SOURCE: “Caradoc Evans's ‘Sayings’: An Approach to the Style of His Later Work,” in The Anglo-Welsh Review, Vol. 24, No. 53, Winter, 1974, pp. 58–66.

In the following essay, Williams examines Evans's satirical use of “sayings” in his fiction, viewing it as a “successful integration of style and theme.”

One of the best of Caradoc Evans's late stories is the title story of The Earth Gives All and Takes All, published posthumously in 1946. “The Earth Gives All” concerns a farmer with a “tree of wisdom” in his head who decides to marry, for he needs a wife who will tend his land while he goes around the countryside delivering his ‘sayings’ to the peasants. We learn that the old farmer's heart “tumbled about and about in its hole” and that “he looked into his loft and all his sayings were dry dust on the floor.” What makes these statements intriguing is the...