A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

RRP: £99
Price: £9.9
£9.9 FREE Shipping

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A Month in the Country is the fifth novel by J. L. Carr, first published in 1980 and nominated for the Booker Prize. The book won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1980. 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. I am not going to write an elaborate review for this book. It is just one of those books that crosses one's path and changes everything inside the reader. There's soul-food in the story, positive vibes, a gentle sense of humor, and a hope being bourne from the protagonist's thoughts and heart.

This will likely enter the list of my all-time favorite books. I found myself saying "glorious" several times and then stopping to thank my parents for instilling in me their love of reading. That brought me so belatedly to this treasure of a book.

So a month in the country was a real treat to the protagonist and A Month in the Country is a real treat to a reader… 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, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass. J.L. Carr’s masterstroke is to tinge the mural of Thomas’ chronicle with a gossamer of vivid observations that sparkle the old flame of hope, which glows brighter than ever when Alice Keach, the Minister’s wife, pierces through Thomas’ numbness with her curious vitality. The introduction to the book in the NYRB version is written by Michael Holroydand it is excellent. I love it when an introduction fires up the reader to read the book. He talks about his own odd intersection with J. L. Carr, but the most resonating bit he shares is in regards to Carr's funeral. Netflix has yet again let me down. There is a movie from 1987 starring Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth, but Netflix does not have it. At this point it appears I will have to buy it to see it. I can only hope that they do the book justice.

A calendar of memory can be read like a book. Nature in its periodic seasons reanimates the life in us, the past and future life. The dead leaves or loves sediment and new feelings sprout and grow and a new impulse continues. 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. Life is filled with moments. Moments of cowardice, of hesitation, moments when our courage fail us: to make a small step, to take a big leap, to dance, or move our lips a few inches to those of another. Repetitive moments of daily toil: eating, fixing the bed, performing our trade, defecating. Moments of idleness when we do nothing but lie down and embody the emptiness within us. These moments are not remembered, are forgotten, or glossed over with untruth. These moments fill out what is left after the highlights of our lives have been told. And so there they remain, dull threads in our chaotic tapestry of life, until such a time when we are compelled to revisit.

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. ” Never has such a short novel impacted me so profoundly, dramatically, making me reflect on a few golden days in my past, my own in which I can close my eyes and smell the dust, taste the feint salt on her upper lip, hear the voices, see faces that moments ago would have been obscured by the fog of time, feel the sun on my face, warming me in the illusion that life will surely last forever: "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." He claims his feeling of God is one of unbelief. . . but those are not the words of an unbeliever, they are the words of a man who feels God exists, and hates him. 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.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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