The Captive Reader

I have just finished reading A Country Life by Roy Strong, an enjoyable collection of magazine columns Strong wrote about his life at The Laskett.  Covering all manner of topics – the adventures of his absurdly named cats (the Reverent Wenceslas Muff, the Lady Torte de Shell, William Larking Esq, and Herzog Friedrich von Sans Souci), descriptions of alfresco dinner parties, observations of developments in the garden, and musings on the futures of ill-attended country churches – these short pieces capture country life in all seasons and are illustrated with beautiful drawings by the author’s wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman.

“To be conscious of happiness in life is rare,” Strong says in one of the pieces but, more than most, he seems able to not only recognize moments of happiness but also to capture and appreciate them.  It is this sense of contentment that makes this book so enjoyable.  His enjoyment of simple things – visits with friends, charity lectures, even the daily act of writing in his diary – is wonderful to behold.

Many of his observations are only a few sentences long, but that makes them no less precious.  I loved this description of how the seclusion of country life in winter gave him a better understanding of Austen’s novels:

I have been in the country virtually the whole time since Christmas – a long stretch without the wicked city.  January and February are pretty awful months, ones in which the weather enhances the sense of enclosure and isolation, which not even papers, television or radio quite eradicate.

Suddenly, I am acutely aware of a kinship with the England of Jane Austen, in which the fashionable chatter of the metropolis percolates only fitfully with the backdrop of a war on the mainland of Europe, while civilized life in the country still goes on. Plus ça change…

Perhaps because it is winter here, I enjoyed that section of the book the most, with its talk of Christmas decorations, marmalade-making, and hyacinth bulbs.  Best of all were Strong’s musings on “A Country Library”:

The classification of a private library ought to reflect the structure of the owner’s mind, and that inevitably changes over the years.  In addition, the best of systems in the end breaks down in the face of bequests and gifts of books; when there is no more room to jam anything in, little heaps start spring up.

Once reshelving starts, there is no going back.  It has to be accompanied by the iron will to discard several thousand books in order to re-establish any order.  My wife cannot bear parting with anything, and I find that on seeing this massive evacuation, she has hastily constructed makeshift shelves of bricks and old planks in the garden room, to take in the throw-outs which ranged from books in Russian, which I cannot read, to a set of the Waverley novels.

I was still short of space, so we studied a guest bedroom, which had already sacrificed a bay to take in the sections on contemporary biography and Cecil Beaton, in order to build yet another bookcase.  I never mind sleeping in a room jammed with books, and one hopes one’s guests will feel the same.

Self-sufficiency, in terms of civilized life and information, remain the essence of any library in the country, however small.  No one can afford to be without a run of the great classics, the odd volume on the peerage, or a handful on local topography, architecture and history.

Except for four months spent in East Sussex, I have never lived in the country nor do I ever expect to.  But there is something irresistible about the idea of it and Strong’s pieces capture the romantic, gentle country life we city folk dream of, with a warm Aga in the kitchen, a large garden to be worked on and enjoyed, rooms full of books, and plenty of witty, intelligent friends to be welcomed for visits.