The Perfect Golden Circle
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Average rating4.5
Summer 1989, deep in the English countryside — during a time of mass unemployment, class war, and rebellion . . . . Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men — Calvert, an ex-soldier traumatized by his experience in the Falklands War, and his affable freind Redbone — set out nightly in a decrepit camper van to undertake an extraordinary project. Under cover of darkness, they traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns, painstakingly avoiding damaging the wheat to yield designs so intricate that their overnight appearances inspire awe amongst a mystified public. And as the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation—and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold. But as harvest-time beckons—and as media and the authorities begin to take too much interest in their work—Calvert and Redbone have to race against time to finish the most stunning and original crop circle ever conceived: the Honeycomb Double Helix. Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the descruction of the English countryside, class inequality — ower of beauty to heal trauma and fight power.
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I have very conflicted feelings about this book.
It is a wonderful book, beautifully written. It shows a modern male adult friendship and how positive and supportive it can be, which is something that I haven't come across hardly at all, and certainly not in today's cultural climate. It talks about regular men intentionally creating beauty, and putting hope out into the world, and I loved every bit of it. Until the end. That ending! The hopelessness of it crushed me; it felt like a betrayal. To leave it like that, no redemption, no closure, just a vast uneasiness that we probably know exactly what will happen between the end of this summer and the start of the next. Hopeless and helpless is how the author left us, and I do not understand why.So then how to see this book, as the beauty or as the betrayal? I finished reading it two days ago and have been trying to sort out my feelings since.
*3.5 stars. Unsettling and melancholic filled with robust writing and big ideas but pulled by an undercurrent of fatalism. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I am also glad that I read it. Myers can certainly write but does seem a bit verbose and intentionally ambiguous, like what he wants most is for his readers to be filled with wonder at their perceived understanding of his intentions rather than their actual response and understanding of whatever it is he is trying to say, if that makes any sense.
