the father of Meg. He wouldnât marry her but after the baby is born he wants to be involved, he stalks her and eventually shoots her with a shotgun and then kills
257:
Tom 'the Coffin' Watkins â Local coffin-maker. Jimâs father and married to Aggie
Watkins. Has an ongoing feud with Amos. Left the family after a fight with his son, leaving Aggie and Jim to run the farm
237:
Amos Jones â Main characters' father. Marries the local preacher's daughter after her father died and rents the farm The Vision, where the majority of the story takes place. Died from being kicked by a
437:
Chatwin amalgamated reality with his research amongst the local indigenous populace in the time he researched the book, interweaving fact and fiction, gossip, locations, stories and social history.
197:
whereas
Benjamin is the more intuitive one, both in appearance and in the tasks which he does around the house. He seems to be constantly drawn to his mother's side while she is alive.
274:
Gladys Musker â Widow, has a daughter called Lilly-Annie. Her mother is Mrs Yapp. She later has an illegitimate daughter Meg (Margaret Beatrice Musker). Lewis has a crush on Gladys.
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Reggie Bickerton - local aristocrat, injured in WWI, seduced Rosie who was working as his nurse and helper. He ran away to his plantation abroad after getting her pregnant.
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Margaret âMegâ Beatrice Musker â Daughter of Gladys. Father unknown, might be Mr Haines or Jim the Rock. She goes to live with Aggie Watkins and Jim when her mother dies.
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or marry her, leaving her when she becomes pregnant. She has a son called Billy. She is offered ÂŁ400 to go away and goes to live in a remote farm with her child.
356:(with its castle and pre-war railway station) would be the principal town in the area but its name is notable by its absence; instead, it seems the name of the
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Aggie Watkins â Married to Tom, has a son Jim and daughter Ethel. After Tom disappears, she took in illegitimate children to raise for money.
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Rebecca Jones â daughter of Mary and Amos Jones. Amos doted on her daughter until she ran off with an Irish Catholic and moved to America.
368:, although not mentioned in the film, is another small nearby town, which would have been of greater importance to the area at the time.
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the Black Hill itself is shown, towards Craswall. The name refers to a well known ridge descending very steeply from the very long
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and the Black Mountains, Wales sheet 161' (1:50,000 series) and even better depicted on the more detailed 1:25,000 series at
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Sam 'the Wagon' Jones â the main character's paternal grandfather. He lived with the family, enjoys playing the violin.
402:, just a little to the south, is the real farm called The Vision, situated in the Llanthony valley, also known as the
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Mr Arkwright â the local solicitor, he kills his wife with cyanide. He is subsequently hanged for the crime.
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Jim 'the Rock' Watkins â A boy around the same age as the twins, lives next door on a farm called The Rock.
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with friends during the 1970s and was confidently cited as such in a BBC programme by his biographer.
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Ethel Watkins â She has a son called Alfie, who is 'simple' and dies in childhood in a local bog.
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Lewis is the one who wants to break free but Benjamin is forced into the army at the time of the
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See Richard Utz, âDas Zwillingspaar aus Chatwinshire: Bruce Chatwins antibinĂ€re Utopie.â In:
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The border of Radnor and Hereford was said to run right through the middle of the staircase.
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328:. Many real place names are used, the great majority indicating a site on the border of
185:, in Wales. In the early pages we are told the border runs through the very farmhouse:
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whose wife, Diana, was a close friend of Chatwin's and was a dedicatee for the book.
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Alternatively, the location that inspired the novel could be the Black Hill
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The location is lightly fictionalised; The Vision is a real farm north of
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was west of the easternmost ridge of the Black Mountains to the west.
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and a few miles from Lurkenhope. Chatwin stayed nearby in Cwm Hall,
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location of Lurkenhope has been used for the principal village.
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472:(which raises a question over the status of the earlier book
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The central characters are Welshmen, with the surname Jones.
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595:"Francis Wyndham talks about himself to Alan Hollinghurst"
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is a novel which portrays themes such as unrequited love,
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Benjamin Jones â Twin with Lewis, son of Mary and Amos.
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Lewis Jones â Twin with Benjamin, son of Mary and Amos.
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Paare und Paarungen. Festschrift fĂŒr Werner Wunderlich
512:. Ed. Ulrich MĂŒller (Stuttgart: Heinz, 2004), 343-53.
388:(which forms the England / Wales border) and carries
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360:hamlet of Rhulen has been used. The name of the
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489:was adapted for the stage in 1986 and into
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797:Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
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470:Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award
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558:"On The Black Hill With Bruce Chatwin"
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177:The novel's setting is the border of
161:published in 1982 and winner of the
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344:and Cefn Hill are outliers of the
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856:British novels adapted into films
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556:Phillips, Malcolm (Winter 2013).
440:Much of the book was written at
88:Print (hardback & paperback)
466:James Tait Black Memorial Prize
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163:James Tait Black Memorial Prize
846:Costa Book Award-winning works
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464:The book was awarded the 1982
165:for that year. In 1987 it was
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881:Works about sexual repression
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371:On the Ordnance Survey map, '
305:valley in the Black Mountains
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169:, directed by Andrew Grieve.
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851:Novels set in Herefordshire
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16:Novel by Bruce Chatwin
695:The Viceroy of Ouidah
475:The Viceroy of Ouidah
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730:What Am I Doing Here
340:. The Herefordshire
146:PR6053.H395 O5 1982b
876:Novels set in Wales
861:Jonathan Cape books
836:1982 British novels
528:"The Welsh Borders"
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591:Hollinghurst, Alan
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313:The summit of the
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181:, in England, and
22:On the Black Hill
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781:On the Black Hill
703:On the Black Hill
593:(4 August 1988).
536:The Welsh Borders
487:On The Black Hill
218:sexual repression
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207:Wuthering Heights
154:On the Black Hill
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609:. Retrieved
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765:Adaptations
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660:Non-fiction
450:Crickhowell
373:Abergavenny
358:Radnorshire
334:Breconshire
183:Radnorshire
134:823/.914 19
830:Categories
565:The Beacon
541:1 February
522:Presenter:
497:References
482:Adaptation
444:, between
390:Offas Dyke
362:Shropshire
354:Hay-on-Wye
342:Black Hill
338:Hay on Wye
225:Characters
815:Moleskine
611:25 August
571:25 August
336:south of
326:Llanthony
242:daughter.
202:Great War
57:Publisher
424:Knighton
422:between
419:SO330790
399:SO264310
381:SO275348
366:Talgarth
293:Location
278:himself.
49:Language
808:Related
567:: 30â34
432:Purslow
121:8887933
52:English
800:(2019)
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687:Novels
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671:(1977)
460:Prizes
446:Brecon
258:alone.
238:horse.
234:Amos).
39:Author
561:(PDF)
285:away.
93:Pages
613:2024
607:(14)
573:2024
543:2011
468:and
448:and
428:Clun
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102:ISBN
72:1982
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
