Abstract
The present article analyses J. L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country (1980) in the light of an approach to traumatic experience as paradoxically relating destructiveness and survival. This view of trauma – already present in Freud and further elaborated in more recent theories like Cathy Caruth’s – accentuates the possibility of constructing a new story that bears witness not only to the shattering effects of trauma but also to a departure from it. From this perspective, the author deals first with the role of art as a survival aid to the novel’s traumatised protagonist, explaining how his restoration of a medieval mural helps him work through his troubled memories of the Great War. Repetitions and doublings link the two central characters, their discoveries and their recovery, creating layers of meaning that, it is argued, call for a ‘palimpsestuous’ reading, in Sarah Dillon’s sense of the term. The author then focuses on the regenerative power of nature in the novel, relating its use of the pastoral to the frequent recourse to it in Great War literature, and interpreting Carr’s text in line with critical approaches that reject escapism as the main trait of the pastoral mode. Finally, the protagonist’s retrospective narration is discussed as a creative act that is also an aid to the survival of the self.1
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Trans*textuality in William Shakespeare’s Othello: Italian, West African, and English Encounters
- Ways of Witnessing: Journalism vs. Fiction in The Quiet American and El pintor de batallas
- Art, Nature and the Negotiation of Memory in J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country
- Sonic Borderscapes: Popular Music, Pirate Radio, and Belonging in Black British Writing in the 1990s
- The Rise of the Fragmentary Essay-Novel: Towards a Poetics and Contextualization of an Emerging Hybrid Genre in the Digital Age
- Transmodern Motion or the Rhizomatic Updated in In a Strange Room, “Take me to Church” and Babel
- Reviews
- Monika Wegmann. Language in Space: The Cartographic Representation of Dialects. Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie. Strasbourg: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2017, xvi + 318 pp., 1 table, 3 figures, 50 maps, € 45.00.
- Tom Birkett and Kirsty March-Lyons (eds.). Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation. Medievalism 11. Cambridge: Brewer, 2017, ix + 240 pp., £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
- Richard Sowerby. Angels in Early Medieval England. Oxford Theology & Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xv + 261 pp., 12 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Juanita Feros Ruys. Demons in the Middle Ages. Past Imperfect. Kalamazoo, MI/Bradford: ARC Humanities Press, 2017, ix + 121 p., 5 figures, $ 14.95.
- Hans Ulrich Seeber. Globalisierung, Utopie und Literatur: Von Thomas Morus (1516) bis Darcy Ribeiro (1982). Politica et Ars: Interdisziplinäre Studien zur politischen Ideen- und Kulturgeschichte 27. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2017, 266 pp., € 34.90.
- Martin Middeke and Christoph Reinfandt (eds.).Theory Matters: The Place of Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies Today. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, xii + 374 pp., £ 89.99.
- Philipp Löffler (ed.). Reading the Canon: Literary History in the 21stCentury. American Studies – A Monograph Series 281. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017, 458 pp., € 58.00.
- Julia Straub (ed.). Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Handbooks of English and American Studies 3. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, x + 622 pp., 25 illustr., € 199.95/£ 182.00/$ 280.00.
- Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (eds.). The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Routledge Literature Companions. London/New York: Routledge, 2017, xvi + 489 pp., 30 illustr., 2 tables, £ 185.00.
- Alexa Weik von Mossner. Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative. Cognitive Approaches to Culture. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2017, 271 pp., $34.95.
- Aurélie Choné, Isabelle Hajek and Philippe Hamman (eds.). Guide des Humanités environnementales:Environnement et société. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2016, 630 pp., € 38.00. Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino (eds.).Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017, xvii + 373 pp., 7 illustr., £ 90.00/$ 135.00.
- Books Received
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Trans*textuality in William Shakespeare’s Othello: Italian, West African, and English Encounters
- Ways of Witnessing: Journalism vs. Fiction in The Quiet American and El pintor de batallas
- Art, Nature and the Negotiation of Memory in J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country
- Sonic Borderscapes: Popular Music, Pirate Radio, and Belonging in Black British Writing in the 1990s
- The Rise of the Fragmentary Essay-Novel: Towards a Poetics and Contextualization of an Emerging Hybrid Genre in the Digital Age
- Transmodern Motion or the Rhizomatic Updated in In a Strange Room, “Take me to Church” and Babel
- Reviews
- Monika Wegmann. Language in Space: The Cartographic Representation of Dialects. Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie. Strasbourg: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2017, xvi + 318 pp., 1 table, 3 figures, 50 maps, € 45.00.
- Tom Birkett and Kirsty March-Lyons (eds.). Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation. Medievalism 11. Cambridge: Brewer, 2017, ix + 240 pp., £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
- Richard Sowerby. Angels in Early Medieval England. Oxford Theology & Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xv + 261 pp., 12 illustr., £ 60.00.
- Juanita Feros Ruys. Demons in the Middle Ages. Past Imperfect. Kalamazoo, MI/Bradford: ARC Humanities Press, 2017, ix + 121 p., 5 figures, $ 14.95.
- Hans Ulrich Seeber. Globalisierung, Utopie und Literatur: Von Thomas Morus (1516) bis Darcy Ribeiro (1982). Politica et Ars: Interdisziplinäre Studien zur politischen Ideen- und Kulturgeschichte 27. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2017, 266 pp., € 34.90.
- Martin Middeke and Christoph Reinfandt (eds.).Theory Matters: The Place of Theory in Literary and Cultural Studies Today. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, xii + 374 pp., £ 89.99.
- Philipp Löffler (ed.). Reading the Canon: Literary History in the 21stCentury. American Studies – A Monograph Series 281. Heidelberg: Winter, 2017, 458 pp., € 58.00.
- Julia Straub (ed.). Handbook of Transatlantic North American Studies. Handbooks of English and American Studies 3. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2016, x + 622 pp., 25 illustr., € 199.95/£ 182.00/$ 280.00.
- Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen and Michelle Niemann (eds.). The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Routledge Literature Companions. London/New York: Routledge, 2017, xvi + 489 pp., 30 illustr., 2 tables, £ 185.00.
- Alexa Weik von Mossner. Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative. Cognitive Approaches to Culture. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2017, 271 pp., $34.95.
- Aurélie Choné, Isabelle Hajek and Philippe Hamman (eds.). Guide des Humanités environnementales:Environnement et société. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2016, 630 pp., € 38.00. Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino (eds.).Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017, xvii + 373 pp., 7 illustr., £ 90.00/$ 135.00.
- Books Received