The Great Level by Stella Tillyard
The Great Level, a novel by Stella Tillyard, is narrated by a man who “witnesses and records”. “Word by word my scratches make a shape, a history that comes to me the form I have writ it.” These words are written Jan Brunt, a Dutchman in 1664 in Nieuw Amsterdam, Manatus Eylandt. Jan is an engineer, who has come to work in the Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland, and tells us the story of what led him to this place.
From the first words I was enthralled with this novel, the writing is a delight to read, the descriptions of the people, their clothing, their surroundings, are delicious. We are simply told the story as it takes place, in the Netherlands, England and America. The reader is given credit for intelligence – if we are not certain of the history that is alluded to, we can look it up. We learn that there is a certain amount of unrest in both the Netherlands and in England, which eventually makes its way to their colonies in North America. Jan is largely untouched by these concerns as he makes his living planning the method used to drain swampy areas along seacoasts so that land for farming can be increased. He has gained a reputation as a man who can be trusted and provides results.
The novel moves from 1664 back to the beginning of Jan’s career in 1649, and in between, as the events of these years are revealed to the reader. “As one day follows another, the past and our history piles up as if we had laid one sheet of paper upon another until the last page…the past retreats as each present moment join it, on and on.”
We are with Jan when he meets Eliza while working in England on the Great Level of the Fens. They are immediately attracted to each other and become lovers, though they do not live together and Jan knows little about Eliza’s past or present, apart from her time spent with him. He teaches her to read and write, and explains the work he is doing, and his methods. When they are forced to part he is broken hearted, and his work no longer brings him the same satisfaction it one did.
Life without Eliza is not complete, though she remains with him, always in his thoughts. He writes, “a life without a past is a thin one, a life starved of voices and nourishment. I will not forget, I will let memory live, and you, Eliza, live within it and so, too, within me….sharing my new life and my old, and I will stay true to myself and to you”.
Eliza too writes her story “as every story wants a listener to bring it into being, just as every life leans towards others for an acknowledgment” and we discover where she has been, and what she has experienced, over the same years. The novel comes to an end in the fall of 1664 with much unresolved – but the story, of course, continues.