My book group read Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter: A Novel. Berry is a contemporary American novelist living on a family farm in Kentucky. Although he taught in in California and New York, he returned home years ago. From his love of place and family flow beautifully crafted novels, poetry and essays which are full of kindness.
When we met last week, we agreed that we all loved the book, laughing and sitting in pauses of silence until the wee hours. Berry challenges the idea of 'progress' and the modern frenetic drive to work towards the future; Berry and his heroine love the membership of belonging to a place, to a people. And this membership is not defined by who is in or out, but by who knows s/he belongs or not. When some people move away, Hannah wonders if they had not failed; perhaps those who left did not know they were members. It was too easy for them to leave.
My brother-in-law reminded me yesterday that years ago when living in England some friends gushed over a poet. They read us a piece, and it left us all cold. The style was not elegant or what we had immersed ourselves in: Wordsworth and Keats, for example. Yes, that poet was Wendell Berry. It must be again, that sense of place. Berry is at home in the rural agricultural South/Midwest, not in England. But he would agree.
I highly recommend the only piece of Berry's I have read; if you can't get ahold of it at your library, anything else will be a pleasurable beginning.
Yours sincerely,
Beth
If you can't find it at your local library, you can also just click the link below to the right! I try to have links to all books mentioned in our posts under our "Books of Interest" section!
Posted by: Thomas More | November 27, 2006 at 08:55 AM