A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Rubbish! he exclaimed. Every woman knows it. But Keach catching her! It’s an outrage. Almost as big and outrage our society arranging that from the moment he got her to sign on the sanctified line and no further. It’s the devil”. Sometimes peace of mind and tranquility take a lifetime to achieve. For Tom Birkin that serenity only took one summer month, one month in the idyllic English village of Oxgodby. The memories of that summer month, those quiet moments surrounded by nature and art, were enough to renew Birkin forever. in other words — not getting the best welcome or given the best living situation— Tom was actually rather happy — or at least content. His inner pride and strength—trust in his own abilities to handle the daily hard work—was never a question for Tom. What is the elixir for experiencing the atrocities of war? Happy days in Oxgodby can never be relived,

There’s also a woman proffering apples to a man - in the church. You can’t get more Old Testament than that. Birkin’s job of clearing away centuries of overpaint, soot and dirt from what turns out to be a stunningly imagined Judgement scene underneath starts as simply something to fill his time at a moment when his life has fallen apart. He’s got this twitch from the War, and his wife Vinny has left him for another man but will probably return and start the cycle all over again. It transpires that an archaeologist, Moon, has also been commissioned by the same bequest to find the grave of an excommunicated ancestor who was said to be buried outside the church yard, and their discoveries eventually converge in a surprising way. Another subplot involves Birkin's mostly suppressed feelings for the vicar's wife. I would recommend "A Month in the Country" to anyone who has experienced depression, disillusion, loss, pain, uncertainty. It doesn't really matter if you believed in the same god as Mr. Carr (the son of a famous preacher), or in Mr. Freud or in any other modern '-ism' . We are all human, and we have the same needs to give our lives a sense of purpose, a reason to keep trying day after day, no matter how many times we fail. What we are experiencing now, stress in all its fanciful disguises and new medical definitions, is something every generation has gone through since time immemorial. Mr. Carr argues that the past, if you look at its art carefully, can give us precious tools to deal with pain and loneliness and despair.

ACT III

A month in the country tells of the insignificant piece of time in Tom Birkin’s life when he passed by the provincial town of Oxgodby. Birkin recalls the weeks he spent uncovering an ancient fresco in the village church and the moments in between filled with irrelevant details and inconsequential episodes. The novel is compact, simple, and yet filled with wisdom. As a human, an artist of sorts, an estranged husband, and war veteran, we see Birkin’s hardened attitude towards his life and the hopeful contentment he feels towards his future. There is much to ponder on. What truly delighted me was sharing Birkin’s excitement as the lime wash was slowly stripped off the wall mural to reveal the masterpiece that had been shrouded in secrecy for some 400 years. Birkin recalled, "And there I was, on that memorable day, knowing I had a masterpiece on my hands but scarcely prepared to admit it, like a greedy child hoards the best chocolates in the box." It was breathtaking. There was something magical too in Birkin’s mystic sweet communion with the unknown artist. It is the balmy summer of 1920 when Tom Birkin arrives penniless at Oxgodby station with his nerves “shot to pieces.” He has been commissioned under a bequest to carry out restoration work on a Medieval mural in the local church and has an appointment to keep with the Reverend J.G. Keach – a man he describes as having a “cold, cooped-up look about him.” A short, spellbinding novel about a WWI veteran finding a way to re-enter—and fully embrace—normal life while spending the summer in an idyllic English village.

I was drawn into the changing picture of Oxgodby itself. But, oddly, what happened outside was like a dream. It was inside the still church, before its reappearing picture, that was real. I drifted across the rest. As I have said – like a dream. For a time.” Don't miss this one, a more than pleasant diversion for a Sunday afternoon. You will be right there in Oxgodby falling in love, gnashing your teeth over the absurdity of it all,enjoying the peacefulness of knowing, really knowing you are happy, and you too might discover the importance of lingering over a moment, a glorious moment when life seems to be working for you and not against you. If you are like me you might even find yourself yelling "for godsakes take her in your arms and kiss her." Highly Recommended! He adds, later, “I stumbled on, tossing in pleas to be forgiven for unmentionable sins I felt were His responsibility. . . rather than mine.” Reading this, I’d be immersed in simple wonder at the beauty of birdsong, landscape, or architectural stone, and then a deftly-planted question would poke up, but without the promise of flowering, and indeed, only some did. I loved that. I could never make out what this book wanted to be, when it grew up. It was sometimes boring and disorganized, and also sometimes inspired and filled with big, important “thinks.” I thought, quite mistakenly, that it was a summer-inspired travelogue, in the spirit of a book penned by a Frances Mayes or a Gerald Durrell, but instead it was a book about post-war trauma, dark in tone and unsure of its arc. Also, I believe that many writers who actually WROTE in the 1920s had a more modern voice and a more progressive feel than Mr. Carr did, writing this as a reflective novel, 60 years later.

Cloth and Pictorial Boards. Condition: Fine. Illustrated by Ian Stephens (illustrator). (121pp). Slipcase partly sunned, else as new Size: Slim Royal Octavo. Hardcover.