Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd, Islwyn Ffowc Elis

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language: Welsh
country: United Kingdom
year: 1957
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
dates read: 7.7.21-12.7.21, 21.3.24-12.4.24

Islwyn Ffowc Elis’s classic science fiction novel Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd (now also available in English translation!) is in some ways very good, in some ways very wacky, and in some ways…hm…troubling.

it is in some ways a classic utopia, not unlike David Ross’s A Summer in Skye, Thirty Years Hence: Ifan Powel travels from ca. 1957 to the distant future of 2033, where he experiences an independent Wales where the Welsh language is thriving throughout the country, the greatest soccer player in the world is Welsh, Welsh popular music is a major export, etc. in this bright future he “falls in love” (he’s there for all of a week) with a young woman, but the conditions of time travel force him back to his present. despairing of life without her, he returns to the future, only to find himself, this time, in a horrifying dystopia where Wales — now known as West England — has been depopulated and converted into tree plantations and trashy vacation towns. he returns to the present thoroughly converted to the cause of Welsh nationalism, determined that, if he cannot marry his beloved himself, the future she lived in will exist and one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren will marry her instead.

the politics of future Wales are an unhinged mix of capitalism, corporatism (business interests appear to be represented in the Second House of the Senedd, like the Irish Seanad, for example), and pseudo-socialism (focused on workers’ collectives as the primary economic structure). almost all the Protestant denominations of Wales have set aside their differences and formed a single United Church, which everyone attends (this is apparently a good thing). there’s also a movement to reunite Wales with England and reestablish the military, which kidnaps and tortures Ifan to try to get him to propagandize for him — this is probably the weakest part of the plot, because all their arguments are obvious strawmen. high taxes make it relatively unprofitable to own / operate more than one business but there are few restrictions on rental income and landlords appear to be thriving (this is actually probably the highlight of the novel’s utopia, because it’s the most realistic thing that the novel itself appears to regard as a real Problem With Wales That Will Be). also, in the bright, happy, Welsh future he for some reason never addresses his beloved with anything but the formal chi.

the dystopia is basically just Ninteen Eighty-Four 2.0 — notably with two interchangeable political parties, the “State Socialists” and the “English Democrats”, rotating in and out of power — but focused specifically on the horror of a cleared, polluted, squalid “West England”. Ifan is handed off on his arrival to a retired professor from Durham who was born in Arfon and has relearned Welsh in his old age. the two of them go on a tour up the coast towards Bangor in search of anyone who speaks Welsh. the passage through the numbered ruins of cleared towns, overgrown with forests (“chan iad seo coille mo ghràidh”!) is haunting, but the most powerful scene in the novel is probably the moment when they find one single remaining partial speaker, an elderly woman with dementia:

‘Hen wraig,’ meddwn i. ‘Ydach chi’n gwbod hon? Triwch gofio.’ Ac adroddais yn araf: ‘Yr Arglwydd yw fy Mugail; ni bydd eisiau arnaf. Efe a wna imi orwedd mewn porfeydd gwelltog…’ Caeodd llygaid yr hen wraig. Wel, dyna hi ar ben, meddwn i. Ond euthum yn fy mlaen. ‘Efe a ddychwel f’enaid. Efe a’m harwain…’ Yn sydyn, sylweddolais fod gwefusau’r hen wraig yn symud. Yr oedd hi’n adrodd y geiriau gyda mi. Agorodd ei llygaid, a daeth ei llais yn gryfach, gryfach… ‘Ie, pe rhodiwn ar hyd Glyn Cysgod Angau, nid ofnaf niwed…’ A phan ddaeth at eiriau ola’r Salm, fe’u dwedodd â grym yn ei llais a golau yn ei llygaid na welais beth tebyg na chynt nac wedyn.

‘A phreswyliaf yn Nhŷ’r Arglwydd yn dragwydd… Pwy ydech chi, ’machgen i?’ Trodd ei llygaid gloyw arnaf. ‘Bachgen Meri Jones ydech chi? Maen nhw wedi mynd â cholofn Tomos Charles odd’ wrth y capel, wyddoch…y Saeson ’ne ddaru…’ Cydiodd ym mreichiau’i chadair a chodi’n syth ar ei heistedd. ‘Y nhw ddaru, a’u hen sŵn a’u coed a’u regileshions…y nhw… But I don’t know you, do I?’ Suddodd yn ôl unwaith eto â’i llygaid yn pylu. ‘I don’t…know anything now…’

Codais, a mynd allan o’r ystafell. Yr oeddwn wedi gweld â’m llygaid fy hun farwolaeth yr iaith Gymraeg.

oof.

moods: dark, hopeful, informative, inspiring, reflective, wacky


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