A Month in the Country. All harried-D.C. professionals could use one. Except me. I need a solid year. Alas, the evening before Thanksgiving had to suffice. Under the guidance of J.L. Carr’s pen, my excursion into A Month in the Country was packed neatly and movingly into 111 pages and two festive rum punches.
It was a beautiful trip. Barely a few more pages than Rebecca West’s Return of the Soldier, this book also follows the recovery of a soldier from the shell-shocked horrors of the Great War. The book’s protagonist, the psychologically wounded and physically affected Tom Birkin, narrates his experiences in the summer of 1920 while working in a small, provincial English town to uncover a medieval painting covered by plaster in a medieval church. With the simplicity of a Hemmingway character, Birkin lives in the church bell tower, scrapes by on bread, cheese, and root vegetables and spends his days on scaffolding trying to bring back to life a vision of judgment. His fellow war survivor, Moon, spends his time in the nearby meadow digging for archeological remains. The analogy to healing from war is thin, but palatable.
All historical, societal, and literary meanderings aside, and there is cause for many, the book was enjoyable for its simple, beautiful lines. “Just before I bedded down I stood at the window. And he was right—the first breath of autumn was in the air, a prodigal feeling, a feeling of wanting, taking, and keeping before it is too late.”
Towards the end of the book, Birkin observes that “we can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever….they’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.” As one blogger noted here, “was there ever a more realistic description of grief in so few words?” I couldn’t agree more, or recommend this quick mental field trip more highly. Cheers to reading adventures.
*Picture taken in Old Town Alexandria the night after Thanksgiving.
