The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Testament of Yves Gundron by Emily Barton
Alan Tinkler

Emily Barton. The Testament of Yves Gundron. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 305 pp. $25.00.

Emily Barton explores notions of society and societal changes in her first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, Yeoman Farmer of Mandragora Village, Being a Treatise on the Nature of Change and on the Coming of the New World. Ruth Blum, an anthropology Ph.D. candidate from Boston, who is researching the isolated village of Madragora, edits Yves’s testament, providing editorial insights into the rudimentary village where the invention of a horse’s harness is cause for celebration. Even though Ruth attempts to remain an objective, noninterfering observer, she brings about enormous change, albeit accidentally. Ruth inadvertently helps Yves, the village’s inventor, make the harness more productive; specifically, she suggests the concept of a wagon with breaks. With such advances, it is only a matter of time before the village becomes productive enough to support leisure activities, particularly the fashionable Sunday afternoon drive. Given the new transportation trend, the village’s perimeter expands, making inevitable contact with the surrounding twentieth century. Yves’s Testament, accordingly, becomes a narrative concerned with the nature of change. Ironically, Yves becomes Mandragora’s historian, hurriedly attempting to record the history of the uncorrupted, prewagon society. While the preindustrial world maintains a privileged position, the narrative acknowledges the import of technological advances. The narrative, though, is not a didactic call for the return to nature, but rather an interesting exploration of the tensions that result during times of transformation. Emily Barton is a clever writer. She takes advantage of narrative techniques, specifically narrative layering, to explore her subject more fully. In a less competent writer the structural multiplicity could suggest narrative trickery, but that is simply not the case. Emily Barton is to be commended; The Testament of Yves Gundron is a fine first novel. [Alan Tinkler]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Testament of Yves Gundron by Emily Barton Alan Tinkler Emily Barton. The Testament of Yves Gundron. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 305 pp. $25.00. Emily Barton explores notions of society and societal changes in her first novel, The Testament of Yves Gundron, Yeoman Farmer of Mandragora Village, Being a Treatise on the Nature of Change and on the Coming of the New World. Ruth Blum, an anthropology Ph.D. candidate from Boston, who is researching the isolated village of Madragora, edits Yves’s testament, providing editorial insights into the rudimentary village where the invention of a horse’s harness is cause for celebration. Even though Ruth attempts to remain an objective, noninterfering observer, she brings about enormous change, albeit accidentally. Ruth inadvertently helps Yves, the village’s inventor, make the harness more productive; specifically, she suggests the concept of a wagon with breaks. With such advances, it is only a matter of time before the village becomes productive enough to support leisure activities, particularly the fashionable Sunday afternoon drive. Given the new transportation trend, the village’s perimeter expands, making inevitable contact with the surrounding twentieth century. Yves’s Testament, accordingly, becomes a narrative concerned with the nature of change. Ironically, Yves becomes Mandragora’s historian, hurriedly attempting to record the history of the uncorrupted, prewagon society. While the preindustrial world maintains a privileged position, the narrative acknowledges the import of technological advances. The narrative, though, is not a didactic call for the return to nature, but rather an interesting exploration of the tensions that result during times of transformation. Emily Barton is a clever writer. She takes advantage of narrative techniques, specifically narrative layering, to explore her subject more fully. In a less competent writer the structural multiplicity could suggest narrative trickery, but that is simply not the case. Emily Barton is to be commended; The Testament of Yves Gundron is a fine first novel. [Alan Tinkler]

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