Carr has written perhaps the perfect novel, for he has not wasted one word or thought, each has meaning and impact, and he has told us something important about life, about others. The book goes onto my keepers shelf at home and into my favorites folder here at GoodReads. He has no idea what is behind the whitewash, but it isn't long before he knows he is working on a masterpiece. "So, each day, I released a few more inches of a seething cascade of bones, joints and worm-riddled vitals frothing over the fiery weir. It was breathtaking. A tremendous waterfall of color, the blues of the apex falling, then seething into a turbulence of red; like all truly great works of art, hammering you with its whole before beguiling you with its parts."

Birkin tells his story as he recalls these memories sixty years later. That month in Oxgodby with its kind people, warm summer days and nights, new friendships, infatuation with the vicar's wife, and a yet unknown masterpiece he is restoring, all contribute to the healing of his psyche. Unlike the people being uncovered in the mural of the apocalypse, sinners falling into hell, Tom is distancing himself from the hell of war. And then, God help me, on my first morning, in the first few minutes of my first morning, I felt that this alien northern countryside was friendly, that I'd turned a corner and that this summer of 1920, which was to smoulder on until the first leaves fell, was to be a propitious season of living, a blessed time. Two demons with delicately furred legs clutched him, one snapping his right wrist whilst his mate split him with shears.”There is forbidden love of at least two kinds (“coddling it up in myself”), missed opportunities, and a casual revelation by a third party that forever affects a friendship. I’m not quite sure what message Carr intended with the last of those. Birkin learns that Moon was dishonourably discharged for homosexuality. He says he doesn’t mind, but “from that time on, things were never quite the same between us”. It is the balmy summer of 1920 when Tom Birkin arrives penniless at Oxgodby station with his nerves “shot to pieces.” He has been commissioned under a bequest to carry out restoration work on a Medieval mural in the local church and has an appointment to keep with the Reverend J.G. Keach – a man he describes as having a “cold, cooped-up look about him.”

He loves “letting the summer soak into me” by eating outside, and soon feels part of the landscape.J.L. Carr’s masterstroke is to tinge the mural of Thomas’ chronicle with a gossamer of vivid observations that sparkle the old flame of hope, which glows brighter than ever when Alice Keach, the Minister’s wife, pierces through Thomas’ numbness with her curious vitality. Birkin considers odd couples more than once, especially Keach and Alice, and how utterly different they are at home, compared with elsewhere. The rain had ceased and dew glittered on the graveyard grass, gossamer drifted down air-currents… And as it lightened, a vast and magnificent landscape unfolded.” The book was a treasure that was slowly uncovered; when it was fully exposed, I was astounded by the beauty of the work in its entirety and the image it left on my consciousness will remain with me for a long time to come.

I was drawn into the changing picture of Oxgodby itself. But, oddly, what happened outside was like a dream. It was inside the still church, before its reappearing picture, that was real. I drifted across the rest. As I have said – like a dream. For a time.” I intend to read some novels that are first World War based for this year’s anniversary and this one is the first. It is a novella by a rather eccentric teacher turned writer which absolutely captures a time and place. The plot is straightforward. Tom Birkin is a WW1 veteran who was injured at Passchendaele and is troubled by his memories and dreams and by a failed marriage. It is the summer of 1920 and Birkin has taken a job in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby. He is to uncover a medieval mural that has been painted over for many years. His living accommodation is the belfry of the Church. Nearby another war veteran, James Moon is digging for a lost grave which may hold some sort of secret because it was placed outside of the churchyard. He also has his scars from the war. Indeed, for all of his British stiff-upper-lip as the novel opens, Birkin arrives as a broken man. He’s looking for “a new start and, afterward, maybe I won’t be a casualty anymore.” What is the elixir for experiencing the atrocities of war? Happy days in Oxgodby can never be relived, As I say, Carr’s novel is Birkin’s story, but his finely detailed, finely felt treatment of the other characters as well is a measure of the book’s delicacy, humanity and subtlety. “A casualty anymore”An extraordinary, heart-rending novel, written as a sort of twilight benediction to a pastoral place and its people. Birkin, a Londoner, discovers a visceral empathy with and appreciation of nature and the countryside from his very first morning. The marvelous thing was coming into this haven of calm water and, for a season, not having to worry my head with anything but uncovering their wall-painting for them. And, afterwards, perhaps I could make a new start, forget what the War and the rows with Vinny had done to me and begin where I’d left off. This is what I need, I thought--a new start and, afterwards, maybe I won’t be a casualty anymore. Well, we live by hope. A single immense piece of furniture like an internal buttress. In any ordinary room it would have been grotesque but, here, it fell into perfect scale. I’ve no idea what it was. It could have been a Baroque altar-piece, an oriental throne, a gigantic examination exercise performed by a cabinet-maker’s apprentice.” That’s the phrase the war veteran thinks of when he arrives in the small, poor Yorkshire village that is “starveling country”!