A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The characters are so well drawn, the atmosphere is stunning — almost dreamlike at times — and the writing sublime. Over forty years later, after his novel The Harpole Report was a critical and popular success, he was invited to give a talk at Goldsmiths'. To continue reading, please sign in or take out a subscription to the quarterly magazine for yourself or as a gift for a fellow booklover. Near destitute and still visibly shaken by his experiences during the first world war and through the painful break-up of his marriage, he has been assigned the job of restoring a medieval mural hidden beneath whitewash on the wall of the village church. Their patient unravelling of centuries old mysteries with some shocking revelations makes for further excitement and anticipation though out this multi layered work.

His wife is young and beautiful, and Birkin gradually comes to fall in love with her, but in a romantic rather than a passionate sense, almost as an obligatory part of a summer idyll. Running through the tale was the caring understanding that there are some things that cannot be spoken of but can be acknowledged.

I really feel that it is a particular skill in an author to be able to tackle these themes and leave behind a book that still feels healing to read. They are “two of a kind”, both quietly dedicated to their specialised work, and both beneficiaries of the late old lady of the decaying manor-house, whose shrewd eye still seems to be overlooking their work. When he arrives in Oxgodby, Birkin knows very well life is not all ease and intimacy, long summer days with "winter always loitering around the corner. Recommended to me as a book that can change a life I was sceptical - I rarely agree with such high praise - I feel strongly now that this truly is a story that stays with you and makes you consider your values and life style today.

Reissued as part of the Penguin Decades series, JL Carr's slender, Booker-shortlisted and semi-autobiographical novel was published in 1980 but looks back to an earlier time. Carr said he drew the village and its setting from his childhood in the North Riding, the church from Northamptonshire (where he spent most of his adult life), the churchyard from Norfolk and the vicarage from London: “All’s grist that comes to the mill”. The proffered kindnesses from the Stationmaster (Chapel) to Birkin right from when he stepped off the train but also the coolness and distance the Rector (of the Church) showed in contrast. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. A Month in the Country' is so beautiful and involving that as I was reading it I kept measuring what was left and regretting that there wasn't more.Carr has a knack for bringing certain scenes into sudden, sharp focus, rather as waves lift forgotten things to the surface. Hermione Lee was president of Wolfson College, Oxford from 2008 to 2017 and founding director of the Oxford Centre for Life Writing. It is a great novel and will be read long after some of the detritus acclaimed these days has been flushed away by our blessed ally, Time.