A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Tom Birkin is a WW1 veteran who was injured at Passchendaele and is troubled by his memories and dreams and by a failed marriage. Their manes were plaited with patriotic ribbons, their harness glowed – those great magical creatures soon to disappear from highways and turning furrow.

In this rural idyll that came close to a latter day Eden, Birkin was soon inducted into the social and religious life of the village. Carr has a knack for bringing certain scenes into sudden, sharp focus, rather as waves lift forgotten things to the surface.My Review: A few, a precious few only, moments in life are trapped in the diamond facets of unforgettability.

Birkin is looking back from 1978 and I am reminded of Hartley’s quote “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”.Birkin, a Londoner, discovers a visceral empathy with and appreciation of nature and the countryside from his very first morning. There is a depth to Birkin, of course - he is a man of emotional, psychological, intellectual, and artistic interest, and is revealed to be affected deeply by both people and setting in all these facets of his nature. We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever--the ways things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face.