Lark Rise to Candleford; and my pastoral life in Germany

I finally tackled one of the books I've had on my owned-and-unread pile the longest -- Lark Rise to Candleford. I bought this more than ten years ago, around the time the TV series was first broadcast, but I've been putting it off forever, put off by the sheer size of it, and by the first couple of pages which are mostly descriptive. (It's also one of the books from my original Classics Club list that I never read). It's a little tough if the first page doesn't grab you. I had watched a bit of the TV series and enjoyed it, so I thought I should give it another go. 

For those who aren't familiar, Lark Rise is a fictionalized memoir of Flora Thompson's childhood in rural England, during the late Victorian period. It's classified as fiction but definitely reads like a memoir, and most libraries and bookstores shelve it in the fiction section. There isn't really any plot, it's really a lot of vignettes and memories of Thompson's childhood in Oxfordshire, and she places herself in the story as the main character, Laura, oldest child of a stonemason and his wife who live in a poor but comfortable house in the little hamlet of Lark Rise. It was originally published as three volumes, and I read the edition pictured above which includes all of them: Lark Rise [1939], Over to Candleford [1941], and Candleford Green [1943]. Since 1945 it's been available as an omnibus and there are many beautiful editions. 

A Penguin edition of the first volume.
My copy had woodcut illustrations similar to the one on the cover, 
though they're black and white

Each chapter has a theme, so it isn't told in a specifically linear fashion. It jumps around a bit, but it's easy enough to follow. There were chapters on May Day, hog butchering, school, churchgoing, and so on. Bits of it reminded me a bit of the Little House on the Prairie series, just in the descriptions of daily life in that era. Life was hard for Laura's family and the other families in Lark Rise, but she seems to have very happy memories. It's a really lovely portrait of rural life towards the end of the Victorian era, with hints of what's to come in the new century. 

It's fairly long book, more than 500 pages and 39 chapters. I finally got around to picking it up when I was looking for something soothing to read, and it fit the bill perfectly. Most of the chapters are short, and I thought I'd just read one or two a day, but I found myself turning to it more and more often in the past week. It is just the thing to read before bedtime, to crowd out all my other thoughts of world events. I can see why it was so popular when first published during WWII. 

After reading a few chapters I was wondering how they adapted it into a 40-episode TV series (I've only watched the first season so far). Eventually, though, I began to recognize characters from the series. Some of them have much more screen time than you'd expect from the book, and a couple of them have been combined into one family. They've definitely kept the spirit of the book in the series. It's a bit like Cranford in that the TV creators have taken the essence of the characters and place and extrapolated from there. If you're expecting it to be a novelization of the series, you'll be disappointed. For example, Dorcas, the postmistress, has nearly as much screen time in the TV series as Laura, but she doesn't show up in the book until more than halfway through. 

The beautiful Folio Society edition. I would love to take a look at this one. 

I really enjoyed this book, though it wasn't what I'd call a quick read, It's definitely a leisurely read, well suited to reading in bits in pieces, and it felt more like a memoir than a novel. In the past I've described books as 'nonfiction that reads like fiction' but this was the opposite. And if you love a sense of place, this is the book for you, with lovely descriptions of the countryside and just the slowness of everyday life. It made me want to move to a cottage and cook on an open fire. 

I'm a suburban kid and the idea of living in a village surrounded by countryside has always appealed to me. Our house in Germany was in a village, though nothing like Lark Rise, though we were at the end of a street on the edge of farmland and I could literally see cornfields and livestock right outside my door. I used to walk my dog through farmland and there were cows, horses, and chickens within a short distance, and in the spring, I'd take the scenic route to see if there were any lambs. I did enjoy how peaceful it was but there wasn't much to do close by, if you wanted to do more than a movie or basic shopping we had to drive pretty far. 

So here are a few photos of the countryside near my former house in the village of Steinwenden, a tiny village in the Rhineland-Pfalz, near Ramstein air base.

Just some cows in the neighborhood.

A field of canola. Every spring the countryside would be bright yellow. 

Pasture on the hill just behind our house, I could see these sheep from the second-story window. 
Sadly they weren't permanent residents, just visiting.  

In the summer this field was normally wheat or corn, 
but one summer it was all sunflowers and sweet peas, to help enrich the soil.

Sunset over the wheat field, just beyond my house. 

Hay all bundled up at the end of the season. I took this photo from my driveway. 

I loved the peace and quiet of the countryside but I was happy to move closer to a major city. Right now I'd be really happy to be on the edge of the farms, I'm sure it would be more relaxing right about now! Well, every place has its advantages. 

Bloggers, which are your favorite books about rural life? And does anyone else feel like moving out to the country about now? 

I'm counting this as my Adapted Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

A Bookish Dilemma: Book First, Or Movie?

Idris Elba as The Gunslinger in The Dark Tower

It's been just over a month since my last post, so I'm throwing myself on the mercy of anyone who's still following this blog. I am currently facing a bookish dilemma, and I'm hoping that readers will advise me.

My library has a book group that runs throughout the summer, and the next selection is Stephen King's The Gunslinger, first in the Dark Tower series. I love that the book group makes me read outside my usual genres, but I haven't read any Stephen King since waaay back in the 1980s when I read Cujo, which may have scarred me for life -- I went through a King phase in my youth and read most of his early stuff. I liked some of it but I'm an avid dog lover and Cujo killed any interest I had in reading any more of his works (though The Shining made for one of the best TV literary bits ever on Friends. Spoiler alerts if you haven't read The Shining or Little Women). 

But I digress. The book group doesn't meet until the end of the month, and normally, I wait until about a week or so before the meeting to start the book, so it's fresh in my mind for the discussion. However, I just saw the schedule for the upcoming movies at the movie theater nearby, and The Dark Tower starts showing on Friday. Movies here on the military base usually only run for about a week, then they come back about three or four weeks later for a second run, filling in at odd times like matinees and off-days. So if I want to watch the movie, I should try to catch it in the next week or I may lose my chance.

And this is my dilemma: do I read the book this week before I go to the movies, and possibly become disappointed because it doesn't live up to my expectations? Movie and TV adaptations rarely live up to how I imagine a story when I'm reading it, and if I see the movie later it nearly always changes how I picture it from that day forward.  I read the first four Harry Potter books before I saw the first movie (which I found fair to middling) and now I'll always picture Hogwarts and all the characters like the movie actors and scenes.

Or do I watch the movie first, then read the book just before the book discussion, like I normally do?  If I watch the movie first, I'll be picturing Idris Elba and all the other actors when I read the book. Of course, if I read the book first, I'll be prepared for any scary scenes. I don't think The Gunslinger is considered horror, but you never know with Stephen King. (I'll just make sure I have enough space in the freezer, just in case).

So here's my query: if a book is being adapted into a movie (or TV series), and you haven't read it yet, do you read it before watching the adaptation, or wait and watch the adaptation first? Does it matter? Should I just skip the movie altogether? And what are your favorite literary bits on TV shows? Does anyone really put scary books in the freezer?