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Ash before Oak
Ash before Oak, the winner of the inaugural Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, is written in the form of a journal written by a solitary man on a secluded Somerset estate. Ostensibly a nature diary, chronicling the narrator’s interest in the local flora and fauna and the passing of the seasons, Ash before Oak is also the story of a breakdown told slantwise, and of the narrator’s subsequent recovery through his re-engagement with the world around him. The title derives from an old country rhyme forecasting rain. Written in prose that is as precise as it is beautiful, Jeremy Cooper’s first novel in over a decade is a stunning investigation of the fragility, beauty and strangeness of life.
536 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2019
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About the author
Jeremy Cooper
45 books31 followersJeremy Cooper is a writer and art historian, author of six previous novels and several works of non-fiction, including the standard work on nineteenth century furniture, studies of young British artists in the 1990s, and, in 2019, the British Museum's catalogue of artists' postcards. Early on he appeared in the first twenty-four of BBC's Antiques Roadshow and, in 2018, won
the first Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for Ash before Oak.
the first Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for Ash before Oak.
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May 21, 2023
I go on and on about birds. What am I actually saying?
...
And the rest? The bulk of life, the stuff I see and think and decline to write about?
Ash before Oak by Jeremy Cooper is the 24th novel from the wonderful Fitzcarraldo Editions (Claire-Louise Bennett, Mathias Enard, Camila Grudova, John Keene, Esther Kinsky, Olga Tokarczuk and Alejandro Zambra), of which I have read 20, and was the winner of their inaugural Novel Prize.
The novel is ostensibly in the form of an almost daily nature journal, written over three and a half years, from an unnamed diarist. Aged 55, and divorced from his first wife for 20 years and subsequently unmarried, he has recently moved from London to the Somerset countryside, specifically Lower Terhill in the small village of Cothelstone, near to Bishops Lydeard. There he has rented a former workman's cottage which, with the landlord's blessing, he is restoring while also reclaiming the garden for nature.
The diarist's biography, as revealed through his journal, has much in common with the author's, who also lives in Lower Terhill, co-founded a local restaurant Podshavers (http://www.podshavers.co.uk/about-us....), is an ex-presenter of the Antiques Roadshow, a former antiques dealer, a strong supporter of contemporary art, collecter of postcards (see http://www.abigaillane.co.uk/PDF-FILE... for a catalogue of his Postcard Narratives art exhibition) and an author of both fiction and non-fiction, and educated at Harrow as a son of a schoolmaster, although how much of the narrator's troubled story reflects the author's is less clear (and perhaps irrelevant).
The journal opens on 24 December - the year isn't given but later (see below) we realise it is 2000 - and the 2nd entry reads, with a hint of the hidden issues that will surface:
29 December
It snowed again last night. Like yesterday, external silence a prize. At 8.15 a.m., while I was out watching the colour of the sky change with the sunrise above the curve of Cothelstone Hill, the post van drove up the lane, and from my box on the wall I picked up a single welcome envelope. After breakfast I took good feelings up by the cascade to a hidden combe and on into the woods. Many sights: a swathe of green watercress where a stream spreads out to pass through a meadow, kept free from ice by birds. Elsewhere, tracks in the snow of pheasant and fox and rabbit and badger and deer and stoat and vole.
Back home, I identified the footfalls of these different animals in a book given to me thirty years ago by a family friend who used to live down here near Taunton. He was kind to me as a boy – the fact that he knew and loved the Quantock Hills and brought me years ago to this land for a mid-summer walk lends to my choice of settling now at Lower Terhill a sense of balance.
I hope this is real feeling, not sentimentality – a fabrication.
The novel's title comes from one entry where he states:
The Scots used to recite:
Ash before oak, the lady wears a cloak.
Oak before ash, the lady wears a sash.
In Surrey they appear to have believed the opposite, predicting drought when the ash came into leaf before the oak.
If the oak comes out before the ash,
‘Twill be a year of mix and splash.
If the ash comes out before the oak,
‘Twill be a year of fire and smoke.
There seem, in practice, a number of other regional variations (most commonly neither of the above but rather: Ash before Oak - we're in for a soak, Oak before Ash - we're in for a splash) largely it seems based on what rhymes or scans best than any scientific factor as observations suggest the relatively leafing of ash and oak has little predictive power for the weather for the rest of the year. However, what it does indicate quite clearly is the weather at that time, and hence a marker for climate change (https://www.field-studies-council.org... and https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/natureuk/...).
The identification and naming of flora and fauna characterises much of the novel, and indeed becomes something of an obsession. Early on the narrator notes:
Reciting the names of birds and plants is such a British thing to do.
Irritated by my grip on convention.
Only just started this nature naming business, after thirty years in London, and already tempted to stop.
but he certainly doesn't stop and, as the quote that opens my review suggests, we gradually come to realise that this is largely displacement activity from the mental health issues that severely trouble him. Their precise trigger for these issues, and his move to the countryside, is never made completely clear, as he specifically avoids talking about them, although an early entry (17 June 2001) hints at deep-seated family issues just before the journal opens:
Five months ago, Mother refused to let me go to Father's funeral, for fear of what I might say about him to family friends.
He builds tentative relationships with others in the area, particularly those engaged in similar refurbishment and nature reclamation projects, but remains deliberately isolated. Even 2.5 years after the journal, and his very gradual rehabilitation, starts he comments:
I don’t want to cook and I don’t want to be cooked for, I don’t want to speak or be spoken to and I don’t want to be silent or be silenced, I don’t want to be seen by anybody and I don’t want to be left alone, I don’t want to live and I don’t want to die.
And very little of the outside world intrudes - he doesn't watch television and it is some considerable time before he begins to read periodicals - the TLS and New Statesman his journals of choice.
Indeed the first hint I spotted of what year this might be was a slightly forced entry on 1 December in the 2nd year, where the great W.G. Sebald is introduces as my current favourite amongst living writers and his latest published book Austerlitz quoted, a passage where Jacques, like our narrator, proceeds to obsessively name butterflies.
'Slightly forced' because of the 'current ... living' instantly dates the passage: Austerlitz was published in English in September 2001, and tragically Sebald, also my then 'favourite amongst living writers' was to die on the roads of Norfolk on 14th December, a fact his diary has the narrator learning on the 17th from a friend. He notes:
As for love, Sebald feels to me a greater personal loss than my father.
Because I never loved him. Whereas Sebald’s books I adore.
and that perhaps also speaks to one issue I had with the book - in a similar way the passages about Sebald moved me rather more than any of the nature descriptions, nicely written as they were, in the previous 100 pages (and the subsequent 400).
Knowing the year is 2001, the read is tempted to flick back to 11th September - could that really pass unmarked? Yes, is the answer, although there is a brief reference on the anniversary of the date in 2002, as the narrator starts to very gradually re-engage with the world.
But the narration is still dominated by the cataloging of trees, birds and butterflies, and his painstaking project to rewild his garden. As he comments, in a rather neat reference to the movie from which his publisher takes its name:
Herzog, the filmmaker, wrote in his Fitzcarraldo journal: “why do these animal dramas preoccupy me so? Because I do not want to look inside myself. Only this much: a sense of desolation was tearing me up inside, like termites in a fallen tree trunk.’
Imagination carried Herzog through.
I’m stuck with dull words and mind. No way out.
It's hard not to see analogies for his mental health in his rather obsessive quest to clear the area of invasive plants - the threatening growth of nettles and burdock and thistles and ground elder and bindweed and hundreds of sycamore saplings (the nativist approach to defining invasive plants I found rather troubling - although the journal treats is rather ironically when he later discovers that the 'Wilderness Seeds' he has been assiduously sowing to reclaim the area actually include some of the same species).
I said earlier that was is unsaid, or hinted at (he frequently mentions his severe anxiety but largely in passing comments at the start or end of an entry) is important, and so are the dates that are skipped. As he comments:
The days and weeks when I write nothing, this is when the hard stuff happens.
The most brutal example a long gap in June-July 2002 which we gradually learn was due to an unsuccessful suicide attempt, followed by treatment both for the self-inflicted injuries but also ECT therapy.
Towards the book's end - in date terms in early 2004 and the last 100 pages of the book - he travels to New Zealand to visit his sister and starts to re-engage with others personally and with the outside world, although as he re-engaged I must admit this reader rather dis-engaged as the personal specifics of family and friends seemed a little too personally specific.
Overall: an impressive novel in many respects and effectively done. Although from personal taste, the effect of the nature descriptions rather wore out with the repetition. 2 stars (2.5 rounded down) - but certainly worthwhile.
...
And the rest? The bulk of life, the stuff I see and think and decline to write about?
Ash before Oak by Jeremy Cooper is the 24th novel from the wonderful Fitzcarraldo Editions (Claire-Louise Bennett, Mathias Enard, Camila Grudova, John Keene, Esther Kinsky, Olga Tokarczuk and Alejandro Zambra), of which I have read 20, and was the winner of their inaugural Novel Prize.
The novel is ostensibly in the form of an almost daily nature journal, written over three and a half years, from an unnamed diarist. Aged 55, and divorced from his first wife for 20 years and subsequently unmarried, he has recently moved from London to the Somerset countryside, specifically Lower Terhill in the small village of Cothelstone, near to Bishops Lydeard. There he has rented a former workman's cottage which, with the landlord's blessing, he is restoring while also reclaiming the garden for nature.
The diarist's biography, as revealed through his journal, has much in common with the author's, who also lives in Lower Terhill, co-founded a local restaurant Podshavers (http://www.podshavers.co.uk/about-us....), is an ex-presenter of the Antiques Roadshow, a former antiques dealer, a strong supporter of contemporary art, collecter of postcards (see http://www.abigaillane.co.uk/PDF-FILE... for a catalogue of his Postcard Narratives art exhibition) and an author of both fiction and non-fiction, and educated at Harrow as a son of a schoolmaster, although how much of the narrator's troubled story reflects the author's is less clear (and perhaps irrelevant).
The journal opens on 24 December - the year isn't given but later (see below) we realise it is 2000 - and the 2nd entry reads, with a hint of the hidden issues that will surface:
29 December
It snowed again last night. Like yesterday, external silence a prize. At 8.15 a.m., while I was out watching the colour of the sky change with the sunrise above the curve of Cothelstone Hill, the post van drove up the lane, and from my box on the wall I picked up a single welcome envelope. After breakfast I took good feelings up by the cascade to a hidden combe and on into the woods. Many sights: a swathe of green watercress where a stream spreads out to pass through a meadow, kept free from ice by birds. Elsewhere, tracks in the snow of pheasant and fox and rabbit and badger and deer and stoat and vole.
Back home, I identified the footfalls of these different animals in a book given to me thirty years ago by a family friend who used to live down here near Taunton. He was kind to me as a boy – the fact that he knew and loved the Quantock Hills and brought me years ago to this land for a mid-summer walk lends to my choice of settling now at Lower Terhill a sense of balance.
I hope this is real feeling, not sentimentality – a fabrication.
The novel's title comes from one entry where he states:
The Scots used to recite:
Ash before oak, the lady wears a cloak.
Oak before ash, the lady wears a sash.
In Surrey they appear to have believed the opposite, predicting drought when the ash came into leaf before the oak.
If the oak comes out before the ash,
‘Twill be a year of mix and splash.
If the ash comes out before the oak,
‘Twill be a year of fire and smoke.
There seem, in practice, a number of other regional variations (most commonly neither of the above but rather: Ash before Oak - we're in for a soak, Oak before Ash - we're in for a splash) largely it seems based on what rhymes or scans best than any scientific factor as observations suggest the relatively leafing of ash and oak has little predictive power for the weather for the rest of the year. However, what it does indicate quite clearly is the weather at that time, and hence a marker for climate change (https://www.field-studies-council.org... and https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/natureuk/...).
The identification and naming of flora and fauna characterises much of the novel, and indeed becomes something of an obsession. Early on the narrator notes:
Reciting the names of birds and plants is such a British thing to do.
Irritated by my grip on convention.
Only just started this nature naming business, after thirty years in London, and already tempted to stop.
but he certainly doesn't stop and, as the quote that opens my review suggests, we gradually come to realise that this is largely displacement activity from the mental health issues that severely trouble him. Their precise trigger for these issues, and his move to the countryside, is never made completely clear, as he specifically avoids talking about them, although an early entry (17 June 2001) hints at deep-seated family issues just before the journal opens:
Five months ago, Mother refused to let me go to Father's funeral, for fear of what I might say about him to family friends.
He builds tentative relationships with others in the area, particularly those engaged in similar refurbishment and nature reclamation projects, but remains deliberately isolated. Even 2.5 years after the journal, and his very gradual rehabilitation, starts he comments:
I don’t want to cook and I don’t want to be cooked for, I don’t want to speak or be spoken to and I don’t want to be silent or be silenced, I don’t want to be seen by anybody and I don’t want to be left alone, I don’t want to live and I don’t want to die.
And very little of the outside world intrudes - he doesn't watch television and it is some considerable time before he begins to read periodicals - the TLS and New Statesman his journals of choice.
Indeed the first hint I spotted of what year this might be was a slightly forced entry on 1 December in the 2nd year, where the great W.G. Sebald is introduces as my current favourite amongst living writers and his latest published book Austerlitz quoted, a passage where Jacques, like our narrator, proceeds to obsessively name butterflies.
'Slightly forced' because of the 'current ... living' instantly dates the passage: Austerlitz was published in English in September 2001, and tragically Sebald, also my then 'favourite amongst living writers' was to die on the roads of Norfolk on 14th December, a fact his diary has the narrator learning on the 17th from a friend. He notes:
As for love, Sebald feels to me a greater personal loss than my father.
Because I never loved him. Whereas Sebald’s books I adore.
and that perhaps also speaks to one issue I had with the book - in a similar way the passages about Sebald moved me rather more than any of the nature descriptions, nicely written as they were, in the previous 100 pages (and the subsequent 400).
Knowing the year is 2001, the read is tempted to flick back to 11th September - could that really pass unmarked? Yes, is the answer, although there is a brief reference on the anniversary of the date in 2002, as the narrator starts to very gradually re-engage with the world.
But the narration is still dominated by the cataloging of trees, birds and butterflies, and his painstaking project to rewild his garden. As he comments, in a rather neat reference to the movie from which his publisher takes its name:
Herzog, the filmmaker, wrote in his Fitzcarraldo journal: “why do these animal dramas preoccupy me so? Because I do not want to look inside myself. Only this much: a sense of desolation was tearing me up inside, like termites in a fallen tree trunk.’
Imagination carried Herzog through.
I’m stuck with dull words and mind. No way out.
It's hard not to see analogies for his mental health in his rather obsessive quest to clear the area of invasive plants - the threatening growth of nettles and burdock and thistles and ground elder and bindweed and hundreds of sycamore saplings (the nativist approach to defining invasive plants I found rather troubling - although the journal treats is rather ironically when he later discovers that the 'Wilderness Seeds' he has been assiduously sowing to reclaim the area actually include some of the same species).
I said earlier that was is unsaid, or hinted at (he frequently mentions his severe anxiety but largely in passing comments at the start or end of an entry) is important, and so are the dates that are skipped. As he comments:
The days and weeks when I write nothing, this is when the hard stuff happens.
The most brutal example a long gap in June-July 2002 which we gradually learn was due to an unsuccessful suicide attempt, followed by treatment both for the self-inflicted injuries but also ECT therapy.
Towards the book's end - in date terms in early 2004 and the last 100 pages of the book - he travels to New Zealand to visit his sister and starts to re-engage with others personally and with the outside world, although as he re-engaged I must admit this reader rather dis-engaged as the personal specifics of family and friends seemed a little too personally specific.
Overall: an impressive novel in many respects and effectively done. Although from personal taste, the effect of the nature descriptions rather wore out with the repetition. 2 stars (2.5 rounded down) - but certainly worthwhile.
April 22, 2019
When I read in the blurb that Ash Before Oak is Ostensibly a nature diary, chronicling the narrator’s interest in the local flora and fauna and the passing of the seasons, Ash before Oak is also the story of a breakdown told slantwise, I was excited. When I am not reading, I am a nature photographer and my Facebook/Twitter feeds are filled with pictures that I take to chronicle the passing seasons and the beauty of the natural world. At weekends, I try to persuade people to buy these pictures from me. Watching nature and trying to encourage others to enjoy nature are, basically, my life (although I do read a lot!).
Add to that the idea of a slantwise look at a mental breakdown and recovery which I thought sounded interesting.
Add to that the fact that I have read 17 of Fitzcarraldo Editions’ fiction titles and enjoyed nearly all them.
I thought this was going to be exactly for me. My low rating includes an intense disappointment factor: the book is probably worth more, but I felt so let down compared with expectations that I had to reflect that.
The book is in the form of dated journal entries. It looks like a long book when you pick it up, but each journal entry starts on a new page and many are a single paragraph, some a single sentence and one or two a single word. It is probably only half the length you think it is going to be. Which turns out to be a relief.
We quickly realise that the narrator has suffered mental and emotional trauma (I’m perpetually confused these days, when for dozens of years, I used to be so self-assured.) and that there are relationship issues (Five month’s ago, Mother refused to let me go to Father’s funeral, for fear of what I might say about him to family friends.). We read of the breakdown of his marriage. We learn that he is looking to nature to help him recover. Early in the book:
It might be working: this attempt at nature-cure
For this reader, it was the writing about nature that put me off the book. Nature is a much needed source of distraction for the narrator and I did feel a level of sympathy for him in his struggles. But that is all that nature is and he could equally well have chosen makes and models of cars because all he does is list what he sees. If you do not share my passion for nature, I imagine these lists of things (often named wrongly and then corrected later) are actually rather boring to read. If you are a nature lover, they are frustrating because of the lack of engagement. Our narrator is listing and naming things to keep him from thinking about dangerous things, which is understandable and is sad, but it is not good reading. I was reminded that Richard Mabey also wrote a (non-fiction) book about a man (himself) recovering from a mental breakdown by engaging with nature. Mabey’s book, right near the start, includes this sentence: Near Royston, a flock of lapwings, migrating south, veer over the road, and I remember the last time I saw them at a moment of change, a brief glimpse then, as now, of transience. In the style of Ash Before Oak, I am fairly sure that sentence would become “A flock of lapwings flew over the road.”
My other main struggle with the book was the apparent errors. I am still not sure whether these are deliberate (ironic, even) or not. Perhaps the biggest example is when mice get into the house. At several points, these mice somehow evolve into dormice, then back to mice again, then back to dormice, etc.. Now, firstly, dormice are not mice at all, so the rodents in his house are either one or the other (and very unlikely to be dormice). And, secondly, dormice hibernate and would be asleep at the time they are running around the house in this book. I can only make sense of this by assuming it is a deliberate error on the part of the author to make a point about the narrator’s state of mind. Unfortunately, it also served to put me off the book.
My final issue is a purely personal one. I know that I am a bit of a pedant about grammar, but people writing sentences such as “the fence was restored by Beth and I” raises my hackles (Beth and me?) and sentences such as We start on Tuesday again our work together sound very unnatural to me (too much time spent with Yoda, maybe).
I was thinking I would give this book 2 stars until I got to the final 100 or so pages. I cannot work out what purpose these pages serve, at least not when there are so many of them. They were the final nail in the coffin for my experience of this book.
Add to that the idea of a slantwise look at a mental breakdown and recovery which I thought sounded interesting.
Add to that the fact that I have read 17 of Fitzcarraldo Editions’ fiction titles and enjoyed nearly all them.
I thought this was going to be exactly for me. My low rating includes an intense disappointment factor: the book is probably worth more, but I felt so let down compared with expectations that I had to reflect that.
The book is in the form of dated journal entries. It looks like a long book when you pick it up, but each journal entry starts on a new page and many are a single paragraph, some a single sentence and one or two a single word. It is probably only half the length you think it is going to be. Which turns out to be a relief.
We quickly realise that the narrator has suffered mental and emotional trauma (I’m perpetually confused these days, when for dozens of years, I used to be so self-assured.) and that there are relationship issues (Five month’s ago, Mother refused to let me go to Father’s funeral, for fear of what I might say about him to family friends.). We read of the breakdown of his marriage. We learn that he is looking to nature to help him recover. Early in the book:
It might be working: this attempt at nature-cure
For this reader, it was the writing about nature that put me off the book. Nature is a much needed source of distraction for the narrator and I did feel a level of sympathy for him in his struggles. But that is all that nature is and he could equally well have chosen makes and models of cars because all he does is list what he sees. If you do not share my passion for nature, I imagine these lists of things (often named wrongly and then corrected later) are actually rather boring to read. If you are a nature lover, they are frustrating because of the lack of engagement. Our narrator is listing and naming things to keep him from thinking about dangerous things, which is understandable and is sad, but it is not good reading. I was reminded that Richard Mabey also wrote a (non-fiction) book about a man (himself) recovering from a mental breakdown by engaging with nature. Mabey’s book, right near the start, includes this sentence: Near Royston, a flock of lapwings, migrating south, veer over the road, and I remember the last time I saw them at a moment of change, a brief glimpse then, as now, of transience. In the style of Ash Before Oak, I am fairly sure that sentence would become “A flock of lapwings flew over the road.”
My other main struggle with the book was the apparent errors. I am still not sure whether these are deliberate (ironic, even) or not. Perhaps the biggest example is when mice get into the house. At several points, these mice somehow evolve into dormice, then back to mice again, then back to dormice, etc.. Now, firstly, dormice are not mice at all, so the rodents in his house are either one or the other (and very unlikely to be dormice). And, secondly, dormice hibernate and would be asleep at the time they are running around the house in this book. I can only make sense of this by assuming it is a deliberate error on the part of the author to make a point about the narrator’s state of mind. Unfortunately, it also served to put me off the book.
My final issue is a purely personal one. I know that I am a bit of a pedant about grammar, but people writing sentences such as “the fence was restored by Beth and I” raises my hackles (Beth and me?) and sentences such as We start on Tuesday again our work together sound very unnatural to me (too much time spent with Yoda, maybe).
I was thinking I would give this book 2 stars until I got to the final 100 or so pages. I cannot work out what purpose these pages serve, at least not when there are so many of them. They were the final nail in the coffin for my experience of this book.
January 28, 2021
Ash Before Oak, some Antique Roadshow, country-living bloke
Oak Before Ash, won the Fitzcarraldo Novel Prize Cash
Paul has written a detailed review of this book here (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) with some alternative versions of the country-rhyme, and he an excellent job of picking out many of the strong features of this book.
I will just add a few, unfortunately more negative, comments of my own:
- It is becoming something of a cliché to include a few black and white photos in a certain type of book, in the hope that lazy reviewers will pick up on them and label the book - Sebaldesque. However this author goes further - as well as a photo to open every year of this multi-year diary, he also decides to read Sebald (and completely coincidentally calls him his favourite living writer) only days before that author's death, he also throws in a few more references to Sebald's writing.
- I don't think you have to be entirely woke to hope that a small press Novel prize might give an opportunity to a new writer, and perhaps one from a disadvantaged or under-represented background. Harrow educated, ex Antique Roadshow presenter, with strong connections to the London art scene and already with a number of published books was not quite what I had envisaged.
- Or in fact to hope it might pick up on an innovative form of literature - I was struggling not to think that say "H is for Hawk" had not done this concept much earlier and more successfully
- I spent much of the first 100 pages or so trying to work out who the book was for - I felt that the descriptions lacked interest for someone who does not like nature writing and the classification/spotting of flora and fauna; whereas someone who did love them, would consider them slightly amateurish
- I spent the last 50-100 pages or so trying to work out why the New Zealand section was of any interest to any reader
Overall, unfortunately not a book for me.
Oak Before Ash, won the Fitzcarraldo Novel Prize Cash
Paul has written a detailed review of this book here (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) with some alternative versions of the country-rhyme, and he an excellent job of picking out many of the strong features of this book.
I will just add a few, unfortunately more negative, comments of my own:
- It is becoming something of a cliché to include a few black and white photos in a certain type of book, in the hope that lazy reviewers will pick up on them and label the book - Sebaldesque. However this author goes further - as well as a photo to open every year of this multi-year diary, he also decides to read Sebald (and completely coincidentally calls him his favourite living writer) only days before that author's death, he also throws in a few more references to Sebald's writing.
- I don't think you have to be entirely woke to hope that a small press Novel prize might give an opportunity to a new writer, and perhaps one from a disadvantaged or under-represented background. Harrow educated, ex Antique Roadshow presenter, with strong connections to the London art scene and already with a number of published books was not quite what I had envisaged.
- Or in fact to hope it might pick up on an innovative form of literature - I was struggling not to think that say "H is for Hawk" had not done this concept much earlier and more successfully
- I spent much of the first 100 pages or so trying to work out who the book was for - I felt that the descriptions lacked interest for someone who does not like nature writing and the classification/spotting of flora and fauna; whereas someone who did love them, would consider them slightly amateurish
- I spent the last 50-100 pages or so trying to work out why the New Zealand section was of any interest to any reader
Overall, unfortunately not a book for me.
May 30, 2019
Jeremy Cooper’s Ash before Oak consists of hundreds of short diary entries, in which the narrator recounts what he sees around him in nature while living secluded in Somerset countryside in the early 2000s. Writing is mainly a therapeutic tool for him, an attempt to cope with his increasingly and alarmingly serious depression. He is, in fact, very aware of what he’s writing and is often self-degrading whenever he catches himself trying to write poetically and not truthfully about his surroundings:
This honesty and the unpolished prose (with several “errors” in grammar and whatnot) brings about a rather touching and striking narrative, a distinctive style that is effective because it’s so realistic.
Another aspect I really liked here was tracking down the passing of time. The narrator writes on an almost daily basis, but occasionally there are long gaps in the entries, which fed my imagination just the right way as I started to speculate what was going on in the silence of these unwritten periods. Some of these silences are very effective plot-wise, when we hear only later what drastic events have occurred meanwhile.
It is a long, repetitive novel, mostly in good, but somewhere around the 400-page mark I did experience some fatigue. I think it is essentially a novel to be read in small chunks; otherwise the short entries won’t make an impact. It is, after all, an almost day-to-day journal, and flipping through somebody else’s life too fast makes no sense really. I would also like to stress, like I almost always do with Fitzcarraldo novels, that don’t be daunted by the number of pages: there is a lot of white space in the book as new entries always start on a new page and most entries are just a few sentences long.
Somewhere in the 3.5 – 4 star territory for me. Certainly an interesting addition to Fitzcarraldo’s nature-themed spring catalogue together with Animalia by Jean-Baptiste del Amo (my favorite book of 2019 so far) and Surrender by Joanna Pocock (on my to-read list).
10 August
With neat observations I make myself seem rational and urbane.
Far from true.
I’m vulnerable, sinking several times each day into sharp anxiety. Threatened by the tiny everyday.
Can’t begin to write what it actually feels like – even writing that I can’t do so is soberly expressed, declining the desperation that washes through me.
This honesty and the unpolished prose (with several “errors” in grammar and whatnot) brings about a rather touching and striking narrative, a distinctive style that is effective because it’s so realistic.
Another aspect I really liked here was tracking down the passing of time. The narrator writes on an almost daily basis, but occasionally there are long gaps in the entries, which fed my imagination just the right way as I started to speculate what was going on in the silence of these unwritten periods. Some of these silences are very effective plot-wise, when we hear only later what drastic events have occurred meanwhile.
It is a long, repetitive novel, mostly in good, but somewhere around the 400-page mark I did experience some fatigue. I think it is essentially a novel to be read in small chunks; otherwise the short entries won’t make an impact. It is, after all, an almost day-to-day journal, and flipping through somebody else’s life too fast makes no sense really. I would also like to stress, like I almost always do with Fitzcarraldo novels, that don’t be daunted by the number of pages: there is a lot of white space in the book as new entries always start on a new page and most entries are just a few sentences long.
Somewhere in the 3.5 – 4 star territory for me. Certainly an interesting addition to Fitzcarraldo’s nature-themed spring catalogue together with Animalia by Jean-Baptiste del Amo (my favorite book of 2019 so far) and Surrender by Joanna Pocock (on my to-read list).
August 20, 2024
An older man keeps a journal as an important component in his effort to not commit suicide. He's had a long, rich, and mostly professionally successful life, but has struggled with intimacy. Scattered in his entries are allusions to parental neglect or outright abuse and unkindness, but no big reveal that explains his despair. Life is hard, and the book shows how much effort it can take some folks to keep on keeping on. Beautifully done though sometimes a bit much of nothing meaningful, somewhat of a theme for the empty days in the man's life.
3 1/2 stars.
3 1/2 stars.
June 8, 2019
Who is this man, this troubled man whose sombre diary entries we read with curious fascination? We never learn his name because there is no direct dialogue. Names, anyhow, bother him. In an October entry, he writes: “Compulsive, this need to name things, so to give them meaning. I name birds and tools and things, while unable to nail a helpful thought about the personal feelings which most matter to me.”
Full review here: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
Full review here: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo...
April 10, 2019
Ash Before Oak is a pastoral diary - the writer coping with mental health problems which insinuate themselves into the narrative and sit starkly against his nature observations. The reader learns of his interests, his friends, his declining health and subsequent return from darker places than his garden and country life. It is strangely intriguing and his journey both physically and mentally are suggestive of both the poetry and life of John Clare and Richard Mabey’s biographical telling of his own recovery from depression in ‘Nature Cure’. Another wonderful novel from Fitzcarraldo Editions.
April 18, 2019
Although Thoreau is never quoted in Cooper's novel about recovering (if that's the word) from suicidal depression, one line from "Walden" summarizes much of the emotional and intellectual territory covered in "Ash before Oak": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Our narrator chooses life over death, but not before a profound internal struggle with himself and his relationship to friends, family, and lovers.
September 16, 2020
this book is an intensely disappointing read, the only slight relief being that the diary format makes each page far easier to flip past, as most barely contain a paragraph. I gained absolutely nothing from this, and any momentum this 500 page tome gains is immediately thrown out by the epithet of “feeling sad? just travel the world for a couple of months,” in which we lose all point of having him come to terms with the natural world, and abandon any plot threads involving his life or his past. we end where we start, with a dissatisfied middle class man sitting in a garden.
March 19, 2021
One man’s nervous breakdown skilfully intertwined with observations of nature and the countryside.
It took me a while to get into this book, written as diary entries, but once it had me, I was hooked.
There’s a real theme here of the diary writer hiding things about himself and only saying what he wants to share. As a result that leaves you guessing about a quite a number of things, including some of the main story points. I guess many won’t like the lack of clear conclusion.
I think that’s the point though.
It took me a while to get into this book, written as diary entries, but once it had me, I was hooked.
There’s a real theme here of the diary writer hiding things about himself and only saying what he wants to share. As a result that leaves you guessing about a quite a number of things, including some of the main story points. I guess many won’t like the lack of clear conclusion.
I think that’s the point though.
September 27, 2025
Jeremy Cooper's intriguing specialty as a novelist is to explore the minds of the seemingly more "boring" types in life. His best novel, BRIAN, did so with a guy who liked to see a lot of movies and became a strangely moving masterpiece, arguing for a kind of empowerment within the quiet obsessions we pursue that nobody else pursued. ASH BEFORE OAK, told in the form of a diary, has many similar moments to BRIAN, swapping out nature for movies. But it's a much sadder book, particularly as we start to read between the lines. Not just in terms of the time period (early 2000s, based on references to Janet Frame, Sebald, and 9/11), but in the people who surround this man. We think at first that Beth may be his wife. But maybe Beth is his next door neighbor and this man is lying through his loneliness. At one point, he sustains an injury to his hand and seems to be without a lot of people to take care of him. Does he then IMAGINE a group of people to do so? We learn later that he is estranged from his family and presumably this is why he is set up in a rural location dwelling on nature, gardens, and birds. Cooper is far better with this book than his disappointing volume BOLT FROM THE BLUE at divulging details beneath the scenes. But I don't think he has as emotionally compelling an argument for life here as he does in BRIAN. Granted, this is a completely different book. But it is, at times, a gentle and honest one.
August 21, 2023
Written as a diary over multiple years, the author details the surrounding nature and minutiae of their life after moving to Somerset. Little of plot occurs in this book - just the author's pottering thoughts and feelings as the diary entries detail a downward spiral and subsequent journey of recovery. Often the lack of entries over a timespan, or the author's omission of details and sparing using of words say so much more. Altogether, this creates a beautiful account of nothing much at all, just a life lived, capturing small moments and struggles along the way.
Certainly not for everyone, and rating objectively this is a 4, but this is something I've been on a journey with and that will stick with me. 4.5/5
Certainly not for everyone, and rating objectively this is a 4, but this is something I've been on a journey with and that will stick with me. 4.5/5
January 7, 2022
[Review 2 of 2022]
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the second book I’ve read this year and another great read. This books is about a mans life in Somerset leading up to his breakdown and subsequently following his recovery, his journey to learning to like living again
This book was really really good, I really loved the journal entries which I was surprised at because this is a style of book I normally don’t read but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There was some distressing descriptions that should probably be considered before reading this book as some of the triggers are mentions of self harm, suicide, suicide attempts with some vivid descriptions of these attempts.
However I do feel they added to the book not took away from it in any way, for me personally.
Have this a four star because one thing about the edition I had is the paper wastage, I understand why it was done the way it was but some pages had the date at the top then two words which really bugged me. If it wasn’t for this it would have definitely been a five star
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the second book I’ve read this year and another great read. This books is about a mans life in Somerset leading up to his breakdown and subsequently following his recovery, his journey to learning to like living again
This book was really really good, I really loved the journal entries which I was surprised at because this is a style of book I normally don’t read but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There was some distressing descriptions that should probably be considered before reading this book as some of the triggers are mentions of self harm, suicide, suicide attempts with some vivid descriptions of these attempts.
However I do feel they added to the book not took away from it in any way, for me personally.
Have this a four star because one thing about the edition I had is the paper wastage, I understand why it was done the way it was but some pages had the date at the top then two words which really bugged me. If it wasn’t for this it would have definitely been a five star
July 31, 2020
Both devastating and understated, a story of a posh man feeling sad and then feeling nothing. Featuring lots of mis-identified wildlife (a hit) and a hit-parade of artists' postcards (a miss-hit). Excels in its style.
October 25, 2025
he’s done it again
May 25, 2021
trudna książka; trochę o niczym, trochę o depresji, trochę o ptakach. zmusza do refleksji, więc muszę jeszcze pomyśleć
April 9, 2025
This was charming but inevitably had a Starbucks chocolate croissanty undertone to it
December 27, 2019
"29 October
Used to say that, on principle, I do not miss: people, places, work. A delusion. A deceit, maybe. A defence, certainly.
Having never been able to grieve, I am full fit to burst of sorrow."
Used to say that, on principle, I do not miss: people, places, work. A delusion. A deceit, maybe. A defence, certainly.
Having never been able to grieve, I am full fit to burst of sorrow."
July 22, 2019
A daily diary is a risky format for a novelist to chose. Unless the novelist is willing to defy the "rules" of a diary and reflect deeply on the past, the novelist is essentially ceding the ability to synthesize in order to capture a more powerful sense of immediacy. Immediacy is both the strength and the weakness of Jeremy Cooper's novel Ash Before Oak, a somewhat lengthy book detailing the daily struggles of a man in his mid-fifties who moves from London to the countryside in order to cope with the debilitating waves of depression that are ruining his life. His hope is that life amidst nature and a daily routine of physical tasks necessary for restoring and maintaining a rural home might keep his depression at bay. Cooper's narrator is an acute observer of nature, animals, and the seasons. He's also intensely curious, both about nature and himself. None of which helps save him from depression.
Cooper writes in a way that compels the reader forward. Each day's entry - whether a sentence or a paragraph - consumes a full page, and so the pages and the days fly by (the diary covers about 3 1/3 years). People appear in the diary and then are never mentioned again. Bouts of depression descend on the narrator ("I'm in trouble," he writes), then one day the troubles are gone and he's back at his farm tasks again. Many of the diary entries describes rather mundane household or farm chores or observations made looking out the window or made during a walk. In other words, Cooper's narrator is doing and seeing things that pretty much any one of us could do or see. And yet by observing and writing in the manner that he does, Cooper elevates the mundane to a level that leaves us no choice but to (momentarily, at least) look at our own mundane lives differently.
We learn a few scattered facts about the narrator. He was married once, but left the marriage more than twenty years earlier, afraid of intimacy. He used to work at Sotheby's and his specialty was nineteenth century bronze sculpture. At the same time, he's friends with Gavin Turk, one of the rebellious Young British Artists, and he seems to follow the contemporary London art scene. How these and a handful of other random biographical tidbits are supposed to add up is never hinted at.
The book covers a suicide attempt, followed by a hospitalization and a long recovery. At time there are weeks and sometimes months on end for which there are no entries. Late in the book he travels to New Zealand to visit his sister for three months. Like life, there was little rhyme or reason for any of this. The diary format forced me into a strange intimacy with someone about whom, after nearly 500 pages, I felt like I knew less and less with every passing page.
The title, Ash Before Oak refers to folklore regarding which of the two trees will produce its leaves first. If it is oak, then the summer is predicted to be dry, but if it is ash, then the summer will be wet. That Cooper titled his book after folklore related to an unpredictable natural omen, signaled to me that we should not try to predict if his narrator will ever get over his depression.
Cooper writes in a way that compels the reader forward. Each day's entry - whether a sentence or a paragraph - consumes a full page, and so the pages and the days fly by (the diary covers about 3 1/3 years). People appear in the diary and then are never mentioned again. Bouts of depression descend on the narrator ("I'm in trouble," he writes), then one day the troubles are gone and he's back at his farm tasks again. Many of the diary entries describes rather mundane household or farm chores or observations made looking out the window or made during a walk. In other words, Cooper's narrator is doing and seeing things that pretty much any one of us could do or see. And yet by observing and writing in the manner that he does, Cooper elevates the mundane to a level that leaves us no choice but to (momentarily, at least) look at our own mundane lives differently.
We learn a few scattered facts about the narrator. He was married once, but left the marriage more than twenty years earlier, afraid of intimacy. He used to work at Sotheby's and his specialty was nineteenth century bronze sculpture. At the same time, he's friends with Gavin Turk, one of the rebellious Young British Artists, and he seems to follow the contemporary London art scene. How these and a handful of other random biographical tidbits are supposed to add up is never hinted at.
The book covers a suicide attempt, followed by a hospitalization and a long recovery. At time there are weeks and sometimes months on end for which there are no entries. Late in the book he travels to New Zealand to visit his sister for three months. Like life, there was little rhyme or reason for any of this. The diary format forced me into a strange intimacy with someone about whom, after nearly 500 pages, I felt like I knew less and less with every passing page.
The title, Ash Before Oak refers to folklore regarding which of the two trees will produce its leaves first. If it is oak, then the summer is predicted to be dry, but if it is ash, then the summer will be wet. That Cooper titled his book after folklore related to an unpredictable natural omen, signaled to me that we should not try to predict if his narrator will ever get over his depression.
October 29, 2024
A novel, Careful and very fine writing in the form of a fictional journal by an author at first ensconced in rural England highly observant and living among all the living matter, plants, trees and animals and communal neighbors of his retreat. But gradually his difficult mental struggles emerge or insinuate. Some of the entries real like prose poems, others briefly remark the ruminations of his troubled mind and near suicidal plans. He's very empathetic with all creatures and plants which are exactly known.The mental struggle is serious but finally - I dont know if you'd call it - "won" but he's still there among the others and the journal writing had something to do with maintenance. A late story trip recounted to New Zealand may not have been equal to the other journal records but the novel as a whole is unique.
July 17, 2020
Precisely what I needed, when I needed it: soothing descriptions of non-threatening nature, with just enough 'but really, it's about depression!' to keep me from feeling like I was eating endless junk food. Now, that will not appeal to all that many people, I would have though. But Fitzcarraldo published it, so there must be a few people out there, like me, who would really like it if people just started publishing long novels in the form of journals, filled with lists of tree species and how to care for them appropriately. Also really inspired by Anglophilia. I can't wait until I (am rich enough to) move to the English countryside and spend my days pottering in the garden, only maybe without the depression.
September 11, 2020
[rating = D]
I really tried to finish this; technically I reached page 123, and then I started to jump, skip, and hop onward. The style (which I found exhilarating and unique) is like a diary or a journal and told by a man moving to a more rural setting, a cabin in England. There was some interesting facts about trees and plants and animals and a pseudo-poetry to the writing that I liked. However, the story took forever to get anywhere, to get goin even. There was a hint of "mystery" or "hidden guilt" that kept me going for a while, but that shadow ebbed away and I just didn't have the patience to read about a man in his cottage, an English Thoreau or some such. If only it had been more concentrated and followed a cleaner, clearer storyline that held some actual interest to it.
I really tried to finish this; technically I reached page 123, and then I started to jump, skip, and hop onward. The style (which I found exhilarating and unique) is like a diary or a journal and told by a man moving to a more rural setting, a cabin in England. There was some interesting facts about trees and plants and animals and a pseudo-poetry to the writing that I liked. However, the story took forever to get anywhere, to get goin even. There was a hint of "mystery" or "hidden guilt" that kept me going for a while, but that shadow ebbed away and I just didn't have the patience to read about a man in his cottage, an English Thoreau or some such. If only it had been more concentrated and followed a cleaner, clearer storyline that held some actual interest to it.
May 24, 2019
I admire the Fitzcarraldo books immensely from an aesthetic point of view: those wonderfully typeset pages, the austere covers. I always pick them up when I come across them in bookshops, letting my fingers run along the spines. Ash Before Oak piqued my interest for a few reasons: I have recently started keeping a journal regularly and I'm fascinated by the journals of others, finding it impossible not to compare them to my own; I briefly visited Somerset just over eight years ago and remember it being particularly striking, even as a blur out of a coach window; I've found myself more struck by nature, more interested in the cultivation and appreciation of the land than I ever have been and the discussion of the flora and fauna intrigued me; and, finally, the book's blurb described the narrator's 'breakdown told slantwise', which I wanted to read about for myself.
It's a very handsome book, both in its presentation and the way it's written: Cooper has a wonderful talent for distilling very evocative and even moving descriptions of nature down into short, even terse sentences. Some entries are a few words, some go on for pages, often reflecting the mental state of the diarist. He's a cypher for Cooper himself, sharing many of the same features of his life and, presumably, many of the same interests and preoccupations. We move through the years at a glacial pace, taking in the slowly changing seasons as the diarist gradually transforms the house and wider grounds he lives on. He becomes romantically involved, has various tribulations relating to his mental health, struggles with his relationships with his family members, visits the restaurant he part owns and above all, observes what is around him, sometimes accurately, sometimes not. There's a distance throughout, something that the diarist remarks on often: an attempt to self-soothe or get away from his own life by hiding in the impersonal, the world around him. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.
Gradually, the diarist's personality is revealed and as the book went on I found myself disliking him despite myself. He's conservative and comes from great privilege, only occasionally showing flickers of awareness of this. He has respect for the land around him and the life that inhabits it, but cannot seem to relate to other people. This is interesting at first but begins to grate after a while—he grows, I think, in some ways, but never in a way that feels narratively satisfying. Perhaps this is more realistic; after all, how often do people change in reality like they do in literature? Nevertheless, towards the end of the book I was tired of the diarist's refusal or inability to change, found his meanderings less and less compelling, culminating in his lengthy trip to New Zealand during the last hundred or so pages of the novel. At this point it descends, curiously, into entry after entry of name-dropping, seemingly to emphasise the breadth of the author's connections in the world of art and music. It might have a literary effect that went over my head—is the diarist seeking solace in the artifice of his past life in London?—but it becomes repetitive and, ultimately, irritating.
I loved the first half of this book. I enjoyed dipping into it, immersing myself in the Somerset countryside, reading slowly the descriptions of snow and animals and trees. As the book becomes more preoccupied with the diarist's relationship and then his journeys abroad it loses something. I'm glad I read it, and it has made an impression on me (not least in my own journal) but I wish it hadn't quite so much of a dip in the latter half.
It's a very handsome book, both in its presentation and the way it's written: Cooper has a wonderful talent for distilling very evocative and even moving descriptions of nature down into short, even terse sentences. Some entries are a few words, some go on for pages, often reflecting the mental state of the diarist. He's a cypher for Cooper himself, sharing many of the same features of his life and, presumably, many of the same interests and preoccupations. We move through the years at a glacial pace, taking in the slowly changing seasons as the diarist gradually transforms the house and wider grounds he lives on. He becomes romantically involved, has various tribulations relating to his mental health, struggles with his relationships with his family members, visits the restaurant he part owns and above all, observes what is around him, sometimes accurately, sometimes not. There's a distance throughout, something that the diarist remarks on often: an attempt to self-soothe or get away from his own life by hiding in the impersonal, the world around him. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.
Gradually, the diarist's personality is revealed and as the book went on I found myself disliking him despite myself. He's conservative and comes from great privilege, only occasionally showing flickers of awareness of this. He has respect for the land around him and the life that inhabits it, but cannot seem to relate to other people. This is interesting at first but begins to grate after a while—he grows, I think, in some ways, but never in a way that feels narratively satisfying. Perhaps this is more realistic; after all, how often do people change in reality like they do in literature? Nevertheless, towards the end of the book I was tired of the diarist's refusal or inability to change, found his meanderings less and less compelling, culminating in his lengthy trip to New Zealand during the last hundred or so pages of the novel. At this point it descends, curiously, into entry after entry of name-dropping, seemingly to emphasise the breadth of the author's connections in the world of art and music. It might have a literary effect that went over my head—is the diarist seeking solace in the artifice of his past life in London?—but it becomes repetitive and, ultimately, irritating.
I loved the first half of this book. I enjoyed dipping into it, immersing myself in the Somerset countryside, reading slowly the descriptions of snow and animals and trees. As the book becomes more preoccupied with the diarist's relationship and then his journeys abroad it loses something. I'm glad I read it, and it has made an impression on me (not least in my own journal) but I wish it hadn't quite so much of a dip in the latter half.
December 19, 2024
I decided to read *Ash before Oak* because GoodReader Robert liked it, and I'm so grateful that he explains why he likes something.
The book's supposed to be fiction, but I have trouble believing that it isn't an actual memoir by Jeremy Cooper because the kinds of details of the natural world he provides -- and especially the details of the protagonist's struggles with mental illness -- don't sound to me like fiction.
The phrase "ash before oak," like the phrase "oak before ash," is something English people are said to understand. It is folk wisdom predicting how much rain the summer will have depending on which kind of tree blooms first.
I stuck with this book because the descriptions of landscaping and decorating a old/new country home that the fastidious main character, a writer and collector, creates were lovely. And I put up with all the agonizing and suicidal depression because he was always trying to get better. Depression is no joke. But near the end, after our hero has been soaking up the contrasting cheerful and disorganized life of a sister who lives in New Zealand, my empathy suddenly snapped. "Enough with the navel gazing!"
Then other small critiques began to gain prominence in my mind, like copyediting errors that an Amazon reviewer also complained about though most people wouldn't.
I did find intriguing a sentence-construction quirk of the author's.
Talking about chicken, for example: "the only meat these days she eats." Talking about converted stables: "on the main floor of which John and Chiarella Winter made for a decade their home."
Is there a way to describe that? Cooper repeatedly puts the words of a sentence out of the more typical order.
Cooper, like his character, is a well-known expert on postcards and antiques. Can anybody tell me if the novel is really about him?
The book's supposed to be fiction, but I have trouble believing that it isn't an actual memoir by Jeremy Cooper because the kinds of details of the natural world he provides -- and especially the details of the protagonist's struggles with mental illness -- don't sound to me like fiction.
The phrase "ash before oak," like the phrase "oak before ash," is something English people are said to understand. It is folk wisdom predicting how much rain the summer will have depending on which kind of tree blooms first.
I stuck with this book because the descriptions of landscaping and decorating a old/new country home that the fastidious main character, a writer and collector, creates were lovely. And I put up with all the agonizing and suicidal depression because he was always trying to get better. Depression is no joke. But near the end, after our hero has been soaking up the contrasting cheerful and disorganized life of a sister who lives in New Zealand, my empathy suddenly snapped. "Enough with the navel gazing!"
Then other small critiques began to gain prominence in my mind, like copyediting errors that an Amazon reviewer also complained about though most people wouldn't.
I did find intriguing a sentence-construction quirk of the author's.
Talking about chicken, for example: "the only meat these days she eats." Talking about converted stables: "on the main floor of which John and Chiarella Winter made for a decade their home."
Is there a way to describe that? Cooper repeatedly puts the words of a sentence out of the more typical order.
Cooper, like his character, is a well-known expert on postcards and antiques. Can anybody tell me if the novel is really about him?
November 1, 2019
I'm gonna be honest, I'm totally sitting on the fence with this one. If I felt that this was purely a novel - ie. a work of fiction - then I would probably rate it higher. But, but... There is this palpable sense that our unnamed narrator, a 50-something man now living in Somerset, but who has lots of contacts in the art/antique world, is actually just a thinly-veiled portrait of the author himself. And as we read on, this lack of distinction started to irritate me. Either write and publish a journal that chronicles your life and struggles with mental health, or don't; but please don't pass it off as fiction, or auto-fiction, or whatever you want to call it.
The premise is intriguing, and the teasing out of facts through sideways allusions, or even omissions, did give the whole book a sense of fragility. The observations on nature were interesting, especially for a city-dweller like myself who, frankly, couldn't tell one variety of tree from another (I know, shame on me!). The very real sense that nature just gets on with it, takes everything in its stride - a ewe losing her lamb, or fallen trees after a storm - is in stark contrast to the suffering of our narrator, and of those he encounters. This paradox of the human condition is at the heart of the book, and the 'diary' entries were an attempt to be spontaneous - although they were sometimes a little too perfect, even the grammatical or factual errors seemed too deliberate at times.
So, overall I did get a lot out of the book, but I could not ever let go of the feeling that this is not a novel. What it is, however, is a worthy attempt to write about mental health issues, and that should be applauded.
The premise is intriguing, and the teasing out of facts through sideways allusions, or even omissions, did give the whole book a sense of fragility. The observations on nature were interesting, especially for a city-dweller like myself who, frankly, couldn't tell one variety of tree from another (I know, shame on me!). The very real sense that nature just gets on with it, takes everything in its stride - a ewe losing her lamb, or fallen trees after a storm - is in stark contrast to the suffering of our narrator, and of those he encounters. This paradox of the human condition is at the heart of the book, and the 'diary' entries were an attempt to be spontaneous - although they were sometimes a little too perfect, even the grammatical or factual errors seemed too deliberate at times.
So, overall I did get a lot out of the book, but I could not ever let go of the feeling that this is not a novel. What it is, however, is a worthy attempt to write about mental health issues, and that should be applauded.
February 22, 2021
At times I found this book enthralling, at other times I was just bored. It was another book I had to force myself to finish - because I did want to finish it, and find out how things panned out for the narrator, but I also found a lot of other things I would rather do instead.
This is told in a series of diary entries, a man moving to rural Somerset, after some kind of breakdown, later attempting suicide. The narrator is a published author with a large number of friends and acquaintances, many from his days dealing in art in London. He moves to a cottage that he rents and is slowly renovating with the help of Beth, his relationship with whom is never made entirely clear.
He is writing in the hopes of fending off depression and working out why he is where he is, and how to move forward. We see the change in the seasons, the change in his mood, and his interest in the natural world growing steadily.
As such, there is no conclusion to the book, we don't know whether the unnamed narrator stays where he is, manages to carry on with life or not. But it doesn't matter. Some of the descriptions of the natural world, his battle with the moles that are digging up his lawn, the attempt to create a butterfly meadow are lovely. Some of his references to the art world were completely lost on me, and the description of his trip to see family in New Zealand was just a bit too long.
I liked the idea of the book, and the execution was not bad, but somehow, and I am not sure how, I think it could have been improved.
This is told in a series of diary entries, a man moving to rural Somerset, after some kind of breakdown, later attempting suicide. The narrator is a published author with a large number of friends and acquaintances, many from his days dealing in art in London. He moves to a cottage that he rents and is slowly renovating with the help of Beth, his relationship with whom is never made entirely clear.
He is writing in the hopes of fending off depression and working out why he is where he is, and how to move forward. We see the change in the seasons, the change in his mood, and his interest in the natural world growing steadily.
As such, there is no conclusion to the book, we don't know whether the unnamed narrator stays where he is, manages to carry on with life or not. But it doesn't matter. Some of the descriptions of the natural world, his battle with the moles that are digging up his lawn, the attempt to create a butterfly meadow are lovely. Some of his references to the art world were completely lost on me, and the description of his trip to see family in New Zealand was just a bit too long.
I liked the idea of the book, and the execution was not bad, but somehow, and I am not sure how, I think it could have been improved.
November 9, 2019
“Reciting the names of birds and plants is such a British thing to do.”
I loved the lengthy nature descriptions in “Ash before Oak.” Much of the novel is set in a secluded part of Somerset's Quantock Hills. The unnamed author has withdrawn to live in a cottage to learn to cope with his mental health problems. He turns to nature to find the will to live. “Ash before Oak” is the journal he keeps, struggling to express himself. It contains beautiful observations, such as:
“These insect lives interweave, touching humans only when we slow and quieten to inactivity. To purposelessness.”
“To associate myself with the fate of life around me, something I’ve never before done in all my fifty-five years, feels like a risk. A necessary risk.”
“I’m glad to have been given another chance to live less rigidly alongside my animal neighbors.”
“Thousands of times though I may walk my paths, the variations are endless.”
Unfortunately, three-fourths through the novel, the author leaves his solitary cottage to travel abroad. This is where I lost interest, since I was so invested in the natural world around the cottage. I missed his rambling walks, attempts to grow a butterfly garden, and animals visitors (mice keep plundering his larder and moles tunneling under his brick paths).
“Ash before Oak” is a bit of a mixed bag, though I enjoyed parts of it immensely.
I loved the lengthy nature descriptions in “Ash before Oak.” Much of the novel is set in a secluded part of Somerset's Quantock Hills. The unnamed author has withdrawn to live in a cottage to learn to cope with his mental health problems. He turns to nature to find the will to live. “Ash before Oak” is the journal he keeps, struggling to express himself. It contains beautiful observations, such as:
“These insect lives interweave, touching humans only when we slow and quieten to inactivity. To purposelessness.”
“To associate myself with the fate of life around me, something I’ve never before done in all my fifty-five years, feels like a risk. A necessary risk.”
“I’m glad to have been given another chance to live less rigidly alongside my animal neighbors.”
“Thousands of times though I may walk my paths, the variations are endless.”
Unfortunately, three-fourths through the novel, the author leaves his solitary cottage to travel abroad. This is where I lost interest, since I was so invested in the natural world around the cottage. I missed his rambling walks, attempts to grow a butterfly garden, and animals visitors (mice keep plundering his larder and moles tunneling under his brick paths).
“Ash before Oak” is a bit of a mixed bag, though I enjoyed parts of it immensely.
September 25, 2024
i wanted to like this more than i did.
i found the first half very compelling and then the closer the book got to the end, the more irritating and boring it became. i hesitate to suggest this is the author's intent, especially considering the many parallels between him and his narrator, but the narrator becomes so increasingly unlikeable (obsessed with status and proving himself better than others, entirely incapable of feeling real connection to other people who put their lives on hold to help him, smug, etc etc) that you sort of start to wish he was cripplingly depressed again lol.
an interesting creative choice if the aim was to inspire empathy for a man you begin to realise as the book progresses is not a particularly good or pleasant person, and yet whose struggles in the first part of the novel are still compelling and devastating - but, as i suggest, i don't think that is the case. i also felt the book was much weaker when it was focusing on art rather than nature, as it did increasingly towards the end.
i ended the book wanting desperately to know more about beth, who devotes herself to helping the narrator and then gets treated very poorly as soon as she dares to have issues of her own that inconveniences the narrator's peace!!! free beth!
i found the first half very compelling and then the closer the book got to the end, the more irritating and boring it became. i hesitate to suggest this is the author's intent, especially considering the many parallels between him and his narrator, but the narrator becomes so increasingly unlikeable (obsessed with status and proving himself better than others, entirely incapable of feeling real connection to other people who put their lives on hold to help him, smug, etc etc) that you sort of start to wish he was cripplingly depressed again lol.
an interesting creative choice if the aim was to inspire empathy for a man you begin to realise as the book progresses is not a particularly good or pleasant person, and yet whose struggles in the first part of the novel are still compelling and devastating - but, as i suggest, i don't think that is the case. i also felt the book was much weaker when it was focusing on art rather than nature, as it did increasingly towards the end.
i ended the book wanting desperately to know more about beth, who devotes herself to helping the narrator and then gets treated very poorly as soon as she dares to have issues of her own that inconveniences the narrator's peace!!! free beth!
March 17, 2025
starts out as a book about the best kind of british guy (humble and solitary romantic fascinated by the natural world) and turns into a book about the worst kind of a british guy (overconfident art historian/columnist)
the first part focuses on the author's rural surroundings and his efforts to restore the land and property he's occupying, filled with amateur descriptions flowers and butterflies (often identified incorrectly)........... the narrative rarely gets too personal, other than some awkward interjections of angst and loneliness that cut in every now and then....... a few supporting characters are mentioned without much exposition, including a female partner living on the premises named beth
eventually the protagonist tries to kill himself kind of out of the blue, then the book becomes more introspective as it explores his recovery over a couple years...... we chart the narrator's improved mental health through the heightened self-awareness in his diary entries, like an english pastoral flowers for algernon, sort of, not really........ this culminates in him going to new zealand for a while and engaging in art criticism, talking about matthew barney
i like the book best before the narrator remembers that hes a writer and starts trying to sound like wg sebald (who is mentioned a bunch of times) but it's a fine read and not melodramatic, i love a country diary!
the first part focuses on the author's rural surroundings and his efforts to restore the land and property he's occupying, filled with amateur descriptions flowers and butterflies (often identified incorrectly)........... the narrative rarely gets too personal, other than some awkward interjections of angst and loneliness that cut in every now and then....... a few supporting characters are mentioned without much exposition, including a female partner living on the premises named beth
eventually the protagonist tries to kill himself kind of out of the blue, then the book becomes more introspective as it explores his recovery over a couple years...... we chart the narrator's improved mental health through the heightened self-awareness in his diary entries, like an english pastoral flowers for algernon, sort of, not really........ this culminates in him going to new zealand for a while and engaging in art criticism, talking about matthew barney
i like the book best before the narrator remembers that hes a writer and starts trying to sound like wg sebald (who is mentioned a bunch of times) but it's a fine read and not melodramatic, i love a country diary!
August 11, 2024
Strangely enough, although I like cities, I am attracted to nature writing. I have also enjoyed reading the Jeremy Cooper novels which succeeded Ash before Oak ; Bolt from the Blue and Brian , respectively, so in theory I would adore his debut for Fitzcarraldo.
Spoiler: I did.
Ash Before Oak takes the form of a diary. The narrator rents a house in Somerset and decides to renovate it. Along the way he observes nature, from butterflies, the varieties of plants and the animals he sees. There are also little side stories like one involving a mouse invasion of his house.
As the entries progress we get hints of a darker side of the narrator’s past until he goes through a process of self discovery.
I felt that the book was about the dangers of mental health and the redeeming qualities of nature. No matter what the situation is, if one gives into nature then it will possess one in it’s unique way. Not only do we see this with the mental health plotline of the story but also in how the narrator tries to stop the mice invading his home or moles from digging tunnels. Nature will win.
The descriptions of nature are beautiful verging on the poetic. Every detail is documented and although it might be tiresome for some, it brought out many positive feelings from me. Since I do live on an overbuilt island, where I hear drilling nearly every day, It’s good to read some passages about a love for nature as it gives hope of some sort.
Spoiler: I did.
Ash Before Oak takes the form of a diary. The narrator rents a house in Somerset and decides to renovate it. Along the way he observes nature, from butterflies, the varieties of plants and the animals he sees. There are also little side stories like one involving a mouse invasion of his house.
As the entries progress we get hints of a darker side of the narrator’s past until he goes through a process of self discovery.
I felt that the book was about the dangers of mental health and the redeeming qualities of nature. No matter what the situation is, if one gives into nature then it will possess one in it’s unique way. Not only do we see this with the mental health plotline of the story but also in how the narrator tries to stop the mice invading his home or moles from digging tunnels. Nature will win.
The descriptions of nature are beautiful verging on the poetic. Every detail is documented and although it might be tiresome for some, it brought out many positive feelings from me. Since I do live on an overbuilt island, where I hear drilling nearly every day, It’s good to read some passages about a love for nature as it gives hope of some sort.
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