A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The plot concerns Tom Birkin, a World War I veteran employed to uncover a mural in a village church that was thought to exist under coats of whitewash. At the same time another veteran is employed to look for a grave beyond the churchyard walls. Though Birkin is an unbeliever, there is prevalent religious symbolism throughout the book, mainly dealing with judgement. The novel explores themes of England's loss of spirituality after the war, and of happiness, melancholy, and nostalgia as Birkin recalls the summer uncovering the mural, when he healed from his wartime experiences and a broken marriage. Perhaps It is this simplicity and normality that affects Birken the most profoundly, for his life has been shredded by the war. There is also the mystery of the painting, which Birkin uncovers, and the grave that Moon seeks, to add an extra touch of interest. How did Miss Hebron first know there was a mural there (she revealed and then covered a little of it herself)? She was wealthy, so why pay for restoration only after her death? Why did she care about why her forebear was not buried in the churchyard, and where he was laid to rest? How and why did the village acquire and lose wealth? But others are answered - surprisingly, but satisfactorily: who the falling man was, why he was covered up almost as soon as the mural was finished, and why the grave Moon finds is not on consecrated ground. A perfect balance.

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. Tom tells us, but the memories sufficed. Much like Lucy Gault in William Trevor's novel, Tom realized that neither good times nor bad times last forever. Happiness is fleeting, but the contentment one once felt can be enough. There was even a moment when “an extraordinary thing happened” and I briefly wondered if it might turn into a ghost story: The introduction to the book in the NYRB version is written by Michael Holroydand it is excellent. I love it when an introduction fires up the reader to read the book. He talks about his own odd intersection with J. L. Carr, but the most resonating bit he shares is in regards to Carr's funeral. It starts like a penny dreadful, with the arrival - by train - of the young Tom Birkin in Oxgodby (a suggestive name left open to interpretation), an unsightly northern English village. He has to uncover a medieval fresco in a church and restore it. We are 1920, and Tom turns out to be another traumatized victim from the trenches in the First World War, wounded at Passchendaele. We then become acquainted with the paradisical life in the village, in full summer, and the story takes on the allure of a rural idyll. But with each subsequent conversation and each scene, new angles emerge, up to and including a very classic just-not-romance. Humor and melancholy alternate, until together with Tom we leave Oxgodby with a heavy heart.The local people come to know him as “that chap from down south,” but they nevertheless take a liking to him. Besides, he isn’t the only stranger in the village. There is the enigmatic James Moon, an ‘archaeologist’ and fellow veteran seeking a lost 14th century grave; the dour vicar who consigns Birkin to sleep in the belfry; and his attractive young wife, Alice Keach, who reminds Tom of Botticelli’s Primavera. 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. In his novella, Carr employs descriptive prose that has me longing for a countryside. Warm summer days are perfect for picnics, budding romances, and staying up late contemplating one's role in life. Carr develops characters in Birkin and Moon who are non believers yet are employed by a church. Most of the action occurs within the belfry where Birkin works and sleeps, even the contrast as he fights an inner impulse to strike up relations with Alice. For a male author, I enjoyed Carr's development of his female characters and was glad that they were simply platonic.

My Review: A few, a precious few only, moments in life are trapped in the diamond facets of unforgettability. The moments that, in the movie we're all directing inside our heads at any given moment, define our character. In all senses of that word. Be they happy, sad, public, private, we all have them; very very few of us talk much about them; and almost no one makes art from them. Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuthRubbish! 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”.

I am not going to write an elaborate review for this book. It is just one of those books that crosses one's path and changes everything inside the reader. There's soul-food in the story, positive vibes, a gentle sense of humor, and a hope being bourne from the protagonist's thoughts and heart. For art can transform a stilted and stultifying message lost in its dire religion into an edifying inspiration. It opens seeing beyond the dated and emptied forms. And, then, after several weeks, Moon tells him that the twitch has gotten much better, adding, “I don’t suppose you noticed it happening, but Oxgodby’s just about ironed you out.” Brokenness J.L. Carr's novella explores such perfect times, through the character of Tom Birkin. Set in the summer of 1920, but related in 1978, an older Birkin is remembering the month during which he is hired to uncover a medieval mural in a church in northern England. Damaged by time served in WWI and a bad marriage, Birkin arrives at Oxgodby fairly shattered and alone. This time serves as a salve on his heart, a reminder of the beauty of art, but also of nature, of simple pastoral idyls and country people. As he uncovers the painting, he is also uncovering the masterpiece of his self, his wonder at the world and whatever lies ahead.This is what I need, I thought - a new start and, afterwards, maybe I won’t be a casualty anymore.” In memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.” I know that the basic story is well known, the young re-patriated soldier, spending a month in the English countryside at a small chapel, tasked to uncover a centuries old mural. But the tale is so much more than that because the prose is so much more than that. Carr captures moments in so many ways. One small moment: It is summer, 1920, and, as Tom Birkin watches, Moon has been digging into the North Yorkshire turf of Oxgodby for several hours, taking his time. Then Birkin tells the reader:

There is a full cast of local characters; the local vicar and his beautiful wife and the rival Wesleyan Methodists. Carr, being brought up in the Wesleyan tradition captures the chapel rituals and attendees very well. Carr said he wanted the effect to be something like Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree in relation to the local characters. 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. The masked handprint left by an anonymous individual on a wall may invite from its hidden place for its uncovering and thereby regenerate another, unrelated, individual. A mouth of Hell depicted, beautifully, may summon up the will to live after walking through a war of hell.Book Genre: 20th Century, Art, British Literature, Classics, European Literature, Fiction, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novella, Novels