April 11, 2007

Book 25: A Month in the Country

A Month in the Country
J.L. Carr

This bite-sized novel is perfect for a fading August afternoon, as though the weather so beautifully evoked in the novel could somehow transcend its pages and enter the world around us. Though it is a freezing April night, Carr's delicate prose placed me in the thick of summer, from which I only occasionally emerged to shiver. Though the book is small both in scope and size, its words are carefully chosen and wring more emotion out of the reader than many gargantuan novels. The characters are remarkably well-formed and intimately familiar, transcending typical "small-town" roles of necessity and truly coming alive as fully fleshed-out and realistic. Though the story takes place in rural England, the setting never feels forced or exceedingly innocent; rather, it rings true despite the book's own separation from its subject matter.

Carr is able to write a philosophical tract that rarely becomes campy or blindingly didactic, doing so in the guise of a war veteran looking back across the decades himself. Carr has consistently chosen the most fitting means to reach his ends, and at every turn where a less talented writer would dip into complacence and easy metaphor, Carr excells and rises above the mundane to create the extraordinary. By fusing traditional medieval visual art with his own familiar medium of words and phrases, Carr paints a complete picture of a man painting his own picture atop another. Just as there are layers of grime that must be removed to reveal the novel's central mural, there is a continual probing of Tom Birkin's persona. As the narrator and the reader dive deeper and deeper into the world of his lost mythical summer, Carr peels back layers of himself and of his readers to reveal life lessons that seem somehow very personal and true to experience.

This novel was potential disaster around many turns. It would have been easy to resort to pretentious third-person narration and preach at the reader. After all, the setting is a small parish church. What Carr has done, however, is created a person. Birkin is not a character but a real, tangible figure with whom the reader learns to identify and whom the reader grows to understand in his own terms. We are alongside Birkin in his carefully narrated journey of rememberance and renewal, and it is exactly where we should be. This book is beautiful and moving, leaving me wanting more but somehow exquisitely perfect in its length. When a long summer day comes calling and you find yourself feeling existential, spend a few weeks in the country with Tom Birkin and discover a slice of life.

Grade: A

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