this is my favorite book. it's challenging to parse (people describe it as stream of consciousness, which is only kind of true, but between the characters' accents and faulkner being a wordy fella sometimes it's really hard to tell what's going on) but there are passages from it that i think about multiple times a day. the way some of the characters experience alienation from their bodies and/or reality is so tangible. it is kind of a black comedy about a family carrying their mother's dead body to her chosen resting place, hijinks ensue.
Apr 8, 2025
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Actually the great American novel! A former lover suggested-- nay demanded-- that I read this and I feel eternally grateful. The most accessible and in my opinion, important Faulkner there is. The prose is so beautiful and rich, each page on its own is a joy to read. But the story, the STORY is wild and horrifying and wrenching in both the micro and macro. I read this last spring and wished that I had read it for the first time in the summer but in hindsight: this is a winter time book. It's made to be devoured slowly and introspectively. I wish there was a film adaptation.
Nov 30, 2023
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this is my favorite novel and makes me feel all warm inside. i love how bittersweet it is in its portrayal of fuckups and forgiveness and trust in others and changing as a person but not as much as youd like to. profoundly human and beautiful.
Dec 20, 2023
I read this novella all in one sitting on the train to Bath, and I haven't been able to stop thing about it. Set in the 1920s, the main character is shellshocked WWI veteran who ventures into the British countryside to restore a mural in an old church. But it feels like more than an anti war novel, its about the end of summer, the passage of time and modernity, finding your place in a changing world. A Month in the Country is a celebration of brokenness — not the suffering of brokenness but, rather, the vulnerability that brokenness brings.
“We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever — the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.”
Mar 18, 2025
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1. convince yourself that certain things grant you unusually powerful concentration abilities. for example i believe i am more productive if i drink the white monster energy flavor, or if the movie halloween 3 is playing very quietly in the background. but you can't do these things very often because that spoils the trick. you have to limit it to times of need
2. try and get the doctor to prescribe you slightly more meds than you need if you take them. i don't say this for any sinister reasons it's just that i never remember to get them refilled on time and if you have extra you get a little wiggle room.
3. set the clock a random double-digit number of minutes ahead. like 26 or something. for a decent while it will keep startling you into thinking you're super late, which kicks off a frantically getting ready impulse that may enable you to leave on time even after you've realized the clock is wrong. it doesn't work for very long in my experience though.
Apr 8, 2025