When he realises the full wonder of what he’s revealing, Birkin slows down, like a reader who doesn’t want to finish a brilliant book. He becomes But then, inevitably, as happens to most of us, first through Saturday umpiring, later Sunday chapel, 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."

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. I saw her in the yard. You seemed to have a lot to say to each other. Now, didn’t you find her a bit of a stunner? Fancy that gem of purest Ray serene hidden away in Oxgodby’s unfathomable caves! Well, come on, admit it”. That 1920 summer in the village of Oxgodby is remembered many decades later by Tom as a season of uncharacteristic warmth and brightness, more luminous than ever because of the contrast with the Hell he has experienced before it, a moment of 'splendor in the grass' that would last him a lifetime. The story of the little church in Oxgodby is his gift to us, the way he wants to be remembered as a man and an artist. Birkin, a Londoner, discovers a visceral empathy with and appreciation of nature and the countryside from his very first morning.If I’d stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvelous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.” 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. He is courteous, but also lonely. Just about everyone he meets recognizes this and recognizes his need to keep life at arm’s length. So, the people around him engage in a subtle dance with Birkin to draw him gently and caringly into their lives and draw him out of himself a bit. The copy I obtained has a compelling Introduction from Penelope Fitzgerald, who, during her lifetime, was one of the most distinctive and eloquent voices in contemporary British fiction. She describes Carr (1912-1994) as someone who “always dwelt lovingly […] on details of behaviour that separate one region of England from another.” She saw that while he was “by no means a lavish writer,” he did have the “magic touch” when it came to revisiting “the imagined past.” We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever — the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.

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: The Publisher Says: In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church. Living in the bell tower, surrounded by the resplendent countryside of high summer, and laboring each day to uncover an anonymous painter's depiction of the apocalypse, Birkin finds that he himself has been restored to a new, and hopeful, attachment to life. But summer ends, and with the work done, Birkin must leave. Now, long after, as he reflects on the passage of time and the power of art, he finds in his memories some consolation for all that has been lost. Simply put, this book has given me all I look for: a cascade of words that ring so true and are beautifully written; wonderfully realised characters even though we know them so briefly; a perfect setting (especially for an Anglophile who loves art and archaeology); and a simple story about complex people. Gifted with excessive self-awareness, uncommon lucidity and a rare sense of humor, he speaks from the intimacy of a first-person narrator and makes the reader a sensory participant of the impact a few weeks spent among strangers in self-effacing examination, of how a tiny parcel of his history, infused him with a renewed zest for life. 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.

ACT II

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. This is the sort of efficient novella that demands a short, incisive review full of judiciously-chosen adjectives, and presumably that's what it will get if MJ ever gets around to reading it. In my case, however, it's unfortunately one of those texts that is going to send me off on a long personal anecdote, for which I offer advance apologies. Keep it q.t. but her dad was a boozer who didn’t know when to stop. You often find them like that, up on the Wolds: it’s the Danish blood in them. In fact, he had a long fair beard and blue eyes. I don’t think he ever liked me.” And horror is dark all along. Birkin survived Passchendaele, but was left with a stammer (not reflected in dialogue), intermittent facial palsy on one side, and no wife. 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.

And, at such a time, for a few of us there will always be a tugging at the heart—knowing a precious moment had gone and we not there. We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever—the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on belfry floor, a remembered voice, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass. ” Tom has just returned to England after a horrific experience as a soldier in WWI. He is a broken man; a man with a facial tic caused by the trauma of war. He is returning from hell, probably suffering from what now would be called PTSD. Perhaps a commission to restore a medieval mural in a country church will help him return to civilian life and give him direction. At the end of the War he married Sally (Hilda Gladys Sexton) and returned to teaching. He was appointed headmaster of Highfields Primary School in Kettering, Northamptonshire, a post he filled from 1952 to 1967 in a typically idiosyncratic way which earned the devotion of staff and pupils alike. He returned to Huron, South Dakota, in 1957 to teach again on an exchange visit, when he wrote and published himself a social history of The Old Timers of Beadle County. I tried to make the point that the healing journey of Tom Birkin is universal, timeless, that it applies to all of us. It's important though to note that the process is neither simplistic, nor easily defined. Most of all, it is unique to each of us, depending on our temperament, sensibilities, baggage of past experiences. Most of all it is a journey from the outside in, from the harsh realities of an adverse society to the discovery of our own compass or inner strength.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. Well, we all see things with different eyes, and it gets you nowhere hoping that even one in a thousand will see things your way. Cloth and Pictorial Boards. Condition: Fine. Illustrated by Ian Stephens (illustrator). (121pp). Slipcase partly sunned, else as new Size: Slim Royal Octavo. Hardcover.