Reap and gossip. That's the rule. On harvest days, anyone who's got a pair of legs and arms can expect to earn supper with unceasing labour.
This quote evokes the world of the narrator: farming. The reader gets a sense of how central agriculture is to the narrator's way of life in being told that 'anyone who's got a pair of legs and arms'. The adjective 'unceasing' highlights how painful and laborious the work is and how regimental life is.
A gentleman we did not recognise was watching us reduce our barley field to stub; a visitor, a rare event, exciting and unnerving.
The arrival of an outsider, a stranger in any work of literature is an event of significance. The same is true here. The second clause of the sentence, with its use of asyndeton, draws out the moment. And the two adjectives conjure up the emotion inherent to such a scene.
Two twists of smoke at a time of year too warm for cottage fires surprise us at first light, or they at least surprise those of us who've not been up to mischief in the dark. Our land is topped and tailed with flames.
This is the opening sentence of the novel. It evokes an eerie, rural locale, where sight and smell combine. The alliteration of 'topped and tailed' suggests that smoke and fire are two things against which the course of life is measured in this setting. The narrator's confession that 'twists of smoke' don't surprise people who have 'been up to mischief in the dark' piques the attention of the reader, making us wonder who and what the 'mischief' described involves.
The broadest shoulders swing their sickles and their scythes at the brimming cliffs of stalk; hares, partridges and sparrows flee before the blades
This sentence is a prime example of Jim Crace's lyrical use of language and words. Alliteration - 'shoulders swing their sickles and scythes', 'before the blades' - is used to potent effect, conjuring up in the mind of the reader the image being described. The power relations are obvious - animals 'flee' as the humans work with their powerful tools. 'The broadest shoulders' is an epithet or metonym for the men who work, making it sound like more of a regimental procedure.
