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A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)
 
 
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A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

by J. Carr (Author), Penelope Fitzgerald (Introduction) "When the train stopped I stumbled out, nudging and kicking the kitbag before me ..." (more)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 112 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (3 Feb 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 014118230X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141182308
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.4 x 0.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 56,922 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #3 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > F > Fitzgerald, Penelope

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Product Description

Product Description
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.

About the Author
James Lloyd Carr, born 1912, attended the village school at Carlton Miniott in the North Riding and Castleford Secondary School. He died in Northamptonshire in 1994.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
When the train stopped I stumbled out, nudging and kicking the kitbag before me. Read the first page
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
5 star:
 (14)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book, as its soft words slip by, vibrates in the memory, 1 May 2001
By A Customer
Birkin, the ageing narrator, reflects on the summer of 1920 when he - a young, shell-shocked and cuckolded survivor of World War One - spent some weeks in the Yorkshire village of Oxgodby. He is there, ostensibly, to uncover a lost medieval mural in the village church; a painstaking process of recovery. Yet while there, living and working in the church, he discovers treasures of far greater value in the people around him. He is shown anew the gifts of compassion and acceptance, of friendship and respect that he thought the Great War had blown away forever. Spanning one short, hazy English summer Carr has written a short, hazy English novel to treasure. Its ending comes, like that of the season itself, too soon and the reader is deprived of nothing less than the light of a sun. Magical and mournful, this novel's controlled simplicity numbs me each time I read it.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting, 12 Jun 2001
By A Customer
It tells the story of Tom Birkin, recently returned from WW I, who goes to the town of Oxgodby to restore a medieval wall-painting in an old church. Over the course of his time there, he gets absorbed into the life of the town, falls in love, learns (and reveals) something about the nature of art, and the healing power of both art and love. That makes it sound as if the book's some sort of mushy new-age blather, and it's not at all. It's a short and profoundly entertaining novel. I would have loved to have been assigned this in a high-school English class, because (1) Carr's vocabulary is remarkable, and the occasional strange words he uses are worth looking up (e.g., "sneck"), and (2) it has a lot of the sort of structure that one is forced to write about in English classes ("contrast the relationship between Birkin and his work with that between Moon and his...") but which in this book actually contributed something to the story -- there are multiple parallel threads in the book, and their interweaving makes it richer. I could've written a decent essay about that...
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Just wonderful, 10 Aug 2000
This review is from: A Month in the Country (Paperback)
This book is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful I have ever read. It is deceptively simple and delightfully slow-paced, full of Lawrence-like depictions of a vanished pastoral landscape. The focal points are a casual and peculiar friendship between two war-scarred, shell-shocked men and just a barely discernible hint of a female love interest. In a book barely 100 pages long, the author not only manages to give us a story that flows like a stream, but also achieves stunning characterisation, bitter indictment of war and a corresponding celebration of peace, a little suspense, and even a twist in the tail. An exemplary study in subtlety.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple and beautiful
A Month in the Country is the equal of Of Mice and Men in its enormous intelligence and massive emotional impact packed into a simple, brief tale. Read more
Published 5 months ago by P. G. Harris

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisitely Crafted Novella
Sometimes it is good to revisit a favourite novel or to watch again a film that always brings you pleasure.

J. L. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Simon Temprell

5.0 out of 5 stars Small, but perfectly formed
This book begins as it means to go on: within the first few pages the scene is set and the protagonist is not only visible in your mind's eye but talking right into your ear,... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Essex Girl

5.0 out of 5 stars A book about friendship, love - and so much more......
Tom Birkin arrives in the Yorkshire village of Oxgodby to work on restoring a mural in the church. He meets and befriends Charles Moon who is doing archaeological work nearby... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Wynne Kelly

5.0 out of 5 stars Great writing
This is a superb novel,which portrays an imagined world that is fully and truthfully realised. It amply repays re-reading. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Published 16 months ago by Alan Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite Incredible
Firstly, the writing style of this novel makes it easy to read.
Secondly, what immediately struck me was the size, only 85 pages, the other 20-odd pages being intro. Read more
Published 23 months ago by N. Ingram

5.0 out of 5 stars a hidden classic
Carr's novel is a sort of idyll and pastoral novella.
After experiencing WWI a man (Birkin) goes to Yorkshire to restore a medieval painting in a church. Read more
Published 23 months ago by allesteer

5.0 out of 5 stars An evocation of the past with much to say about the present
I have read and re-read this story so many times now that it is hard to know what to write. Suffice to say, this book is an exquisite recreation of a bittersweet summer which you... Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2001 by nikidavies

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect novella.
The novella stands comparison with The Go Betweens as a splendidly evocative work set in the English country. Read more
Published on 4 May 2001 by a.chandler@onegardencourt.co.uk

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the real Regeneration
I can't stress enough the pleasure I derive from reading and re-reading this book. Tom Birkin, a restorer of church murals and WW1 veteran, spends the smouldering summer of 1920... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2001 by rmswann

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