RANDOM
DEATHS AND CUSTARD
Sam
Jones is a perfectly ordinary Valleys girl. Except for the
random deaths, that is. Which she only just manages to avoid.
Like the time she swallows a fish finger whole before answering
the door to the catalogue salesman. That random death leads
to love, mind, which is a relief to Sam: people on her street
will stop thinking she's a lesbian.
She has plenty of other crosses to bear: the custard factory
where she works; Nanna's farting and Anti Peg's swearing;
her Mam's boyfriend; her squaddie brother. Not to mention
the posh Welshies at the end of the road.
With
its comic darkness, its write-as-she-speaks style and its
recognition of how the ordinary and eccentric are two sides
of the same coin, this is a novel that will have you laughing
and crying into your custard.
CATRIN'S
NEW CHAPTER:
Carmarthen
writer Catrin Dafydd has publis hed her first English language
novel.
Random
Deaths and Custard is a black comedy about Sam Jones, an ordinary
Valleys girl, and the random deaths she just manages to avoid.
The book follows the success of Catrin's previous Welsh language
publications.
She
is noted as one of a new generation of authors keen to bridge
the gap between English and Welsh language cultures.
"I
have Welsh friends and English friends and realise that both
cultures are relevant and should be embraced," she said.
"There needs to be a bridge between them both.
"It
is not a simple divide as there are also non-Welsh speaking
Welsh people as well as Welsh speaking Welsh people. These
ideas led me to thinking that I had a responsibility to write
a novel in English."
Her
Welsh novel, Pili Pala reached the long list for Wales's Book
of the Year award in 2007, and she is in demand as a creative
writing tutor in schools across Wales.
As well as a novelist and Carmarthen town councillor, Catrin
is renowned for her poetry.
"As
a writer you are a communicator and so you want to reach out
to people.
"Poetry
reaches out to some people, prose to others," she said.
Catrin launched her new novel, published by Gomer, at Carmarthen's
Waterstones and also in their Cardiff branch.
[Erthygl
o // Article from www.thisissouthwales.co.uk]
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NOFEL
SAESNEG GAN YMGYRCHYDD IAITH:
Mae
awdur sy’n adnabyddus am ymgyrchu dros y Gymraeg wedi
sgrifennu nofel Saesneg yn “deyrnged” i’r
fagwraeth ddwyieithog a gafodd hi yng nghymoedd y de pan oedd
hi’n ferch ysgol.
Random
Deaths and Custard yw enw nofel gomig newydd Catrin Dafydd
ac mae wedi’i sgrifennu o safbwynt merch ifanc sy’n
gweithio mewn ffatri yn y Rhondda ar ôl bod drwy’r
system addysg Gymraeg.
“Ro’n
i’n teimlo cyfrifoldeb i sgrifennu o berspectif rhywun
felly, sydd ddim yn defnyddio’r Gymraeg o ddydd i ddydd”
meddai Catrin Dafydd, sy’n ymgyrchydd gyda Chymdeithas
yr Iaith ac a fu’n arwain protestiadau iaith pan oedd
yn y brifysgol yn Aberystwyth.
A
hithau’n awdur a storiwraig llawn amser, fe gyrhaeddodd
restr fer hir Llyfr y Flwyddyn y llynedd gyda’i nofel
Pili Pala, ond dyma’i gwaith cynta’ yn Saesneg.
“Y
realiti yw bod yna bobol fel hyn i gael, sydd ddim yn siarad
yr iaith er bod y gallu ganddyn nhw i wneud.
“Be
mae’r nofel yn ei feirniadu os rhywbeth yw bod sefyllfa
fel hyn yn gallu bodoli; bod dim cymhelliad gyda nhw i siarad
Cymraeg. Dw i’n edrych mlaen at yr ymateb.”
Mae
yna dameidiau o Gymraeg yn y nofel, rhywbeth sy’n adlewyrchu
“realiti” y sefyllfa yn y Cymoedd, yn enwedig
i gynddisgyblion Ysgol Rhydfelen.
“Roedd
e’n sicr yn gyfl e i dalu teyrnged i’r fagwraeth
dw i wedi’i chael ym Mhontypridd,” meddai Catrin
Dafydd. “Dw i’n credu bod angen dweud be’
sy’n cael ei ddweud – a gweld beth yw barn pobol
Gymraeg am y math yma o berson yn y Cymoedd.
“R’yn ni’n rhy barod i ddweud, mae hyn a
hyn o bobol yn siarad Cymraeg ac mae’n beth da –
ond faint sy’n cael ei siarad bob dydd? “Mae’r
ffaith fod y nofel yn Saesneg yn fwy Cymreig mewn ffordd,
achos dim ond rhywun sy’n siarad Cymraeg fyddai’n
deall y sefyllfa.”
Roedd
hi’n gallu edrych yn ôl ar ei chyfnod hi yn yr
ysgol ac ystyried beth oedd perspectif ei chyd-ddisgyblion
o aelwydydd di-Gymraeg a’u barn ohoni hi fel rhywun
a gafodd ei magu ar aelwyd Gymraeg.
“Mae sôn yn y nofel am y plant o deuluoedd Cymraeg,”
meddai, “fel eu bod nhw’n fath o ffrîcs.
Lle byddai rhywun Cymraeg yn y gogledd yn symud mewn i fro
Gymraeg, chi yw’r person gwahanol yn Gaerdydd.. Dyna’r
realiti.”
Comedi
ddu yw’r nofel yn benna’, gyda’r prif gymeriad
yn ceisio meddwl am wahanol ffyrdd o farw.
“I
ryw raddau dw i’n sôn am ferch sy’n trio
ffeindio’i ffordd trwy fywyd,” meddai, “yn
delio â’i Chymreictod a’r Gymraeg, yn gweithio
mewn ffatri yn y Cymoedd. Ro’n i’n teimlo’n
gyffyrddus yn ei sgrifennu hi.”
Non
Tudur
[Erthygl
o Golwg, Rhagfyr 13, 2007]
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'GOLWG'
- Ionawr/January 2008:
The
blurb on the back of Catrin Dafydd’s Random Deaths and
Custard describes the novel’s narrator Sam Jones, as
a ‘perfectly ordinary Valleys girl.’ She is eighteen
and lives in the Rhondda, where she works in the local custard
factory. Her parents are in the process of splitting up and
she is having trouble accepting ‘that-man-Terry,’
her Mam’s new boyfriend. While her squaddie brother
completes a tour of Iraq, Sam spends her spare time in the
company of her Nanna, who enjoys a good fart, and Auntie Peg,
who enjoys the occasional swear word. It is when she is chaperoning
these characters home from the bingo, on the bus, and her
Auntie Peg asks the driver if he ‘wants some anal,’
I realised that the ‘ordinary’ moniker in the
blurb is only a half truth. Sam is extraordinary, in that,
she is an eighteen year old who has grown up in the Rhondda
but who hasn’t yet worked out what ‘anal’
is. In fact, people in her street think she’s a ‘lezza’
because she doesn’t shag about.
Another
thing which is somewhat unusual about Sam is that she went
to a Welsh school and can still speak a bit of the language.
Bilingualism and the reclamation of the Welsh language in
south Wales is one of the themes of the novel which holds
the story together. So, this isn’t the savage, English
speaking, America inspired Rhondda of Ron Berry or Alun Richards.
Neither is it the emotional and physical wasteland filled
with decay, graffiti, rotting Comprehensives, crumbling terraces,
sink estates and discarded syringes that I see around myself
everyday, not immediately in any case. Sam is happy-go-lucky,
gainfully employed and almost implausibly naïve. I say
‘almost’ because there are times when she doesn’t
seem as immature as she’s supposed to be, for instance,
at a union meeting at Custards, she comments on fellow employees,
Ahmed, a Sikh, and Malcometh-the-Day, a local lay preacher,
chatting to one another. ‘There was a lesson for all
the world there, I think. In a custard factory in the Rhondda.’
Unlikely she would have contemplated the problems of the world
when she chooses not to acknowledge those around her. But
this is a very minor flaw.
There
are times when Sam’s innocence is a wonderful device
for giving readers a glimpse of the other Rhondda, going on
just out of view. On a rare visit to the Legion where there
happens to be a darts championship attended by the resident
victor Daddy-o Walters, she goes to the toilet, only to see
‘… in the little room by the bar, this girl kneelin’
down, her face lost in Daddy-o’s lap. They didn’t
see me, but I felt sick. Really sick.’ The random deaths
from which the book takes its title, including a near fatal
incident with a fish finger, succeed against all odds, mainly
because Dafydd’s use of language is both shrewd and
highly amusing. The Valleys dialogue is bang on, and there
are even two band-names I wish I’d thought of myself,
the latter, Death of the Sales, Man! a cunning hint at the
outcome of the story. Overall, the novel is a sanguine and
heart warming, coming of age tale, never more rewarding than
when Sam’s brother, having suffered a break-down after
his tour of Iraq, says he wants to become a chef. ‘Really
clean and honest job, feedin’ people. Makin’ people
stay alive.’ Although there are three real deaths in
the book, and countless close-shaves, the novel is essentially
about life and the mundane, yet often remarkable living of
it.
Rachel
Trezise
[First
published in Golwg magazine on January 10, 2008]
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