NYRB Classics discussion

This topic is about
A Month in the Country
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Archive
>
August 2012: A Month in the Country
date
newest »



I'm getting close to starting it, though may be another week. Pretty excited though, it does look really good. We're working on having a e-book by the end of August, which may not really help up here, but the conversation can continue for those e-book only readers.
And of course, there was a film made of it starring Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, and the late Natasha Richardson. How could it be bad!
Nick
And of course, there was a film made of it starring Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh, and the late Natasha Richardson. How could it be bad!
Nick

MUST. WATCH. NOW."
haha! i wish we could tag friends like on FB. i'll have to otherwise direct a certain friend (who is a member of this group) to this discussion. lol.
I read this book a few years ago, and it is still one of my favorite books of all time. I have to read it again now.


Excellent. I'm going to get my hands on it ASAP. I started the book this morning and I am enjoying it immensely.


Okay, I've started, and I don't think it will take me very long to finish as it isn't very long. So far so good. It feels a bit Proustian with it's past setting but glimpses of a later, older narrator, like Birkin is remembering a period and place in his life that was incredibly important to him from a later time.
What do you think?
Nick
What do you think?
Nick

I had never heard of this author before so I am also wanting to find out more about him. Apologies, I didn't read the NYRB edition but I loved it so much I plan to order it. So if there is background info in it, that is why I don't know anything about the author yet.

I've had this group recommended to me, so I thought I'd join in. I finished A Month in the Country today, and particularly appreciated how Carr carried through the theme of uncovering the hidden. Some engaging characters, too.
David
Welcome David!
I finished the book over the weekend and really enjoyed it. For such a slim little book it had so much in it: history, national identity, love, sexuality, art, religion, betrayal, trauma, war, memory, etc.
Pretty incredible that Carr is able to fit all that in.
Any of those themes, or others, stand out as the best or most interesting? Any feel a bit flat? My one concern is that there is perhaps too much nostalgia.
Nick
I finished the book over the weekend and really enjoyed it. For such a slim little book it had so much in it: history, national identity, love, sexuality, art, religion, betrayal, trauma, war, memory, etc.
Pretty incredible that Carr is able to fit all that in.
Any of those themes, or others, stand out as the best or most interesting? Any feel a bit flat? My one concern is that there is perhaps too much nostalgia.
Nick

And I have some bad news to report. It doesn't seem that the movie is available on Netflix. This one and The Pumpkin Eater: I'm seriously losing faith in Netflix.
Nick
Nick


i don't seem to be able to search without signing in and i don't have an account right now.


The funny thing about reading this was that Carr at least originally intended it to be elegaic in tone, and it worked for me--I found myself thinking back nostalgically to the young Kenneth Branagh and the young Colin Firth. It's as if they became part of that magical summer moment too.

"Into my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again".

I am not pushing for you to see the movie, but I can't unsee it, so am glad they did do a good job with it.

That is beautiful, and perfect when contemplating A Month in the Country.
I am reading Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree, which Carr mentions in his introduction as the work he was trying to emulate. I found quite a bit Hardy-esque in the novel; not so much the hopelessness that Hardy evinces but the descriptions of pastoral life, the way that Carr has of evoking the coolness of a stone, the warmth of the sun when working in a field.
Listening to the Finzi music and reading the Housman (and not seeing the movie) reminds me of the mural in the church. There is, I think, both a sense that art is culture—meaning it is shared by those who live with it, see it, are moved by it, etc.—but also that it is an individuals creation who can change the cultural forms—like the mysterious painter does by inserting himself into the mural. Film adaptations of books could, perhaps, be said to do the same thing.
Did anyone else have an idea on why Carr wanted to make Birkin a restorer? And what the point of the mural was? I'm assuming that choice of apocalypse as subject was a metaphor for WWI. And the intro talks about how Carr himself spent a lot of time and effort saving old English churches and their religious artwork. But did anyone else have thoughts about it?
Nick
Did anyone else have an idea on why Carr wanted to make Birkin a restorer? And what the point of the mural was? I'm assuming that choice of apocalypse as subject was a metaphor for WWI. And the intro talks about how Carr himself spent a lot of time and effort saving old English churches and their religious artwork. But did anyone else have thoughts about it?
Nick

Michael Holryod says in the introduction that AMITC is a novel of resurrection. I would temper that and say that is is a novel of rehabilitation - or restoration to a previous state:
- Physical rehabilitation: Tom's twitch slowly fades as the novel progresses. Moon comments at the end of the novel that it is nearly gone
- Artisitic restoration or rehabilitation of the mural itself, which is covered in years of grime and paint
- 'Rehabilitation' in the religious sense: rehabilitation being the word for the posthumous restoration of an excommunicant (Moon's man in the field)
Really want to add more, but am at work and must get back to it . . .

The community aspect is one reason I think it was wise for Carr to leave Birkin's love for Alice unfulfilled. It would be hard not to read it as a betrayal of the welcome the community had given him. That said, I am not quite sure what we are supposed to make of the empty house. Have the Keachs fled permanently? Or are they just making themselves scarce till Birkin goes? Or is there any intent on their side at all?
And I agree with Don that there is a marvelous texture added by all the unfamiliar words.
Loving this discussion. I think the point coming across is something like this: there are many disappointments or loses or mistakes in life but they are part of the history that makes a person who s/he is. And it's impossible to value this as good/bad. Although it does seem that some moments are more powerful than others, and this summer in Birkin's life is very important to him, no matter what happened the rest of his life. This kind of reading reminds me of Proust, which has a lot of that in it. But I still worry that it might lead to a risk of accepting things one shouldn't, the old "difficulties make one stronger" and "bad things might happen but they help you in the end." Perhaps people should resist. I can't help but feel that Birkin should have taken Alice and said to hell with everything else. Though I guess his last visit to the empty house was the opportunity and he missed his chance in the church.
And on the art theme, did anyone see this article floating around about an amateur restorer who destroyed a Spanish church masterpiece? http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/23/...
Birkin would be furious. And I totally agree with Kate's restoration/rehabilitation reading. Perhaps not just for individuals—though nobody really sins too bad in this book—but also for a society coming out of an awful and destructive war.
Nick
And on the art theme, did anyone see this article floating around about an amateur restorer who destroyed a Spanish church masterpiece? http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/23/...
Birkin would be furious. And I totally agree with Kate's restoration/rehabilitation reading. Perhaps not just for individuals—though nobody really sins too bad in this book—but also for a society coming out of an awful and destructive war.
Nick

One thing I was thinking about recently was the strange way that memory and trauma work in this book. On one hand there is the very real trauma with physical symptoms caused by the war on Birkin. On the other is how the memory of this summer in Oxgodby changes the later Birkin. Very different memories, but both are meant to be powerful.
Thoughts?
Nick
Thoughts?
Nick



"A poignant tale of an elderly man’s return to his childhood home where his father had created unusual topiary figures many years before. Overgrowth and neglect threaten the once-thriving formal garden. As the man busies himself with the task of reinstating the grounds to their former beauty, he is transported back in time. Through happy memories of his father’s garden, he capably transforms the unkempt bushes into copies of the original statuaries and clears the fountains. Real critters roam freely across the estate; some make it their home. So like Birkin"
So, although her death is, as you say, given only a brief mention, her presence in the novel is important and her death echoes all the other deaths - most of them implied - that are central to the recent experiences of Birkin and Moon, and to their thinking as they reach back to the past through their work.


Hi, so sorry to be entering the discussion in the last hour. I had hoped to reread the book, but then never got the chance so I'll go by memory and bits of my review.
In regard to his time spent in the war, there is one point in the story where Birkin states that he wanted a new beginning, "...to forget what the war had done to me…and begin where I'd left off. " It was a time of shedding the past and moving forward and as Kate so wonderfully stated, it went back to the themes of restoration.
One thing that I continue to question are Alice's motives -- was she falling in love or was she simply trying to escape her current situation. I wondered if she was trying to provoke jealousy in her husband, hoping to be taken away which would explain their sudden exit.

Yes and with Birkin himself, who though not a religious man would probably feel guilty about taking away someone's wife, even if he found the husband very unpleasant and undeserving.
And a question: At one point the book suggests that church artist was probably disgraced and banished (evidence: not buried in the right spot). But then the ending has the discovery that he was a Muslim. I'm not sure if I really understand it.
Nick
And a question: At one point the book suggests that church artist was probably disgraced and banished (evidence: not buried in the right spot). But then the ending has the discovery that he was a Muslim. I'm not sure if I really understand it.
Nick

I agree -- it's all of those unanswered questions and 'what-ifs" that create a sense of lingering in the reader's mind, and perhaps Birkin's as well as he thinks back to the closing of the gate.
Like you, I was also greatly moved by the scene with Birkin and Alice in the loft. Such subtle language that evoked so much emotion.

Shall we then choose another book to read? If so, I'll start a discussion thread where we can name some books for a poll.
Nick
Nick

Nick"
Sounds good to me!
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Books mentioned in this topic
Under the Greenwood Tree (other topics)A Month in the Country (other topics)
Hope you all enjoy!
Nick