J. L. Carr (1912–1994)

Set just after the end of WWI, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr is Tom Birkin's memories of a summer he spent in the northern village of Oxgodby and how it helped him to recover from the war. Birkin came to restore a painting on the wall of the local church, sleeping in the belfry and trying to make his small payment last as long as he can make it. The painting he uncovers enthralls him; it's more than just another quick decoration for the medieval artist who painted it and Birkin is show more drawn in to its complexity. Working in the churchyard below is another veteran, Moon, who has been hired to find the grave of his benefactor's ancestor. Through his friendship with Moon, the reticent but sincere relationships he forms with people in the village and especially the visits of the rector's wife, Birkin is brought back into living fully.

Which makes this book sound kind of slow and boring, doesn't it? There's a real charm to A Month in the Country, not in a chocolate box illustration sweetness, but in the way the harsh northerners and a shell-shocked Londoner find contentment in knowing each other. And in the understated friendship he forms with Moon, who has his own war-related demons to fight. Carr writes beautifully in an understated way that perfectly suits the story he's written. This is a book that, for an hour or two (it's a very slender book), immerses the reader in slowly clearing whitewash off of an old wall painting, revealing inch by inch the saints and sinners hidden for centuries, eating Sunday dinner with the station master's family, smoking Woodbines while leaning on tombstones while Moon talks about what lays underneath the meadow and hoping that the vicar's wife will stop by for a visit soon. This is a book that reads like a summer afternoon. show less

”But there are times when man and earth are one, when the pulse of living beats strong, when life is brimming with promise and the future stretches confidently ahead like that road to the hills.” (page 101)

Tom Birkin is a wounded survivor of World War I and a broken marriage. His trade – art restoration – brings him to a quiet village in the north of England to restore a church mural. J.L. Carr’s novella reads like syrup, and I mean that in a good day. It’s the literary show more equivalent of the hot and sticky summer days described so well in the book. As Tom works to uncover a lost masterpiece, he slowly begins to find himself again and his place in the world. Not much happens but the story is pitch-perfect and Tom’s re-emergence into himself is rendered beautifully. show less

A wonderful little book that's so slight and ethereal it eluded my attempts to really get a hold of it. A Month in the Country sees an older man looking back on a period of his youth when, just back from the horrors of the Great War, he worked in a quaint Yorkshire village in the 1920s restoring a painting on the wall of the local church. He made a few friendly connections, fell for the vicar's beautiful young wife (an unrequited love) and spent time alone, focused on his restoration work show more while village life moved quietly around him. In short, he found some peace in his soul and, in his old age, recalls it fondly.

This is all the book is, and to be honest it's enough. As much as I would have liked there to be more structure: for the characters to have arcs, for themes to emerge, for the prose to dwell on the pastoral beauty of the surroundings, I knew that's not what the book was. As much as I would have liked the relationship with the vicar's wife to find resolution, I know this is how life is, as opposed to novels: a connection failing for want of the right word, a moment of timidity or things left unspoken, an anticlimactic end to your hopes and only 'what ifs' that you file away in your memories for the rest of your days.

J. L. Carr's book is lovely: a slice of pastoral warmth that's not so much a novel but more a snapshot of Eden captured by someone moments before it faded, like those wonderful dreams you have that fall out of memory shortly after you wake, no matter how hard you try to hold on to them. For those of a gentle disposition, Carr's village and the experience of his protagonist represent that feeling of mundane bliss we long for, the place and time when things relent. One finishes the book knowing there would be no greater place to rest than in a quiet English village with good people and simple meals, as you enjoy your work and a beautiful woman comes to speak with you and summer lights the fields with gold and you know it must soon end. For the book to be longer, or more dynamic or literary, would spoil that singular effect. show less

It was everything it should be. I closed the book and caressed its cover.

Lovely writing telling a simple, honest story. Layered in a delicate, never over-wrought way. Good people, simple food, families, friends, church-goers, travels by bike on old English roads, summer scents of old roses and sounds of buzzing insects. Two young chaps hired to unearth different aspects of the medieval history of the village, and while temporarily transplanted they quietly heal their own post WW I wounds. show more

Then, like everything, it's over: summer turns to autumn, mysteries are revealed, and injuries begin to scab over.

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.

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