I was going to rate this two stars, but it finally had part of what I was seeking on the 232nd page out of 234 pages. The first 1/2 of this book explains repeatedly the problem with big business farms. I'm well acquainted with the problems. So glad the subject changed.The next 1/3 of the book tol...
He's one of the only writers who can use the Bible as his rationale without being totally irritating but it's still a little too much for me, and as far as solutions go this doesn't go anywhere near far enough in my opinion. This is probably a good stepping stone for anyone who isn't ready to he...
Yet another brilliant Wendell Berry novel. I will be reading many more.I have said this before, but Berry does not employ literary pyrotechnics, He does not need them. His style is graceful, lovely, filled with hope and yet infused with a melancholy that is realistic and sometimes even heartbreak...
The rhythms of this novel are the rhythms of the land. A Place on Earth resonates with variations played on themes of change; looping transitions from war into peace, winter into spring, browning flood destruction into greening fields, absence into presence, lost into found. This brings the revis...
Wow. This book is a gift. I first heard about Wendell Berry in college when we were studying nature writers and I think we read some of his poetry. But I haven't really thought of him since then, yet I am so glad I picked this up. I loved this novel. It's about a small farming community and cover...
Andy Catlett has lost his right hand in a corn picker along with his purpose. In the months following the accident he makes life hard for himself and everyone around him that cares for him--he just can't let the loss of his hand go and forgive himself for the one moment of thoughtlessness that le...
A modern pastoral novel.This book has a very lyrical quality--I was not at all surprised to learn that the author is a poet. His writing, in some ways, also reminded me of Faulkner or Walden. Although some of the passages are, by turns, very beautiful or very thought provoking, overall, I really...
And she began to get worse. She had to spend more and more time in bed, until finally she didn’t get up at all. Grandma came every day and cooked our meals for us and did the housework, and took care of Mother while Daddy was in the field. Daddy got short-tempered with us, and stayed that way lon...
Before them in the sediment of the flood is the scrawl of the Greatlows' first catastrophe and rescue. Where it is broken by the clutter of tracks, the mud has begun to dry.To avoid the mud as long as possible, they walk along the face of the hill just above what was the shoreline a few days ago....
And then the upland becomes more broken, the ridges narrower, the hollows steeper, the soil thin and rocky. The road to the lead mine turns off one of the ridges and follows a creek bed, usually dry in summer, down into a narrow, wooded hollow. Much of that country is now wooded and has been so f...
Having danced until nearly time to get up, I went on in the harvest, half lame with weariness. And he took no notice, and made no mention of my distress. He went ahead, assuming that I would follow. I followed, dizzy, half blind, bitter with sweat in the hot light. He never turned his head, a man...
Or suspenders. Or bib overalls. Big Ellis didn’t, of course. He never thought of precautions until too late. After it was too late he could always tell you what the right precaution would have been if only he had thought of it. “Burley,” he would say, “I see the point. I’ve got my sights dead on ...