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A Season in Sinji
A Season in Sinji recreates life on a wartime RAF flying boat station in an African backwater. The dialogue evokes a wide range of characters, and in the bizarre cricket match which acts as a catharsis to the novel's mounting passions, human dramas and irony are portrayed.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
294 people want to read
About the author
J.L. Carr
66 books177 followersCarr was born in Thirsk Junction, Carlton Miniott, Yorkshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. His father Joseph, the eleventh son of a farmer, went to work for the railways, eventually becoming a station master for the North Eastern Railway. Carr was given the same Christian name as his father and the middle name Lloyd, after David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. He adopted the names Jim and James in adulthood. His brother Raymond, who was also a station master, called him Lloyd.
Carr's early life was shaped by failure. He attended the village school at Carlton Miniott. He failed the scholarship exam, which denied him a grammar school education, and on finishing his school career he also failed to gain admission to teacher training college. Interviewed at Goldsmiths' College, London, he was asked why he wanted to be a teacher. Carr answered: "Because it leaves so much time for other pursuits." He was not accepted. 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'. He replied that the college once had its chance of being addressed by him.
He worked for a year as an unqualified teacher — one of the lowest of the low in English education — at South Milford Primary School, where he became involved in a local amateur football team which was startlingly successful that year. This experience he developed into the novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup. He then successfully applied to a teacher training college in Dudley. In 1938 he took a year out from his teaching career to work as an exchange teacher in Huron, South Dakota in the Great Plains. Much of the year was a struggle to survive in what was a strangely different culture to him; his British salary converted into dollars was pitifully inadequate to meet American costs of living. This experience gave rise to his novel The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.
At the end of his year in the USA Carr continued his journey westward and found himself travelling through the Middle East and the Mediterranean as the Second World War loomed. He arrived in France in September 1939 and reached England, where he volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. He was trained as an RAF photographer and stationed in West Africa, later serving in Britain as an intelligence officer, an experience he translated into fiction with A Season in Sinji.
At the end of the War he married Sally (Hilda Gladys Sexton) and returned to teaching. He was appointed headmaster of Highfields Primary School in Kettering, Northamptonshire, a post he filled from 1952 to 1967 in a typically idiosyncratic way which earned the devotion of staff and pupils alike. He returned to Huron, South Dakota, in 1957 to teach again on an exchange visit, when he wrote and published himself a social history of The Old Timers of Beadle County.
In 1967, having written two novels, he retired from teaching to devote himself to writing. He produced and published from his own Quince Tree Press a series of 'small books' designed to fit into a pocket: some of them selections from English poets, others brief monographs about historical events, or works of reference. In order to encourage children to read, each of the "small books" was given two prices, the lower of which applied only to children. As a result, Carr received several letters from adults in deliberately childish writing in an attempt to secure the discount.
He also carried on a single-handed campaign to preserve and restore the parish church of Saint Faith at Newton in the Willows, which had been vandalised and was threatened with redundancy. Carr, who appointed himself its guardian, came into conflict with the vicar of the benefice, and higher church authorities, in his attempts to save the church. The building was saved, but his crusade was also a failure in that redundancy was not averted and the building is now a scientific study centre.
Carr's early life was shaped by failure. He attended the village school at Carlton Miniott. He failed the scholarship exam, which denied him a grammar school education, and on finishing his school career he also failed to gain admission to teacher training college. Interviewed at Goldsmiths' College, London, he was asked why he wanted to be a teacher. Carr answered: "Because it leaves so much time for other pursuits." He was not accepted. 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'. He replied that the college once had its chance of being addressed by him.
He worked for a year as an unqualified teacher — one of the lowest of the low in English education — at South Milford Primary School, where he became involved in a local amateur football team which was startlingly successful that year. This experience he developed into the novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup. He then successfully applied to a teacher training college in Dudley. In 1938 he took a year out from his teaching career to work as an exchange teacher in Huron, South Dakota in the Great Plains. Much of the year was a struggle to survive in what was a strangely different culture to him; his British salary converted into dollars was pitifully inadequate to meet American costs of living. This experience gave rise to his novel The Battle of Pollocks Crossing.
At the end of his year in the USA Carr continued his journey westward and found himself travelling through the Middle East and the Mediterranean as the Second World War loomed. He arrived in France in September 1939 and reached England, where he volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. He was trained as an RAF photographer and stationed in West Africa, later serving in Britain as an intelligence officer, an experience he translated into fiction with A Season in Sinji.
At the end of the War he married Sally (Hilda Gladys Sexton) and returned to teaching. He was appointed headmaster of Highfields Primary School in Kettering, Northamptonshire, a post he filled from 1952 to 1967 in a typically idiosyncratic way which earned the devotion of staff and pupils alike. He returned to Huron, South Dakota, in 1957 to teach again on an exchange visit, when he wrote and published himself a social history of The Old Timers of Beadle County.
In 1967, having written two novels, he retired from teaching to devote himself to writing. He produced and published from his own Quince Tree Press a series of 'small books' designed to fit into a pocket: some of them selections from English poets, others brief monographs about historical events, or works of reference. In order to encourage children to read, each of the "small books" was given two prices, the lower of which applied only to children. As a result, Carr received several letters from adults in deliberately childish writing in an attempt to secure the discount.
He also carried on a single-handed campaign to preserve and restore the parish church of Saint Faith at Newton in the Willows, which had been vandalised and was threatened with redundancy. Carr, who appointed himself its guardian, came into conflict with the vicar of the benefice, and higher church authorities, in his attempts to save the church. The building was saved, but his crusade was also a failure in that redundancy was not averted and the building is now a scientific study centre.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 7, 2024
A Month in the Country, by the same author, is one of my favourite novels/novellas.
This had less of an impact on me. We didn’t gel until well into the book. J. L. Carr, born and raised a Yorkshire man, is true here to his roots and it is clear that the 2 books are siblings, despite the very different settings. Sinji is some “arsehole of the Empire” place on the west coast of Africa and it is here, on an RAF camp/base, that much of the novel is set.
My father was in the RAF during WW2 and from what I recall of his reminiscing much of this was very true to life – even to the inclusion of 2 campy characters - and the reaction thereto of their fellows.
The main plot as such is around the relationship between 3 men, each enamoured of the same girl in Blighty.
It is very much of its time and reads like historical fiction now, though written a mere 20 or so years after the war. It was written well before the advent of Woke, though one of the more interesting characters here raises some very pertinent pre Woke issues.
Hard to believe, having read this, that we won the war!
This had less of an impact on me. We didn’t gel until well into the book. J. L. Carr, born and raised a Yorkshire man, is true here to his roots and it is clear that the 2 books are siblings, despite the very different settings. Sinji is some “arsehole of the Empire” place on the west coast of Africa and it is here, on an RAF camp/base, that much of the novel is set.
My father was in the RAF during WW2 and from what I recall of his reminiscing much of this was very true to life – even to the inclusion of 2 campy characters - and the reaction thereto of their fellows.
The main plot as such is around the relationship between 3 men, each enamoured of the same girl in Blighty.
It is very much of its time and reads like historical fiction now, though written a mere 20 or so years after the war. It was written well before the advent of Woke, though one of the more interesting characters here raises some very pertinent pre Woke issues.
Hard to believe, having read this, that we won the war!
March 2, 2019
After reading Carr's memorable Month in the Country, I borrowed Sinji and a couple other of Carr's titles. Would recommend this one. Rich writing. Interesting, well developed characters. Wish I knew more about cricket, but that lack didn't detract much from the overall satisfaction of the book.
If you appreciated "Month ...," you might watch for this one, too.
***
Some quotes :
"It was an act like his appearance. Although he was tall and stooped, he wasn't anything like as clumsy as he made himself out to be be ... he could switch his flat feet and his stammer on and off as it suited him. Sometimes I thought he did it to hide his shame at having to mix in with the grim mob caked together in the bottom layer of the RAF. But, looking back, I think he didn't care that he'd been separated by the War from his own sort. In this snob-ridden land, and especially down south, there aren't many like he was. When he weighed up folks, class and education didn't go into the balance."
" ... he and I were set to collecting salvage ... Our staple trade was airframes because it was a training station for Doncasters which, in their heyday, before they were found out, slew more Englishmen than ever they did Germans. They used to dive in left, right and centre, scattering their bits and pieces over a terrified countryside for us to pick up."
"I didn't look at Wakerly. Whenever he was called to attention, he switched over to moron-control as he called it ... a complete idiot look on his face like a simple-minded person who desperately wanted to understand and please ... even his nose drooped and his fingers stretched to his knees to give him a positively ape-like look. Even the dimmest NCOs felt that he was taking the piss out of them but couldn't put a finger on exactly how. Years later, I recognized him in an illustration in Dicken's Nicholas Nickleby, an abandoned youth named Smike, whom his persecutors always dressed in a small boy's cast-offs."
(For some reason, re-reading the passages, I'm reminded of John Williams' Stoner.)
Stoner
After the narrator arrived in Sinji, I took a reading break and googled "Sinji West Africa" ... that led to the following link ... since it told me too much, I didn't read very far into the "spoiler" article, but what I perused was quite congruent with what I'd been reading in the book
https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2016/04...
A Season in Sinji, J. L. Carr’s second novel, was originally published in 1967, the same year that he resigned his position as Headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, in order to devote his time to writing, and to publishing. Though the book centres upon experiences of War-time, based upon Carr’s own experiences in West Africa, it is also a book about cricket, and has been hailed by many people as the finest cricket based novel ever published.
But don’t let that put off the cricket-haters among you. Cricket is indeed a running theme throughout the novel, and the fortunes of a cricket side are of great importance as the narrative gains momentum towards its tragic conclusion, but its importance in the book is rather as a metaphor, as A.C 2, 1293393 Flanders T, orders his thinking according to his experience of the game.
Though A Season in Sinji is set during the War, it’s also very much removed from it. The story begins in Blackfen in Lancashire, at a camp where RAF servicemen, groundcrew, technicians, support staff, are in a form of limbo whilst they await – some of them interminably – for postings. It’s a horrible place, staffed by horrible men, dull, stupid, sex-obsessed and starved, eking out time with nothing to do and nothing to think about.
The whole setting is grim as can be. Carr is particularly savage about ‘Lancasheer’ and the ‘Lancasheer’ accent (a bit of Yorkshire prejudice going on there ...)
If you appreciated "Month ...," you might watch for this one, too.
***
Some quotes :
"It was an act like his appearance. Although he was tall and stooped, he wasn't anything like as clumsy as he made himself out to be be ... he could switch his flat feet and his stammer on and off as it suited him. Sometimes I thought he did it to hide his shame at having to mix in with the grim mob caked together in the bottom layer of the RAF. But, looking back, I think he didn't care that he'd been separated by the War from his own sort. In this snob-ridden land, and especially down south, there aren't many like he was. When he weighed up folks, class and education didn't go into the balance."
" ... he and I were set to collecting salvage ... Our staple trade was airframes because it was a training station for Doncasters which, in their heyday, before they were found out, slew more Englishmen than ever they did Germans. They used to dive in left, right and centre, scattering their bits and pieces over a terrified countryside for us to pick up."
"I didn't look at Wakerly. Whenever he was called to attention, he switched over to moron-control as he called it ... a complete idiot look on his face like a simple-minded person who desperately wanted to understand and please ... even his nose drooped and his fingers stretched to his knees to give him a positively ape-like look. Even the dimmest NCOs felt that he was taking the piss out of them but couldn't put a finger on exactly how. Years later, I recognized him in an illustration in Dicken's Nicholas Nickleby, an abandoned youth named Smike, whom his persecutors always dressed in a small boy's cast-offs."
(For some reason, re-reading the passages, I'm reminded of John Williams' Stoner.)
Stoner
After the narrator arrived in Sinji, I took a reading break and googled "Sinji West Africa" ... that led to the following link ... since it told me too much, I didn't read very far into the "spoiler" article, but what I perused was quite congruent with what I'd been reading in the book
https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2016/04...
A Season in Sinji, J. L. Carr’s second novel, was originally published in 1967, the same year that he resigned his position as Headmaster of Highfields Primary School, Kettering, in order to devote his time to writing, and to publishing. Though the book centres upon experiences of War-time, based upon Carr’s own experiences in West Africa, it is also a book about cricket, and has been hailed by many people as the finest cricket based novel ever published.
But don’t let that put off the cricket-haters among you. Cricket is indeed a running theme throughout the novel, and the fortunes of a cricket side are of great importance as the narrative gains momentum towards its tragic conclusion, but its importance in the book is rather as a metaphor, as A.C 2, 1293393 Flanders T, orders his thinking according to his experience of the game.
Though A Season in Sinji is set during the War, it’s also very much removed from it. The story begins in Blackfen in Lancashire, at a camp where RAF servicemen, groundcrew, technicians, support staff, are in a form of limbo whilst they await – some of them interminably – for postings. It’s a horrible place, staffed by horrible men, dull, stupid, sex-obsessed and starved, eking out time with nothing to do and nothing to think about.
The whole setting is grim as can be. Carr is particularly savage about ‘Lancasheer’ and the ‘Lancasheer’ accent (a bit of Yorkshire prejudice going on there ...)
February 26, 2024
A novel featuring a provincial, rigid Methodist-raised narrator with limited self-knowledge and vision telling stories that he only gradually begins to understand. Not as funny as Steeple Sinderby Wanderers, not as beautiful and complete as A Month in the Country, but still well worth a read for my summer JL Carr project. The British Army, the Second World War as seen from an outpost in West Africa. Most of all, Cricket as Life and Life as Cricket, or is playing not to be called out really playing cricket or life?
July 17, 2022
I have mixed emotions about this one. Carr's writing as always is superb; Flanders (the protagonist) and most of the other characters' attitude to women and to black Africans is abhorrent - although perhaps an accurate portrayal of the types he was writing about; Carr's female characters are uniformly disappointing; and the plot was ultimately a letdown for me:
It's "Lord of the Flies" with adults instead of school kids being nasty to each other. Just when you're hoping that Flanders will give the arch-villain his comeuppance, he doesn't; and just when you're hoping that the arch-villain's wife will recognize him for the villain he is, she doesn't (back to Carr's disappointing portrayal of female characters). And although some critics view this story as a tragedy, it doesn't fit that mold well. Certainly three of the main characters die by the end of the story, but their deaths are accidents of fate and unrelated to each other's actions or to any of the events in the the central plot.
In spite of the good writing, I'd be hard put to recommend this to anyone, and I can see why with its portrayal of outmoded attitudes it's gone out of print.
It's "Lord of the Flies" with adults instead of school kids being nasty to each other. Just when you're hoping that Flanders will give the arch-villain his comeuppance, he doesn't; and just when you're hoping that the arch-villain's wife will recognize him for the villain he is, she doesn't (back to Carr's disappointing portrayal of female characters). And although some critics view this story as a tragedy, it doesn't fit that mold well. Certainly three of the main characters die by the end of the story, but their deaths are accidents of fate and unrelated to each other's actions or to any of the events in the the central plot.
In spite of the good writing, I'd be hard put to recommend this to anyone, and I can see why with its portrayal of outmoded attitudes it's gone out of print.
May 8, 2017
J L Carr wrote six novels, each quirkily different, each springing from an aspect of his life and experience. A Season in Sinji follows a love triangle (strictly speaking, a love quadrilateral in this case with three young RAF men vying for the love of a young woman) from one of their postings to their time at a West African flying boat base during the Second World War. The story is ultimately a tragedy, and that's clear from fairly early on, but it's not quite the sort of tragedy the reader is expecting, and is all the more affecting for that. Like many novels of the war, A Season in Sinji is at its most effective when focused on the day to day dreariness and tedium of life for the lower ranks, the constant cock-ups and the pettiness of the junior officers and the unworldliness of those in more senior positions. A scratch cricket team and their matches against other units play a key part in the story, and cricketing metaphors abound throughout.
May 13, 2020
The rare Carr book that foregrounds the dramatic. He routinely named it as his best work, and I can see why he would think so. If I don't agree, I do not inherently disagree on an objective level. Frankly didn't know the old boy had this level of carnage in him. This bastard hurts.
Oh, and cricket. You know, that sport we Yanks turned into the greatest coordination of human physical grace in history. Baseball. That's the one.
Goddamn I miss baseball...
Oh, and cricket. You know, that sport we Yanks turned into the greatest coordination of human physical grace in history. Baseball. That's the one.
Goddamn I miss baseball...
December 19, 2022
Very ambivalent about this one. The story takes place during WWII, first in Britain (Lancashire), then in a fictitious West African country. Two buddies from different social classes (Tom Flanders, our narrator comes from farming and highly religious stock, while Wakerly is a toff) find themselves at odds with a third character, Turton, who comes from the same background as Wakerly, but unlike him is a snob and a bully. All 3 men fall in love with beautiful Caroline Driffield, but Wakerly fails to make a move, and puritanical and repressed Flanders pushes her away when she makes a pass at him. Unsurprisingly, Caroline then goes for the less scrupulous Turton, who makes her pregnant when Caroline's guardian opposes their marriage. Caroline miscarries, and leaves the story until its final pages. Mid-way through the war, Flanders and Wakerly are shipped out to Sinji, where it's their hard luck to run into Turton again. Having risen to officer rank, Turton has a great deal of power over the pair, and loses no opportunity of throwing his weight around. I really enjoyed Carr's ruefully funny descriptions of the boredom and pettiness of life on an army base. Wakerly gets killed during a mission and disappears rather brutally from the story without his conflict with Turton being resolved. Eventually Flanders puts together a cricket team which proves surprisingly successful, so much so that Turton muscles in on the action and appoints himself captain for the final game. Furious about it, Flanders hesitates between various courses of action. The game results in a draw, prompting an irate Turton to accuse Flanders of having sabotaged the team. Soon afterwards, both men find themselves on a mission aboard a plane whose pilot is well-known for being a daredevil. The Brits spot a German U-Boat and before they know it their plane is destroyed, with all lives lost except for Turton and Flanders who make it onto a life raft. However, Turton is fatally wounded and dies without uttering a word. Flanders then finds correspondence in Turton's pockets attesting to Caroline's enduring love for her husband, as well as a telegram informing Turton of his wife's death. The bottom falls out of Flanders who had been fantasizing about rebuilding his life with Caroline after the war. What's wrong with this book may also be what makes it special. Both Wakerly's accidental death and the final, silent confrontation between the dying Turton and Flanders are anti-climactic. I guessed that Caroline was dead long before the last page because we see Turton ashen-faced with the telegram in his hand before the men embark on their fatal mission. In other words, the book doesn't deliver the kind of cathartic face off it seems to build up to. Neither Wakerly nor Flanders is vindicated or avenged. It's only too easy to imagine how Hollywood would tweak the ending to make it more dramatic. But then again Carr's point is precisely that life is no Hollywood movie, as attested by these reflections from Flanders: "Life itself was a sprawling, shapeless, disgusting mess. It had about as much plan as a sow's litter."
July 24, 2024
Excellent depiction of military life on an airbase in WW2, with the voice of narrator/MC Flanders being the main coup as he tries to cope with friendships, camp politics, the war(!) etc by applying the same principles used to captain a cricket team(!). Carr's writing was a joy as usual (read this in three sittings) but there wasn't enough coherence (as in Month In The Country) to get this over the hump from 4 to 5 stars.
[oh, and this was my 1000th Goodreads review!]
[oh, and this was my 1000th Goodreads review!]
June 15, 2025
A Season in Sinji by J.L. Carr – author of the brilliant A Month in The Country https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/09/... both included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list
10 out of 10
This marvelous magnum opus is now one of my favorite reads, and I wonder why it is neglected, yes, it is on the aforementioned list, which has another JL Carr fabulous work, I am sure, although I have not opened it yet, The Harpole Report on the 1,000 Novels compilation, but the internet has little about these landmarks
Furthermore, even if it has quite a few pages about cricket, and I am absolutely out of the picture on that, ergo there is no radiance to get from it, A Season in Sinji is monumental, seen from this space, a fabulous combination of humor and tragedy, questioning the meaning of life and laughing at almost everything
Tom Flanders is the narrator, arguably the hero of the story, he takes himself in jest at times, does not avoid self-deprecating humor, but we find him endearing, hope he will succeed, survive, win, however slim the chances are at times – there is logic to apply, when we see him dying, we find hope protesting ‘but he is the story teller, he could not die, for who is telling us what happened then’, we could get it second hand nonetheless
The protagonist signs for the RAF, because we have a war on, and he meets Peter Wakerly, the second most important role in this game of life, on this Season in Sinji – they like each other, and become friends, in spite of the difference in education, and class, they could also clash over their love interest, for the same woman
And we find that ‘The whole point of the story stems from Caroline Driffield, they both met her in Budmouth’ – she was out of the hero’s league, class, she was for Wakerly, or as it turns out, for Turton – spoiler alert, you should not be reading further, mainly because this is not really very (Any?) good, I mean my ‘analyses of what is a phenomenal work, and then I will let drop some things about what happens later
Caroline has a moment – or maybe it is the whole time – when she invites Tom to walk with her, without Wakerly, and she acts ‘like a cat in heat’, she clearly wants to go further, or ‘all the way, because these were days of here today, gone tomorrow, what with the war, killings’, only our man has no sexual experience
Afraid he will look like a fool, he keeps the distance, resisting the pull of the very handsome, alluring woman, claiming he has to be back at the barracks or something like that, and he loses his only chances, as he will realize and share with the readers, maybe there was no real opportunity there, we will see what destiny, or something else has in store
This is where Turton comes into the picture, to play the role of the villain- up to, maybe including the end – ‘he thought himself so damn smart, that he despised the rest and saw us as salvage wallahs…Utter confidence is everything when you're playing to win…Everything!’ we read about the love triangle or square…
Wakerly may have had his chance, but he took to long to clarify his stand, taking a longer route, while Turton pressed on, with a plan from A to Z, showing off and winning the day, and the girl – Tom sees them naked, in her room, intimate and the woman infatuated (maybe it was love, albeit I doubt it) with the ruffian
Wakerly and Tom sail off, and the rumors include Florida, and they end up near the coast of Western Africa, where a torpedo sinks the ship, and soldiers are killed in the catastrophe, both our personages survive and they are stationed in Sinji, a rather sordid place, with no bars, nothing to do in terms of entertainment
Some of the descriptions, the tale could be seen as racist – better said, the fictional men, some have relationships with the native women, others refuse, at one point, abominable Turton is on this vehicle, and while he travels with others along the road, he destroys the jars in which poor women carry water, from long distances
This when Wakerly takes a noble, courageous, admirable stand and he tells Turton that is he knocks off another jar, he will report him to the higher ranks, which would have been a very damaging action, since superiors do not accept that sort of reporting, and then Turton would have taken revenge anyway, well, he had that, alas
A strange coincidence has Turton arriving in Sinji, and worse, he is in a position to order Wakerly and Tom around, abusing this position, ending by humiliating Peter to the point where he gets depressed, is not interested in anything anymore, a disintegration that will happen to corporal Glapthorn, their superior
The latter is in charge of the photographic section, where Peter and tom are his subordinates, Turton, vicious, sadistic as he is, is harassing the two, but in the end, he targets the corporal, who is sinking, becomes obsessed with a poor monkey, caught by the soldiers, tied to a tree, then somehow tamed and accustomed with the barracks
First, the corporal is furious and wants it destroyed, saying this is vermin, if the doctor reports to headquarters that, in fact, the animal provides some entertainment for the troops, eventually, Glapthorn is attached to the monkey, and it gets so sick, he has to care for it, and then see the poor thing die near his bed
Wakerly dies at Sinji, and we find about that half way into the story, at least I kept mum till the end of the note, and it looks for some time that Tom could be in for the big departure, only this could not happen, as I have already said…or could it? I am not really sure actually
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
10 out of 10
This marvelous magnum opus is now one of my favorite reads, and I wonder why it is neglected, yes, it is on the aforementioned list, which has another JL Carr fabulous work, I am sure, although I have not opened it yet, The Harpole Report on the 1,000 Novels compilation, but the internet has little about these landmarks
Furthermore, even if it has quite a few pages about cricket, and I am absolutely out of the picture on that, ergo there is no radiance to get from it, A Season in Sinji is monumental, seen from this space, a fabulous combination of humor and tragedy, questioning the meaning of life and laughing at almost everything
Tom Flanders is the narrator, arguably the hero of the story, he takes himself in jest at times, does not avoid self-deprecating humor, but we find him endearing, hope he will succeed, survive, win, however slim the chances are at times – there is logic to apply, when we see him dying, we find hope protesting ‘but he is the story teller, he could not die, for who is telling us what happened then’, we could get it second hand nonetheless
The protagonist signs for the RAF, because we have a war on, and he meets Peter Wakerly, the second most important role in this game of life, on this Season in Sinji – they like each other, and become friends, in spite of the difference in education, and class, they could also clash over their love interest, for the same woman
And we find that ‘The whole point of the story stems from Caroline Driffield, they both met her in Budmouth’ – she was out of the hero’s league, class, she was for Wakerly, or as it turns out, for Turton – spoiler alert, you should not be reading further, mainly because this is not really very (Any?) good, I mean my ‘analyses of what is a phenomenal work, and then I will let drop some things about what happens later
Caroline has a moment – or maybe it is the whole time – when she invites Tom to walk with her, without Wakerly, and she acts ‘like a cat in heat’, she clearly wants to go further, or ‘all the way, because these were days of here today, gone tomorrow, what with the war, killings’, only our man has no sexual experience
Afraid he will look like a fool, he keeps the distance, resisting the pull of the very handsome, alluring woman, claiming he has to be back at the barracks or something like that, and he loses his only chances, as he will realize and share with the readers, maybe there was no real opportunity there, we will see what destiny, or something else has in store
This is where Turton comes into the picture, to play the role of the villain- up to, maybe including the end – ‘he thought himself so damn smart, that he despised the rest and saw us as salvage wallahs…Utter confidence is everything when you're playing to win…Everything!’ we read about the love triangle or square…
Wakerly may have had his chance, but he took to long to clarify his stand, taking a longer route, while Turton pressed on, with a plan from A to Z, showing off and winning the day, and the girl – Tom sees them naked, in her room, intimate and the woman infatuated (maybe it was love, albeit I doubt it) with the ruffian
Wakerly and Tom sail off, and the rumors include Florida, and they end up near the coast of Western Africa, where a torpedo sinks the ship, and soldiers are killed in the catastrophe, both our personages survive and they are stationed in Sinji, a rather sordid place, with no bars, nothing to do in terms of entertainment
Some of the descriptions, the tale could be seen as racist – better said, the fictional men, some have relationships with the native women, others refuse, at one point, abominable Turton is on this vehicle, and while he travels with others along the road, he destroys the jars in which poor women carry water, from long distances
This when Wakerly takes a noble, courageous, admirable stand and he tells Turton that is he knocks off another jar, he will report him to the higher ranks, which would have been a very damaging action, since superiors do not accept that sort of reporting, and then Turton would have taken revenge anyway, well, he had that, alas
A strange coincidence has Turton arriving in Sinji, and worse, he is in a position to order Wakerly and Tom around, abusing this position, ending by humiliating Peter to the point where he gets depressed, is not interested in anything anymore, a disintegration that will happen to corporal Glapthorn, their superior
The latter is in charge of the photographic section, where Peter and tom are his subordinates, Turton, vicious, sadistic as he is, is harassing the two, but in the end, he targets the corporal, who is sinking, becomes obsessed with a poor monkey, caught by the soldiers, tied to a tree, then somehow tamed and accustomed with the barracks
First, the corporal is furious and wants it destroyed, saying this is vermin, if the doctor reports to headquarters that, in fact, the animal provides some entertainment for the troops, eventually, Glapthorn is attached to the monkey, and it gets so sick, he has to care for it, and then see the poor thing die near his bed
Wakerly dies at Sinji, and we find about that half way into the story, at least I kept mum till the end of the note, and it looks for some time that Tom could be in for the big departure, only this could not happen, as I have already said…or could it? I am not really sure actually
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
October 18, 2021
This story was first published in the late 1960s, some twenty years prior to Carr’s much better known A Month in The Country. Both books are short and they might well be termed novellas rather than novels; Carr was a master of these shorter works of fiction.
Much of Carr’s fiction seems to be strongly situated in real life experiences – his own. This, for me, brings his stories to life. The two things I adore most about A Season in Sinji are 1) the setting (RAF Sinji); and 2) the story’s constant references to cricket – a game I love. The story is lightly written, with many comic moments, but it is also packed with intense detail and a number of dark revelations later on.
Carr was an air-crewman during the Second World War and was based for a time at RAF Bathurst (re-named Banjul) in The Gambia. Sinji is undoubtedly Car’s fictitious name for The Gambia. There is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery near Banjul containing the graves of many RAF men alongside those of West African soldiers. Carr flew in Catalina flying boats, and these too feature in the book. His descriptions of the sensation and noise of these huge aeroplanes as they take off and land are simply stunning.
In A Season in Sinji, Car brings to life many of the everyday events of British servicemen living and working in a steamily hot tropical climate; their interactions with the locals and the ways in which they passed their time – which included playing cricket. I have visited The Gambia many times and have taught at the University of The Gambia. I have also watched cricket being played in Banjul, outside the Presidential residence – a reminder of the country’s colonial past.
Carr was a keen cricketer and had a phlegmatic understanding of how the game can be put to work as a metaphor for life. His descriptions in A Season in Sinji show that he was very knowledgeable about the great game; he includes many details which many readers will appreciate, but you don’t need to know anything about cricket to enjoy the book.
Though it hardly seems to matter, the plot centres on a young man with a passion for cricket who is conscripted into the RAF as a photographer. He is sent to Sinji where he meets an old rival, a bullying officer. A classic love triangle and those dark secrets complete the scenario.
Place seems to have mattered very much to Carr and I believe The Gambia must have been dear to him. I say this because it re-appears at the end of another of his novellas – The Harpole Report (1972) - where the main characters George Harpole and Emma Foxberrow emigrate to Sinji.
Much of Carr’s fiction seems to be strongly situated in real life experiences – his own. This, for me, brings his stories to life. The two things I adore most about A Season in Sinji are 1) the setting (RAF Sinji); and 2) the story’s constant references to cricket – a game I love. The story is lightly written, with many comic moments, but it is also packed with intense detail and a number of dark revelations later on.
Carr was an air-crewman during the Second World War and was based for a time at RAF Bathurst (re-named Banjul) in The Gambia. Sinji is undoubtedly Car’s fictitious name for The Gambia. There is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery near Banjul containing the graves of many RAF men alongside those of West African soldiers. Carr flew in Catalina flying boats, and these too feature in the book. His descriptions of the sensation and noise of these huge aeroplanes as they take off and land are simply stunning.
In A Season in Sinji, Car brings to life many of the everyday events of British servicemen living and working in a steamily hot tropical climate; their interactions with the locals and the ways in which they passed their time – which included playing cricket. I have visited The Gambia many times and have taught at the University of The Gambia. I have also watched cricket being played in Banjul, outside the Presidential residence – a reminder of the country’s colonial past.
Carr was a keen cricketer and had a phlegmatic understanding of how the game can be put to work as a metaphor for life. His descriptions in A Season in Sinji show that he was very knowledgeable about the great game; he includes many details which many readers will appreciate, but you don’t need to know anything about cricket to enjoy the book.
Though it hardly seems to matter, the plot centres on a young man with a passion for cricket who is conscripted into the RAF as a photographer. He is sent to Sinji where he meets an old rival, a bullying officer. A classic love triangle and those dark secrets complete the scenario.
Place seems to have mattered very much to Carr and I believe The Gambia must have been dear to him. I say this because it re-appears at the end of another of his novellas – The Harpole Report (1972) - where the main characters George Harpole and Emma Foxberrow emigrate to Sinji.
September 9, 2024
I regard this book as an almost perfect novel. Having read Carr's A Month in the Country and How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup and enjoyed both, I was expecting to also like A Season in Sinji but in fact I more than liked it. I loved it.
A Month in the Country is about the redemptive powers of art and features a protagonist who learns to be more accepting and progressive in his social politics: the mood is sombre, pastoral, muted. How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup is about how the big dreams of small people can become big realities on what remains a relatively small scale. But A Season in Sinji isn't about one or two things. It's about life in its entirety during a time of acute crisis. And the way this crisis manifests itself is only partly through violent action. There is also boredom, psychological games, the weirdness of the 'other', the proof of the extreme flexibility of the human psyche.
A Season in Sinji at times is as exciting as a Hammond Innes adventure novel. At other times it's as ironically satirical as Catch 22, as subtly menacing as Rex Warner's The Aerodrome, as camp and absurd as It Ain't Half Hot Mum. It was published in 1967, therefore the language of Flanders, the narrator, might strike the modern reader as frequently prejudiced (and yet realistic for the time and place) and yet one of the main characters, Wakerly, regularly puts forth arguments that resonate strongly with modern values (he decries racism, for example). Everything about this novel feels sincere, authentic, genuine.
Cricket plays a role in the plot, but I wouldn't say this is a 'cricket novel'. It's a war novel, a touching farce, a comedy of errors, a dramatic period piece, a tragedy, a bildungsroman, a mimetic slice of history from a fragment of the former century that was absurdist, surreal and perhaps insane. Carr regarded this book as his best novel. I can understand why.
A Month in the Country is about the redemptive powers of art and features a protagonist who learns to be more accepting and progressive in his social politics: the mood is sombre, pastoral, muted. How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup is about how the big dreams of small people can become big realities on what remains a relatively small scale. But A Season in Sinji isn't about one or two things. It's about life in its entirety during a time of acute crisis. And the way this crisis manifests itself is only partly through violent action. There is also boredom, psychological games, the weirdness of the 'other', the proof of the extreme flexibility of the human psyche.
A Season in Sinji at times is as exciting as a Hammond Innes adventure novel. At other times it's as ironically satirical as Catch 22, as subtly menacing as Rex Warner's The Aerodrome, as camp and absurd as It Ain't Half Hot Mum. It was published in 1967, therefore the language of Flanders, the narrator, might strike the modern reader as frequently prejudiced (and yet realistic for the time and place) and yet one of the main characters, Wakerly, regularly puts forth arguments that resonate strongly with modern values (he decries racism, for example). Everything about this novel feels sincere, authentic, genuine.
Cricket plays a role in the plot, but I wouldn't say this is a 'cricket novel'. It's a war novel, a touching farce, a comedy of errors, a dramatic period piece, a tragedy, a bildungsroman, a mimetic slice of history from a fragment of the former century that was absurdist, surreal and perhaps insane. Carr regarded this book as his best novel. I can understand why.
March 31, 2025
【A Season in Sinji / J L Carr (1967, 1985 Penguin)】
--His wife probably was missing him in bed and the garden, but I bet she wasn't sorry to be having a break from birds. (P43-44, Three)
As an impression of a literate British man sent to Africa during WWII, it'd probably be a very rationalistic - way too rationalistic to be taken seriously. This type of deadpan jokes are what make this novel highly delectable for those who are not persuaded by the "normal" war narrative. Kurt Vonnegut might have done the same excursion to show the lunacy of war, but I think that Carr was even better.
--You have to remember that, for most servicemen, War was only brief spells of intense effort or fear lost in a yawning wilderness of boredom. (P93, Eleven)
They spend the yawning days in a variety of styles. Playing cricket endlessly with enthusiasm, as if they were sent to Africa to train them. Taming monkey carefully and sympathizing with it way too deeply. Poking fun at local black women and make a great trouble. Taking "official " pictures. Or even death on front is another style of killing time - that would be what war meant to those who were off the front.
This novella includes some traumatic sceneries from war, inserted in the interesting narrative about yawning and boredom - if you can get a copy of it, I'll urge you to do so.
And this would be the best passage about a military pilot I've ever read:
--All you could do was kneel -- bent slightly forwards off balance, like a constipated heathen supplicating his god. (P171, Twenty-Five)
--His wife probably was missing him in bed and the garden, but I bet she wasn't sorry to be having a break from birds. (P43-44, Three)
As an impression of a literate British man sent to Africa during WWII, it'd probably be a very rationalistic - way too rationalistic to be taken seriously. This type of deadpan jokes are what make this novel highly delectable for those who are not persuaded by the "normal" war narrative. Kurt Vonnegut might have done the same excursion to show the lunacy of war, but I think that Carr was even better.
--You have to remember that, for most servicemen, War was only brief spells of intense effort or fear lost in a yawning wilderness of boredom. (P93, Eleven)
They spend the yawning days in a variety of styles. Playing cricket endlessly with enthusiasm, as if they were sent to Africa to train them. Taming monkey carefully and sympathizing with it way too deeply. Poking fun at local black women and make a great trouble. Taking "official " pictures. Or even death on front is another style of killing time - that would be what war meant to those who were off the front.
This novella includes some traumatic sceneries from war, inserted in the interesting narrative about yawning and boredom - if you can get a copy of it, I'll urge you to do so.
And this would be the best passage about a military pilot I've ever read:
--All you could do was kneel -- bent slightly forwards off balance, like a constipated heathen supplicating his god. (P171, Twenty-Five)
December 29, 2020
I had no idea about this book when I got it, but bought it having read it referenced by Michael Palin as essential reading on one of his travels - and although it took me a couple of pages to get into the style of the novel, once I had, it raced along.
A fabulously insightful story using cricket as a metaphor for life, social behavior, and emotions, written as if it were a personal memoir, brilliantly descriptive and hugely enjoyable.
I loved it.
A fabulously insightful story using cricket as a metaphor for life, social behavior, and emotions, written as if it were a personal memoir, brilliantly descriptive and hugely enjoyable.
I loved it.
December 27, 2023
SUMMARY - Erratic as much as eccentric. Carr's period piece could have been left behind with the flags of empire. More for fans of David Storey or Boy's Own tales.
______
Carr is often described as 'eccentric'. A better description might be 'consistently erratic'. The quality of the writing remains even in what I consider the worst of Carr's books that I have tackled to date (this is #5 at the time of writing). It's the tone that I struggled with here, where an awkward 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' humour makes it read as dated. It's a book of its time in the worst sense. Even leaving aside anachronistic skewering of 1960s social mores, it's another of those fantasy fulfilment books (male commeraderie, war, cricket) that raises ever deeper cringes the further it strays from the back garden potting shed.
There is a perhaps unlikely parallel to be made between (seemingly deepest-country-conservative) Carr and (gay-libber agent provocateur) Paul Bailey, whose career also started in the 1960s; who likewise had two Booker nominations around the same time (1977; 1980; 1985; 1986 between them); who revelled in a certain knowing subservience of perspective; and who forged links across disparate novels. Carr's titles ('A Season'; 'A Month'; 'A Day') and Sinji itself (here and 'Harpole Report') reflect a playfulness matched by Bailey's repeats (Gabriel, the Jerusalem). I find both authors compellingly odd, even if their works make for an unevenly paved journey of reading.
I had wondered why only one of his books ('A Month in the Country') had garnered much of a reputation. Having read several of Carr's works, I would not be too put off by Sinji if this is #2 (even this isn't so bad), but the 'boy wins Ashes' children's TV plotline feels a world away from the delicately sublime summer beauty of his most famous novel.
______
Carr is often described as 'eccentric'. A better description might be 'consistently erratic'. The quality of the writing remains even in what I consider the worst of Carr's books that I have tackled to date (this is #5 at the time of writing). It's the tone that I struggled with here, where an awkward 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' humour makes it read as dated. It's a book of its time in the worst sense. Even leaving aside anachronistic skewering of 1960s social mores, it's another of those fantasy fulfilment books (male commeraderie, war, cricket) that raises ever deeper cringes the further it strays from the back garden potting shed.
There is a perhaps unlikely parallel to be made between (seemingly deepest-country-conservative) Carr and (gay-libber agent provocateur) Paul Bailey, whose career also started in the 1960s; who likewise had two Booker nominations around the same time (1977; 1980; 1985; 1986 between them); who revelled in a certain knowing subservience of perspective; and who forged links across disparate novels. Carr's titles ('A Season'; 'A Month'; 'A Day') and Sinji itself (here and 'Harpole Report') reflect a playfulness matched by Bailey's repeats (Gabriel, the Jerusalem). I find both authors compellingly odd, even if their works make for an unevenly paved journey of reading.
I had wondered why only one of his books ('A Month in the Country') had garnered much of a reputation. Having read several of Carr's works, I would not be too put off by Sinji if this is #2 (even this isn't so bad), but the 'boy wins Ashes' children's TV plotline feels a world away from the delicately sublime summer beauty of his most famous novel.
Want to read
July 12, 2016* 1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list
Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel – they appear here for the first time in a single list.
Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel – they appear here for the first time in a single list.
April 1, 2009
right up there with other close encounters with the war, like milligan (although there's no reason to believe this is autobiographical) or thirkell. short, pointed and funny, also as economic a portrait of personal isolation as i've read in a long time. Carr is new to me (thank you, guardian books) but i'll be seeking out his other books.
Read
September 30, 2018Has always stayed with me, circket as metaphor
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