Up, into the Singing Mountain

This book will tear you apart and put you back together again. It opens where the first book, How Green Was My Valley, opened- Huw packing up to leave his valley in Wales. But rather than a long flashback, we go forward in his life from there- on to Patagonia, Argentina, with a Welsh expatriate community, but mostly from composed of those *other* people, the North Welsh. Huw moves into town as a boarder, starts up his carpentry business, sorely needed after a great flood in the year prior, and meets a beautiful woman, Lal. He then faces similar problems to his life growing up- nature's wrath, and man's evil- gossip. Llewellyn does an amazing job of characterization, so that we as the readers really care for the characters, move for them, and feel that we are right there with them. He describes without describing, and Welsh Patagonia comes to life before us. I eagerly look forward to the third in the series of four, Down Where the Moon is Small. Up Into the Singing Mountain is a complete story in it's own right, but leaves much room for a sequel. However, I could not give the book five stars, for two reasons, which diverge from the first book. Llewellyn uses stronger Welsh dialect at times and his scene changes become confusing, so that there were many places wherein I didn't know what was happening, and even when I reread a section, couldn't make sense of it. Also, there were times, especially in the first half of the book, where I couldn't support Huw. In the first book, I could identify with him, even when he made mistakes. Here, there are times when Huw seems rather mean, and is difficult to relate to. He justifies himself when a naked woman is in his bed that he is a man, and so makes love to her, because no man could refuse. This is simply untrue, and difficult to relate to. But Huw's character picks up in the second half, and this is perhaps why it is then when the reader's heart is wretched and then poured out in hope.