Tag Archives: modern classic

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

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A Month in the Country cover

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr was published in 1980 and was shortlisted for the Booker prize, and I can see why, it’s a good read with some really lovely writing. It’s also a very quick read, just a novella really.

It’s 1920, a searing hot summer and Tom Birkin has been given the job of removing centuries of layers of whitewash from a wall in a 12th century church in Oxgodby, a small village in Yorkshire. The whitewash is covering a medieval mural. It’s something he’s well qualified to do as he learned the technique when he was at art college.

He had a particularly rough time during World War 1 as a radio operator, stuck out in no-man’s land on his own, and he ended up with shell shock which is still hanging on in the shape of a facial tic. Will the village environment help his nerves heal?

While Tom is spending his time up scaffolding in the church there’s another wartime survivor called Moon camping in a field outside. He’s an archeologist and has been given the job of searching for the grave of an ancient knight. They recognise that they’ve shared many of the same experiences, they’re both badly damaged but the villagers are a friendly lot and Tom becomes an important part of the community albeit temporarily. It’s an experience that he’s looking back on fondly in his old age.

In 1987 this book was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh. Have any of you seen it?

J.L. Carr died in 1994 you can read his obituary here.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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The Bell Jar cover

I picked up The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath the last time I visited the library. I can hardly believe it has taken me this long to get around to reading it. I think it was the fact that Sylvia Plath committed suicide that put me off reading it, I find those circumstances just too sad. Anyway – read it I did – so here goes.

The Bell Jar was first published in 1963 and apparently didn’t make much of a splash in the book world back then, which seems hardly credible now as it’s a really good read, well written although Plath more or less wrote about her own experiences. There’s probably very little in it that she actually had to use her imagination for, it’s her life story with different names being given to the characters. I’m probably just about the last person in the bookish world to read this one so I’m not going into great detail over it.

Esther Greenwood is nineteen years old, she’s quiet and bookish and has won a scholarship to go to college to study literature. This is a huge thing for Esther as she had been brought up by a widowed mother and money was very tight. During the summer she works to save money for college, it’s a hot summer and the Rosenbergs are about to be executed by electrocution, that’s something that preys on Esther’s mind. It still preys on my mind given what happens to Esther later on in the book.

Another thing preying on my mind from the book – on page 65 of the Faber and Faber copy I read : But undressing in front of Buddy suddenly appealed to me about as much as having my Posture Picture taken at college, where you have to stand naked in front of a camera, knowing all the time that a picture of you stark naked both full view and side view, is going into the college gym files to be marked ABC or D depending on how straight you are.

I am truly hoping that somebody from the US can tell me that this is just a weirdness from Plath’s mind – and that no such abuse of students ever took place!

Over the years some of Plath’s more enthusiastic fans attacked Plath’s husband Ted Hughes for his treatment of her but in this book she actually answers his attackers as it’s stated that nobody is to blame for a character’s suicide, if anyone is to blame it’s the psychiatrist. Spookily Plath even seems to have foretold the future as far as Hughes’ life was concerned with another wife. Perhaps poets are drawn to depression and depressives. I can imagine that if this book had been better received when it was published then Plath might not have taken the path she did, she must have had a lot of hope stored up in its publication.

I think I’ll be giving this one four stars on Goodreads.

Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart

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Mary Stewart is another of those authors whom I’m trying to read my way through and ticking them off my list as I go. This book was first published in 1991 but my copy is a Hodder and Stoughton which was published this year.

Rose Fenemore is an English tutor at Cambridge but she’s also a secret but popular writer of science fiction. She’s got a bit of writer’s block so when she spots an advert in The Times- ‘Ivory tower for long or short let. Isolated cottage on small Hebridean island off the coast of Mull. Ideal for writer or artist in search of peace.’ – she decides to write off to the box number in the hope of renting it for a holiday. I know, I know – it’s very similar to Elizabeth von Arnim’s An Enchanted April but on the other hand it is something which lots of us do from time to time. Well we do anyway.

Rose’s brother decides to join her in the cottage as he’s a keen photographer and he wants to photograph the wildlife on the island, particularly the elusive stormy petrel, a small sea-bird. Things don’t go exactly to plan and Rose realises that she can’t find peace to write even on the tiny island of Moila, off the Isle of Mull.

This was a quick read and it’s perfect if you’re looking for some light holiday reading and you particularly enjoy books with a Scottish setting. Or even if you just want something to take you away from all the horrible news which we’re getting on a daily basis, from all corners of the world.

I always look to see who a book has been dedicated to because it can be really interestng. Mary Stewart dedicated this one to Culcicoides Pulicaris Argyllensis with respect.

She obviously has a sense of humour as that is the Latin name for the teeny wee midge which plagues the west coast of Scotland and eats people alive! Luckily they very rarely bother me!