Cofiwch Olchi Dwylo

COFIWCH OLCHI DWYLO a negeseuon eraill (£8.00 Carreg Gwalch 2021)

BROLIANT

"Steddfod 'di canslo 'achan."

"Deith hi nôl wap. Pethe'n normal 'to."

"O'dd pethe byth yn normal rownd ffor' hyn."

Mawrth 2020, a daeth Clo Mawr Covid 19 i'r dref fechan hon ar arfordir Ceredigion fel y daeth i weddill Cymru. Dechreuodd ei thrigolion brynu gormodedd o bapur ty bach, gwnaethpwyd trefniadau i ofalu am anghenion anwyliaid, a sleifiodd ambell un o ddinasoedd mawrion i dreulio'r clo wrth lan y môr.

Wrth i'r gwanwyn droi'n haf, ac wrth i'r clapio ar stepen y drws ddistewi, daw haul ar fryn wrth i ffrindiau gyfarfod, ond mae ambell un yn galaru...

Dyma gyfres o straeon byrion am unigolion a chymuned sy'n cofleidio'r llon a'r lleddf fel ei gilydd.

"DYMA AWDUR GWREIDDIOL SY'N MEDDU AR DDYCHYMYG BYW" - MARLYN SAMUEL

ADOLYGIAD BARN (Gorffennaf 2021) - Er nad oedd GWENAN MARED yn rhy hoff o gael ei hatgoffa eto fyth gan deitl y gyfrol i olchi dwylo, buan y daeth i fwynhau'r profiad o gael rhannu bywydau trigolion dychmygol tref arfordirol yn ystod y clo cyntaf.

Mae'n rhaid cyfaddef na fuaswn i ddim wedi dewis y gyfrol hon o straeon byrion petawn i wedi ei gweld yn fy siop lyfrau leol. Yn sicr, mae rhywbeth difyr am y clawr sy'n llawn stampiau inc gyda llythrennau arnynt, er imi feddwl mai siocled neu lego oeddan nhw ar yr olwg gyntaf. Ond dydi'r lliwiau niwtral ddim yn denu sylw a dydi siars y teitl ddim cweit be o'n i eisiau ar ol blwyddyn a mwy o glywed dim byd arall! Fodd bynnag, wrth ddarllen un stori ar ol y llall am drigolion tref lan mor ddychmygol yng Ngheredigion, mi ddechreuais fwynhau'r tapestri yr oedd yr awdur yn ei greu, gyda straeon a oedd yn sefyll yn hollol annibynnol ar ei gilydd ond eto'n cynnwys elfennau ac enwau a oedd yn eu clymu, gan ychwanegu haenau difyr at y cyfan.

Roedd Geraint Lewis wedi derbyn grant i ysgrifennu cyfrol lle byddai sloganau/arwyddion yn deitlau penodau neu straeon pan ddaeth Covid-19 a'r byd i stop. Dyna'r cyfle perffaith iddo fwrw iddi wrth i lu o sloganau a gorchmynion newydd ymddangos bron bob wythnos. Mae'r gyfrol yn cynnig darlun o'r misoedd rhyfedd rhwng Mawrth ac Awst 2020. Gosodwyd y straeon mewn trefn gronolegol gan ddechrau gyda phanig siopa a phrynu mynydd o bapur lle chwech a gorffen gyda hanes hen ddynes ryfeddol o sylwgar sy'n methu ag addasu i'r normal newydd. Nid Covid yn unig sy'n cael sylw ond hefyd Black Lives Matter a'r peintio dros arwydd eiconig Cofiwch Dryweryn.

Ysgrifennir y straeon o safbwynt sawl cymeriad gyda'r arddull yn adlewyrchu'r cymeriad - rhai'n ymsonau heb fath o atalnodi, eraill yn fwy traddodiadol. Gall yr awdur fynd dan groen pob math o bobl. Ysgrifennir un stori o safbwynt plentyn, rhyw ddwy o safbwynt person yn ei arddegau, un arall o safbwynt merch ifanc sydd wedi delio gyda hiliaeth, a nifer o straeon o safbwynt pobl hyn. Mae llawer o'r pethau yr ydym yn eu cysylltu gyda'r clo cyntaf yn cael eu lle - clapio i'r gwasanaeth iechyd, haul tanbaid annisgwyl mis Ebrill, galwadau Zoom, mynd am dro yn ddyddiol. Trafodir heriau addysgu o adref, poen meddwl perchennog busnes, ac yna'r llesgedd wrth i'r cyfnod ddechrau llusgo. Ac yn anorfod, wrth gwrs, mae salwch a marwolaeth yn bwrw cysgod dros y gymuned a'r cymeriadau.

Ceir un stori ar ffurf sgript ac roedd hon yn un o'm ffefrynnau, gan glymu nifer o hanesion a chymeriadau o fewn y sgwrs. Mae ambell deulu neu gymeriad yn ymddangos mewn mwy nag un stori. Ceir sawl cymeriad rhyfedd iawn yma - o genedlaetholwyr sy'n gweld ysbrydion i 'white supremacist' ffiaidd sy'n cael ei eilunaddoli gan ei nai ifanc. Cawn wybod tynged ambell gymeriad mewn stori arall ac roeddwn yn synnu braidd fy mod yn drist wrth glywed newyddion drwg am gymeriadau blaenorol. Mae stori fer yn tueddu i orffen gyda'r gair olaf, a dyna ni.

Mae'n siwr fod yma rhyw adlais o waith Dylan Tomos yn y portread o dref fach lle mae pawb yn adnabod pawb, neu fersiwn ddeheuol o Fethesda Caradog Prichard efallai. Ond gwylio'i gilydd o bell sydd raid i'r cymeriadau oherwydd yr amgylchiadau, a chadw eu cyfrinachau'n agos at eu calon. Byd cyfoes iawn ydyw, lle mae defnyddio cyffuriau ar noson allan ac weithiau adref hefyd i'w weld yn beth hollol arferol.

I mi, y straeon yn ail hanner y gyfrol yw'r goreuon. Mae ynddynt fwy o gyffro, mwy o fywyd, ac amrywiaeth dda o gymeriadau - a hyd yn oed ambell ddiweddglo hapus. Dyma gyfrol sy'n dweud llawer am gyfnod unigryw yn ein hanes gan awdur sy'n gwybod sut i drin geiriau ac amrywio arddull, gyda nifer o themau mentrus a mwy nag un cymeriad go anghonfensiynol hefyd.

REMEMBER TO WASH HANDS and other messages

BLURB

"The Eisteddfod's cancelled mun."

"It'll be back soon. Things will be normal again."

"Things were never normal round here."

March 2020 and the first Covid 19 Lockdown has come to this small seaside town in Ceredigion just like the rest of Wales. Its inhabitants begin to buy too much toilet paper, arrangements are made to care for loved ones and some city dwellers have made their way to spend Lockdown by the sea.

As spring turns to summer and as the clapping on the doorstep fades there's light at the end of the tunnel when friends meet, but some are grieving...

A series of short stories about individuals and a community that embraces both the melancholy and mirth of life.

"AN ORIGINAL WRITER WHO HAS A VIVID IMAGINATION" - MARLYN SAMUEL

REVIEW - Jon Gower (Nation.cymru 11/09/2021)

COFIWCH OLCHI DWYLO IS AN ARRESTING ARRAY OF STORIES SET IN CEREDIGION OVER THE TESTING TIMES OF COVID

It's not often that a collection of stories deals with matters so contemporaneous that the reader is still living through the times it describes. But Geraint Lewis manages to do precisely that, courtesy of a tightly knit array of stories set in the testing time of Covid. The characters share the trials and tribulations we have all shared.

The very title 'Cofiwch Olchi Dwylo' reminds us to wash our hands, a public health graffito which now seems to belong to a far-off age, especially as the pandemic seems to have set time itself on a crooked spindle. What day is it? Which month is it? Other story titles bear a similar burden of lockdown messaging. 'Shop responsibly' we are told - even though the people who crowd the story's supermarket are irresponsibly hoarding toilet rolls - 'keep your distance' we are advised and, in a more localised version, 'Peidiwch Nofio yn yr Harbwr', don't swim in the harbour.

It's thus a book about rules laid down and oft times unheeded or ignored. In this sense the tales are vivid, highly-relatable documents of a pandemic age we have gone through and are going through, such as the weekly show of solidarity for the NHS when people made a loud noise on their doorsteps. But the neighbours-on-doorsteps in this collection don't necessarily get on that well, as a London couple has decamped to west Wales to avoid the lockdown restrictions, bringing a touch of Barnard Castle style-resentment to Ceredigion, not to mention their very noisy and public love-making.

Just as the American author Elizabeth Strout conjures up life in small town America by deftly interconnecting her short tales - wherein characters' lives touch and weave into a portrait of a place - so too does Geraint Lewis. While Strout conjures up coastal Maine Lewis here depicts coastal Ceredigion, locating the tales in Aberaeron, or at least somewhere very like the harbourside town.

Father Jack

Here live redoubtable nonagenarians, wayward youth, its Liverpool football fans, Brexiteers and hard-working mams. Some characters live in their own worlds, or own heads, such as dope-taking stoner Teifi who is visited by a parade of historical figures. These apparitions include Owain Glyndwr, Irish rebel Michael Collins, a drugged-up Iolo Morgannwg and R.S.Thomas in an early version of himself, during the period in Manafon when he conjured up his peasant alter-ego Iago Prytherch. Thomas, we are told, amusingly, is wearing full vicar's kit, looking the spit of Father Jack in the comedy series 'Father Ted.'

The opening story introduces us to a hard working mother of two, Donna, whose husband is in prison following a fatal hit and run. Her father thinks it was the shame of the resulting court case and its aftermath that brought about his wife's premature death. It's one of the many testing family dynamics at play here. Tensions simmer in so many of these tales, especially as time lurches on and as tourists flood into villages, leaving the old people who are shielding feeling extra vulnerable and doubly alone. Donna's son, Nathan, for instance, finds himself wrestling with notions of infinity, as he deals with his grandfather's death in terms of his beloved 'Toy Story' and ponders what it means to go beyond, like Buzz Lightyear.

The stories are alert to what's going on around the small cast of characters. 'Annibyniaeth' introduces us to a character being persuaded by the case for Welsh Independence and deciding to join 'Yes Cymru', while the story 'Mae Bywydau Du O Bwys' presents a brief episode in the life of a black, Welsh-speaking frontline health worker who is persuaded to do an interview for S4C news and in so doing becomes a spokesperson for the BLM movement.

Yes, these are stories so much of the now that they have the immediacy of, say, TV bulletins or Instagram shots. Thus there are white supremacists, a pint-glass bearing Nigel Farage and 'ultra Welshie twats', defaced Tryweryn walls and painful last farewells to loved ones on iPads. In another story someone samples the recorded telephone message that proclaims 'your call is important to us' even though that call is seldom answered, to be woven into music to which dancers move on the harbour walls as if in celebration of spring yielding to summer and lockdown rules relaxing a tad.

This is Lewis' third collection of short stories and he clearly delights in and is very comfortable working within the constraints of the form. He writes unfussily, with little adornment or description: these beautifully wrought stories purr along quietly on engines of plot, incident and event.

In one of them two Liverpool fans getting stuck into the beer - and not for them the hooligan's cans of cooking lager but rather small batch, craft ales - his TV scriptwriter's ear for dialogue is very much to the fore. It is perhaps no coincidence that Lewis is an actor too, well used to inhabiting other people's words and stories. But what distinguishes these concatenating tales most of all is the simple human warmth they carry, an undertow of community and mutual care such as those that have buoyed up many people as they face the challenge of this ongoing pandemic.