A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Nothing happened the next night either, or any of the nights that followed as we got involved in the strange life of Quito, and dealt with death threats and psychotic outbreaks and false passports and the other things affecting our circle of friends. There is forbidden love of at least two kinds (“coddling it up in myself”), missed opportunities, and a casual revelation by a third party that forever affects a friendship. In the final paragraphs Carr tries to shift the focus from the vicar’s wife to the sustaining noblesse of artistic aspiration but it felt a bit forced.

Nearby another war veteran, James Moon is digging for a lost grave which may hold some sort of secret because it was placed outside of the churchyard. There’s the grumpy vicar, Keach (who resents the disruption caused by the restoration), his very young and beautiful wife, Alice, and finally, Charles Moon. And the uncovering itself is also a process of multiple restorations, of bringing back to life, of claiming back from the past what could be foregone: beauty, suffering, happiness, fear, life, death, and hope.There are some sad lines here, about what Tom thinks God looks like in the small town where he's working: “uncompromising. But it will also reveal to you how those little moments in the past have shaped you into the person you are right now. Even though this out of the way life is not what Birkin had envisioned for himself, he welcomes the opportunity to get out of his situation and avoid the present mess of his marriage. The rural landscape of fields, hills and woods, the slow-paced, deliberate life-style of the people, their habits and customs, even the weather, are described in beautiful prose by Carr. It is time for Birkin to leave Oxgodby; a letter from his estranged wife asks that he come home to try their marriage again.

The rain had ceased and dew glittered on the graveyard grass, gossamer drifted down air-currents… And as it lightened, a vast and magnificent landscape unfolded. He was trained as an RAF photographer and stationed in West Africa, later serving in Britain as an intelligence officer, an experience he translated into fiction with A Season in Sinji. The jacket illustration shows Tintagel Parish Church in Cornwall, but the story is set in Yorkshire.On the first page of this book, I found myself tumbling onto the platform of Oxgodby station alongside the narrator, and the way in which those first words were assembled announced clearly that this was going to be an especially rewarding read. Expertly peeling back the layers of lime and grime, what he finds on the walls is unexpected in subject and quality.

I intend to read some novels that are first World War based for this year’s anniversary and this one is the first. Tom Birken is summoned to the countryside from the teaming streets of London to practice his craft revealing a Medieval painting that was originally painted 500 years previously, and had been whitewashed over about a hundred years later. In a mere 135 pages, this quiet little novel seems to say all that needs saying about war, trauma, place, community, history, art, religion, eros, friendship, memory, and difference. 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.Her neck was uncovered to her bosom, and immediately, I was reminded of Botticelli--not his Venus--the Primavera. When he arrives in Oxgodby, Birkin knows very well life is not all ease and intimacy, long summer days with "winter always loitering around the corner.

I didn’t quite know how the author would manage this feat but I was confident it would turn out to be so.

This small novel is about those forgotten moments, the moments that fade into nameless places we have passed by, sensations that have coursed through us, and emotions that we still feel. Photograph Is Added By Selling Site And Not Ours, Therefore May Not Reflect This Edition Or Condition. I look a little more and see myself choking back tears on a hospital bed with my beloved grandfather, hearing him say "I'm still your grandpa, Robin", knowing I would never see him again, but feeling gratitude for the absolute purity of the moment. Although the parish pastor objects, Birkin will live in the church’s belltower while he works on the mural. I was enchanted by the opening pages that showed Birkin arriving on a rainy evening, grudgingly received by the vicar, and bedding down in the bell-chamber of the church.