Name: A Month in the Country
Rating: 4.026315789473684 (38 reviews)
ISBN: 9780141182308

James Lloyd Carr

J. L. Carr

In the summer of 1920, a young man escapes London to embark on the unveiling of a medieval church wall painting in a small north country village. As he becomes absorbed by his work so too does he get drawn into the lives of those around him.

A Month in the Country

A month in the country

Phil

I likely would have given this book 4 stars if not for the obscure references and arcane language that made it difficult to understand. I felt like the language made it more difficult for me to really get to know the characters fully. I prefer books where the emotional and philosophical meaning is earned through character and events, rather than books that make me decode symbolism for its own sake. The prose is often deliberately indirect, period-specific, and elliptical. The unfamiliar expressions, regional references, historical allusions, and occasionally archaic vocabulary created a layer between me and the characters. Take-away messages include: 1. Healing isn't erasing the past. It's learning to live alongside it. 2. Happiness derives much of its meaning from its impermanence. 3. Ordinary life can be restorative.

J.L. Carr

In the summer of 1920 two men, both war survivors meet in the quiet English countryside. One is living in the church, intent upon uncovering and restoring an historical wall painting while the other camps in the next field in search of a lost grave.Out of their meeting comes a deeper communion and a catching up of the old primeval rhythms of life so cruelly disorientated by the Great War.

A perfect book? A book you can relate to 

Thaddeus Cortez

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.

the prose is very pretty in places but genuinely nothing seems to happen in terms of plot. given that this novella is around 100 pages, i expected to finish it in a day, but my eyes just kept sliding off the page, i was so disengaged. i wish there had been more focus on the art restoration aspect, because that is why i picked this up, and those scenes were the most interesting to me, despite being quite jargonistic at times. there's a neat dialogue about beauty and another meditation on how art connects people near the end. i expected that to be the tone of the novella, but we instead spend far more time on purchasing an organ. the romance was unconvincing, but the premise of the relationship between the main character and the love interest is interesting; had it been fleshed out and incorporated more and i would have found it compelling. as it stands, the story is not all that memorable to me at all. 

rory

“But that goes for most of us, doesn’t it? We look blankly at each other. Here I am, here you are. What are we doing here?” / “Perhaps you did well to leave early; it may not have lasted.”

shen

Oscar Kömpel

I must admit that I am glad I’m finally done with this book. 

Even tho it’s so short I definitely spent longer than a month in the country. 

Maybe it’s the old fashioned writing style I’m not used to or idk I just expected a little… more (also you can’t tell me he wasn’t Totally crushing on Moon but then in the last pages he wants to pretend to love the Preacher’s wife - sorry but I didn’t buy it lol) 

It’s not bad but it’s also not amazing. 

Valentina

I must admit that I am glad I’m finally done with this book. 

Even tho it’s so short I definitely spent longer than a month in the country. 

Maybe it’s the old fashioned writing style I’m not used to or idk I just expected a little… more (also you can’t tell me he wasn’t Totally crushing on Moon but then in the last pages he wants to pretend to love the Preacher’s wife - sorry but I didn’t buy it lol) 

It’s not bad but it’s also not amazing. 

A Month in the Country

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