Mr Weston's Good Wine

The idea is excellent and I was expecting more from this novel.
I found it hard to stick with Powys's style of writing, which is quick-paced, uncoherent and fragmented. This lead to me boredly skipping some passages. I couldn't find anything to relish on. However, the points that are raised about religion and specifically the ending are worth thinking about. It is impossible to identify wit... read more

Description: Mr Weston, accompanied by his assistant Michael, arrives one bleak November day in the village of Folly Down. His Ford contains the samples of his trade; for Mr Weston is a wine salesman. He is, however, a wine salesman like no other, as various portents make clear: a child, knocked down by his car, is restored to life; his sign 'Mr Weston's Good Wine' lights up the sky; time, literally, stands still. For Mr Weston is nothing less than God made flesh, 'the only son of the founder' of Messrs Weston & Co; his light wine is the wine of Love, his dark wine the wine of Death. Life and human nature being what they are, Folly Do Mr Weston, accompanied by his assistant Michael, arrives one bleak November day in the village of Folly Down. His Ford contains the samples of his trade; for Mr Weston is a wine salesman. He is, however, a wine salesman like no other, as various portents make clear: a child, knocked down by his car, is restored to life; his sign 'Mr Weston's Good Wine' lights up the sky; time, literally, stands still.

For Mr Weston is nothing less than God made flesh, 'the only son of the founder' of Messrs Weston & Co; his light wine is the wine of Love, his dark wine the wine of Death. Life and human nature being what they are, Folly Down contains plenty of potential clients for Mr Weston, exhibiting the usual quota of greed, lust, cruelty and stupidity. The one man to whom the villagers might turn for counsel, the parson, has lost his faith. Yet when Mr Weston and Michael make their spectacular departure, Folly Down is a much happier village than it was when they arrived.

Mr Weston's Good Wine, T.F.Powys's masterpiece, is a realistic allegory almost without parallel in modern literature. Ironic, comic and inspiring, it is an enduring classic. ... (more) (less)