The MAN WHO WENT INTO THE WEST
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Review
‘A biography touched by genius’ (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday )
‘A masterpiece’ (Daily Express )
‘Byron Rogers’ lively and affectionate biography… is unexpectedly, even riotously funny… Warm, perceptive, ruthless, gossipy and admiring’ (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury The Sunday Times )
‘This book ought to win every award for which it is eligible’ (Andrew Martin Sunday Telegraph )
‘A masterpiece’ (Daily Express )
‘Byron Rogers’ lively and affectionate biography… is unexpectedly, even riotously funny… Warm, perceptive, ruthless, gossipy and admiring’ (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury The Sunday Times )
‘This book ought to win every award for which it is eligible’ (Andrew Martin Sunday Telegraph )
Sunday Times Culture 5th August
`Rogers creates a brilliantly original and often surprisingly funny work'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's fair to say that Welsh priest and poet, RS Thomas (1913 - 2000), the oft-called `Ogre of Wales', was a man who drew strong and contradictory responses from those around him. While his literary executor, Professor Meurig Wynn Thomas wrote of him as `the Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Wales' in light of his habitual challenge to the Welsh conscience, Philip Larkin, in letters, referred to him as `Arsewipe Thomas'.
In this truly compulsive and often very funny biography, Byron Rogers goes way beyond the previously documented Thomas, the man who raged against the evils of domestic appliances and who refused to have even a refrigerator in his house because of the noise it made, who spent years with his artist wife, Elsi, while barely speaking to her, who ranted from the pulpit at his parishioners, but who would hide behind hedges rather than speak to them if he encountered them in the open.
Here we see Thomas in his many paradoxes - the Christian pacifist who nonetheless supported Welsh Nationalism and the firebombing of English holiday cottages in the 1980s - (what is one death against the death of the whole Welsh nation?) for instance, the man who despite his cut glass Oxford English tones, and the private English education he gave his son, only stopped `going West' in his quest for Welshness when he met the sea at Aberdaron in 1967, `thinking, to use his own image, to kiss the feet of the Welsh rainbow'.
Despite the paradoxes, and Thomas himself was well aware of them, he was a poet of immense, sometimes breathtaking talent, and in this delightful and very `human' biography, Byron Rogers brings us to a far greater understanding of the man and his passions. To read it is to be suffused with a sudden and urgent desire to revisit and reassess the work of this `barmy old coot'.
Zoe King - Cadenza magazine
In this truly compulsive and often very funny biography, Byron Rogers goes way beyond the previously documented Thomas, the man who raged against the evils of domestic appliances and who refused to have even a refrigerator in his house because of the noise it made, who spent years with his artist wife, Elsi, while barely speaking to her, who ranted from the pulpit at his parishioners, but who would hide behind hedges rather than speak to them if he encountered them in the open.
Here we see Thomas in his many paradoxes - the Christian pacifist who nonetheless supported Welsh Nationalism and the firebombing of English holiday cottages in the 1980s - (what is one death against the death of the whole Welsh nation?) for instance, the man who despite his cut glass Oxford English tones, and the private English education he gave his son, only stopped `going West' in his quest for Welshness when he met the sea at Aberdaron in 1967, `thinking, to use his own image, to kiss the feet of the Welsh rainbow'.
Despite the paradoxes, and Thomas himself was well aware of them, he was a poet of immense, sometimes breathtaking talent, and in this delightful and very `human' biography, Byron Rogers brings us to a far greater understanding of the man and his passions. To read it is to be suffused with a sudden and urgent desire to revisit and reassess the work of this `barmy old coot'.
Zoe King - Cadenza magazine
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a truly wonderful, readable book that is as well written as R. S. Thomas' poems are. What is most astonishing is the fairness that Byron Rogers brings to it. Unsparing in its portrayal, this portrait of a tortured man touched by genius makes clear the excessive (perhaps abnormal) sensitivity to the world he observed and lived in (made manifest in the poems) as well as the shy, sometimes kind, occasionally generous man and priest. An ogre, no matter how blameworthy, could not write the poems Thomas did. For corroborating evidence, please listen closely and carefully to the CDs of R.S. Thomas reading his poems recorded the year before he died. Then go back to the poems and read them for their clarity, integrity and compassion.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A completely readable and compassionate biography of a man many found impossible, unfathomable or both. Rogers had the great benefit of access not only to Thomas' family, but had been meeting the poet over a period of many years. Some comment not altogether favourably on the amount of personal reminiscence in the writing, but to this reader it was entirely justified by the light it throws on the subject. I have been an avid reader of R.S.T's poetry for many years; this book illuminates them with a new light.
And it's great to realise the sense of humour lurking behind that familiar, craggy face!
And it's great to realise the sense of humour lurking behind that familiar, craggy face!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Unputdownable Biography of an Exasperating Man
Probably the most enjoyable and memorable biography I have read in the last 10 years - this is a book which I keep lending to friends and then anxiously awaiting its return. Read more
Published 3 months ago by JudithSansom
The Man who went into the West
One of the best biographies I have read in that it is often critical and reveals Thomas as a complicated, often difficult man whose poetry was more derivative than other critics... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Nick's mum
R.S.Thomas biography
A fascinating biography and interesting as a piece of writing, as it charts the author's quest to find out what he could about his subject, when few personal papers were left, and... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Jenny
the man who went into the West
This is a well-rounded account of R.S. thomas and his life - all the ups and downs that he experienced in his long and poetically fruitful life. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ruth
the poets tail
I really enjoyed this rather usual biography. Whilst I was very familiar with Thomas's poetry I knew nothing about the man. Read more
Published 11 months ago by teevoss
RST An Honest Heretic
R.S. - Ronald Stuart - Thomas was a man of contradictions.
The press release accompanying the publication of Byron Rogers' biography The Man Who Went into the West: The... Read more
The press release accompanying the publication of Byron Rogers' biography The Man Who Went into the West: The... Read more
Published 12 months ago by D. Fielding
Riveting Read
I was persuaded to read this book by the glowing reviews here. And I was not disappointed, it is a marvellous read. I had resisited reading a biography of R. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Sabina
Inspiring.
Having studied the poems of RS Thomas for O'Level many years ago, I now wish that I had been able to read this book then. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2009 by Mad Meg
The Challenge of God
The late Reverend R.S. Thomas, perhaps little known as either a priest or as a poet, has, nonetheless, made a huge contribution to the world of poetry, with a masterful use of... Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2008 by Fr. Paul
An engaging portrait of a fascinating man
As the other reviewers have said, this is a biography that holds one's interest and presents an entertaining and engaging portrait of a fascinating man. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2008 by Graham of Littlehampton
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