A Month in the Country
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...
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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.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780900847929 (0900847921)
Publish date: February 15th 1991
Publisher: The Quince Tree Press
Pages no: 116
Edition language: English
A four-star book which has afforded me five-star reading pleasure: a very simple, very well written story with an ending which feels real.It is a very low-key novel about what can make a shattered person reasonably whole again. Here, Tom Birkin, an ex-soldier 'pushed ... through the mincer' of WW I ...
Not sure if I will ever get back to this fine work for a second reading, but it sure was enjoyable. There may be a review forthcoming, but perhaps not. Time is at a premium these days.
New Review! Great War survivor, glorious prose, life-changing moments. http://tinyurl.com/psdloo3 Like the Bonnard on the cover, it's a richly colored, simply rendered, and deeply satisfying artwork. It's not flashy or overwrought. It is elegant and luxurious and I am very glad that I read it.
Somehow Carr captures that golden feeling of the prose of the early 20th century. 'A Month in the Country' is set after WWI, and the protagonist has been affected by combat experience, but his activities, and the shelter he finds in the small village, while restoring a medieval church painting are o...
A gorgeous eulogy for the perfect SummerBirkin, a damaged World War One veteran, is employed to a find and restore a mural in a village church, whilst another veteran is employed to look for a grave beyond the churchyard walls. The writer looks back 58 years later, and as an old man, on his idyllic...
10 years ago
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