At the outset of A Month in the Country, Tom Birkin, a World War I survivor and a veteran of a broken marriage, arrives in a remote Yorkshire village to restore a medieval mural in the local church. Setting up his summer abode in the bell tower, he is charmed by the blooming countryside even as he passes his days absorbed in resurrecting an anonymous artist’s apocalyptic vision. It is, of course, Birkin’s own restoration to faith in life that Carr tellingly portrays, through a season of consolation and renewal that’s enduring despite its swift passage. Simple in outline and wonderfully well written, A Month in the Country is hauntingly beautiful in its effect.
Any list that includes 'A Month in the Country' has to have its merits: a beautiful, elegiac examination of relationships and recovery in post-World War One rural England. Funny, thoughtful, sensitive, poetic - one of the great unsung books in English literature, and barely 120 pages long. My Desert Island book.
First heard about this book on my favourite podcast: Backlisted. I read it first on my own and then with my book club. This seemingly 'quiet' book generated a wild discussion!
I was stunned to discover that this novel was written in 1978; it so encapsulates everything I imagine of post-WWI England. What feels like a glorious long summer is only just a month. It's a breathtakingly beautiful book with some of the most heartstopping writing at the very end.
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