Reviews

The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers

jaclyncrupi's review against another edition

4.0

Myers is one of my favourite contemporary British writers. His work is accessible while asking some pretty unexpected questions. In THE PERFECT GOLDEN CIRCLE two close friends design and execute increasingly elaborate crop circles. There is something magnificent about the unexplainable. Myers spends the entire novel gently probing why they are drawn to doing this and at what cost. I read this question as a metaphor for all creative pursuits, but especially writing. The answers that he offers are staggeringly beautiful. But it’s also about land and how we use it and care for it and how, in 1989 when this book is set, it’s changing. Myers can place two men in a field in rural England and conjure something truly special. I’ve only just finished it but I know this book will linger.

cruelaz's review against another edition

emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

franceslikes_'s review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

anitasully's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I loved this book.
Like getting a hug from nature and friendship through the pages

horsley123's review against another edition

5.0

A tale of friendship and the countryside. The two men are both outsiders, loners, distrusting of society - they spend their summer nights planning, designing and constructing crop circles.

Their love of the countryside, the birds, animals and landscape oozes out from the page in a hymn to an English summer. It is a gentle book - charting their progression in the complexity of their designs and touching on some of the people they come across in their activities.

An enjoyable excursion!

northerly_heart_reads's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

soph_root's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

tamarant4's review against another edition

inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

...the call of the cuckoo, the sonorous song of it, sung from little lungs, a sweet thrum freed from the funnel of its throat. It is a call down the centuries, shaped by deep time and desire. Desire to spread the message that summer is coming in on the breeze and all the sins of winter shall be forgiven and forgotten. Forgotten as the new scents and notes stir senses nullified by dead seasons past. [loc. 506]

The setting is somewhere in the west of England, in 1989. Calvert (ex-SAS, Falklands veteran, lives in the second smallest house in England) and Redbone (crusty new age traveller type, no fixed abode) are spending the summer creating corn circles. Their friendship is a quiet one, full of things left unsaid and questions never asked or answered. They are the fixed points in one another's lives: Redbone has a series of girlfriends, who all eventually give up on him, and Calvert does not do relationships. Their shared passion is to 'fuel the myth and strive for beauty', and perhaps also to get people to learn to love the land. Also, of course, to mess with the straights, cause chaos, and instil a sense of wonder in those who flock to see their art.

There's one chapter per 'crop circle' (most of which aren't circles) and several involve nocturnal encounters with other people: fly-tippers, hare-coursers, an elderly woman calling for the dog who ran away many years before, a coked-up aristocrat who thinks Redbone is his gamekeeper... Redbone creates the designs, Calvert scouts for locations, and they relish both the anonymity and the appreciation. The two men are profoundly rooted in the land, its histories, its stories.

I suppose that this is technically historical fiction: but 1989 feels realler to me, in many ways, than 2024. I remember the media reporting of corn circles, and the various myths that sprung up about them (even after Doug Bower and Dave Chorley went public with their admission that they'd made many circles in Wiltshire and the surrounding counties). Myers has the benefit of a vantage point in the novel's future, and hindsight is 20:20. Calvert's speech about the 'island mentality' is especially sobering from a post-Brexit era: "The sea is a border, a boundary, and living on an island like this makes us think we’re something special. But we’re not. We’re just scared, that’s all. We’re scared of the world. And that breeds arrogance and ignorance, and ignorance signals the death of decency." [loc. 869] 

The two are also both wondering if humanity will even make it to the third millennium. The heatwave of summer 1989 was unusual for that decade ('I've never known it this hot for this long,' says Redbone, stripped to the waist at 4am), but relatively normal for the 2020s, though climate change is only mentioned towards the end of The Perfect Golden Circle.

I found this marvellously immersive, evocative, rural without sentimentality, emotional without much being said: I'll keep an eye out for more of Myers' novels.

Anonymous, anti-capitalist and awe-inspiring: were crop circles actually great art? -- article by Myers.

fixtaa's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

rrrebeccajayne's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5