An escape to the countryside
Sometimes, just sometimes you pick a book up, and you just know it’s going to be good. When I picked up Simon Dawson’s Pigs in Clover, I did so just having that feeling that it would be an enjoyable book. Sometimes you just want to reach for a book that you will enjoy. Not necessarily learn anything from or even one that will provoke you to ruminate on life’s big and existential questions, but just because it looks fun.
And I’m so glad I reached for it, because don’t I just love being proven right!
Pigs in Clover is an autobiographical novel by Simon Dawson, whose life is forever changed by a drunken promise he makes to his wife on New Year’s Eve, to pack up their hearth and home and begin the new year making a transition and building a new life in the countryside of Devon, leaving London behind.
While there have been many fictional novels written about the transition of the city to the country and vice versa, reading an autobiographical account, lent a fresh voice and an honest and authentic perspective to an old tale, making this a familiar yet entertaining and heartfelt tale.
The book is delightful, frank, and hilarious and the perfect cozy book to grab while curling down with a cup of tea or a little snack. It calls into question a reexamination of the definition of happiness and of what it means to truly be living your best life. And whether you are a person who loves the countryside or not, whether you love animals or whether you don’t consider yourself to be an animal person, you will enjoy this book because it allows for a little slice of escapism.
On a personal note, I appreciated the fact that while the author does not get lost in the romanticization of provincial and rural life. He depicts it for what it is, a life like any other, which while having its perks also has its struggles and downsides, for that is his reality in his journey towards becoming a self-sufficient smallholder. This reader is very appreciative of the elements of realism this narrative affords as there would be have been nothing as off-putting as reading only the pros of either one kind of life. After all, as we all know some people love a lush green field and others love the little bits of grass poking through the concrete, and somehow, somewhat magically, there is beauty to be found in both.
I enjoyed this one, and am soon going to be reaching for its sequel ‘The Sky’s the Limit: When Middle Age Gets Mucky, which already sounds thoroughly entertaining!