Wendell Berry

1. Andy Catlett: Early Travels is more like a memoir than a novel, as it is told from the point of view of the older man reflecting on his 9-year-old self--the boy whose story this is. It is also eerily timely, as it contemplates the problem of racism, particularly the non-violent, "kindly" yet condescending paternalistic kind that presented itself in the treatment of the black people he encountered in his community and on his grandparents' farms in his childhood during the 1940's.
Read and show more reviewed in 2020.

2. Nathan Coulter: A wonderful "slice of life" story told from the perspective of a young boy starting to observe the way things happen, watching his older brother grow away from him, hunting with his Uncle Burley, coping with the death of his mother, and beginning to think about things he's been used to taking for granted. The language is wonderful, the characters are rich and real, and wryly funny; the setting is...well, the setting is home to me. Port William, KY, and its surroundings are very like the small town and countryside where I grew up, if you substitute our corn for their tobacco, and move forward into the 20th century just a few decades. Nothing will do for me now but that I become as familiar with this world and its inhabitants as I am with Yoknapatawpha County. Luckily, Berry won't make me work quite as hard at it as Ol' Uncle Billy did. That was the main course---this is dessert.

3. The two short novels, Andy Catlett: Early Travels, and A World Lost, with all the short stories that fit chronologically between them, comprised a good deal of my August 2020 reading time, and it was wonderful to be in and about Port William. These stories have a great appeal to me...they tick all the boxes, as they say. Simple good people, a few rascals and ne'er-do-wells, some drunkards, but very little real wickedness. There's plenty of sorrow, hardship, loss and grief, but it feels as "right", in context, as the freedom of childhood and the routine of daily life, until World War II and the murder of Andy's favorite uncle knock it all off kilter. Berry's ability to re-create the world of rural farm life (in Kentucky, but that only means tobacco is the main crop--it could so easily be the little pocket of the Delaware River Valley in Pennsylvania where I grew up) in the early 20th century is nothing short of genius. A perfect antidote to living in the early 21st. Highly recommended for your soul. show less

Berry has an incredible skill for writing about things we've all felt, but they sound both new and familiar in his prose. Jayber tells his own story about his life, particularly his time as barber in Port William, Kentucky. Through the years he watches dramas unfold from his solitary place. He sees how time changes the community, deals with his own heartbreak, hatred, and struggles with faith. It is a book that flows slowly and should be savored. Nothing big happens and yet all of life is show more packed within its pages.

"All the world, as a matter of fact, is a mosaic of little places invisible to the powers that be."

“I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.”

“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.” show less

The first casualties of exploitation are character and community. Wendell Berry

This was a prophetic book in 77 and it's still a sobering read today, given that our alienation from the land, our embrace of specialization resulting in food sources that are less resistant to blight, pests, invasive species, drought or any of the challenges faced by farmers. The book bears reading even for an audience not familiar with agriculture because of the broader picture - that a society accepting of show more exploitation of land and natural resources tends to be accepting of the exploitation of people. Berry's exploration of the margins, of the healing and regeneration needed between growing cycles, and of the necessity of diversity are lessons that address many wrongs still being committed not only by agribusiness but any industry that commodifies what once was considered a part of the membership of the community. show less

Wendell Berry has been writing poetry and essays on farming life for more than half a century. But he has also written fiction set in Port William, Ky., which rivals William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in terms of its breadth of imagined historical detail. A Place in Time includes 20 stories that feature familiar characters from earlier novels and stories, but it is not necessary to have read those to get pleasure out of these.

This is a good introduction to many of the families that show more inhabit Port William. The Catletts and Feltners are prominent in several stories. While individual characters like Burley Coulter, Elton Penn, and Andy Catlett stand out. The stories span more than a century and a half of history from the opening story, set in the Civil War era to the titular tale that ends the book during the first decade of the new millennium.

The stories are not plot driven but focus on character, including the character of Port William itself. The relationships of characters are as important as their actions in these beautiful vignettes of small town life. As someone who was raised in a small town I found moments that resonated with my own experience. "Andy Catlett: Early Education" reminded me of my own schooldays while also bringing my reading of books like Tom Sawyer to mind. One of the most potent stories, for instance, is markedly subtle: “A Desirable Woman” tracks the intersection of a pastor’s wife and a young farmhand shortly before the start of World War II, and the story turns on the young man’s unrequited crush on the woman shortly before he’s sent off to war. “Sold” has a similarly soft-focus, nostalgic cast, narrated by an elderly woman recalling the accumulations that are about to be sold at auction before she enters a nursing home. Some of the stories are suggestive of homespun tales or Twain (again), as in “A New Day,” which climaxes in a competition between two horse teams dragging bricks, or “A Burden,” about the antics of a drunk relation.

Throughout the collection Berry's writing style is poetic as he shares episodes of loss and love, achievement and angst; all set against the backdrop of the evolution of Port William through time. The historic context was omnipresent but not overwhelming. It intruded with tales of soldiers returning or not returning from war and notes of other events, although the focus was continually on the families -- their follies, their foibles, and their faith. Berry is a writer whose beautiful sentences are imbued with an agrarian spirit. That and a concern for both time past and time future make this a fine collection. show less