Berry, Wendell

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Great Read! Couldn't put it down!
Possitively Engaging...
Wonderful surprise of a book
A Talisman for the Journey
Priceless Reading

Jayber Crow
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Counterpoint LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness

ASIN: 1582431604
Release Date: 2001-09-18

Amazon.com

The questions who and what and how and why are no doubt useful and occasionally even noble in their place. But for Wendell Berry, whose spare and elegant prose has long testified to the rural American values of thrift and frugality, four interrogatives must seem a waste, when one will do. Where is the ultimate qualifier, the sine qua non, for both the author and his characters. Place shapes them and defines them; the winding Kentucky River and the gentle curves of the Kentucky hills find an echo in their lilting speech and brusque affections.

Jayber Crow is another story of the Port William membership, the community whose life--and lives--Berry has unfurled over the course of a half dozen novels. Jayber himself is an orphan, lately returned to the town. And his status as barber and bachelor places him simultaneously at its center and on its margins. A born observer, he hears much, watches carefully, and spends 50 years learning its citizens by heart. <blockquote> They were rememberers, carrying in their living thoughts all the history that such places as Port William ever have. I listened to them with all my ears, and have tried to remember what they said, though from remembering what I remember I know that much is lost. Things went to the grave with them that will never be known again. </blockquote> Jayber tells the town's stories tenderly. Gently elegiac, the novel charts the tension between an urge to isolation and an impulse to connectivity, writ both small and large. As the 20th century moves inexorably forward, swallowing in great mechanized gulps rural towns governed by agricultural rhythms, Port William turns in upon itself. And as Jayber admits quietly, "Once a fabric is torn, it is apt to keep tearing. It was coming apart. The old integrity had been broken." Integrity, both whole and shattered, is key to the stories of Burley Coulter, Cecelia Overhold, Troy Chatham, and above all, Athey Keith and his daughter Mattie, to whom Jayber pledges his undying and unrequited love.

Berry's prose, so carefully tuned that you never know it is there, carries us into the very heart of the land itself; his exquisitely constructed sentences suggesting the cyclic rhythms of his agrarian world. Jayber Crow 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. --Kelly Flynn

Book Description

Returning once again to the Port William membership, Berry has written his best novel yet, a book certain to confirm his reputation as one of America's finest novelists.

From the simple setting of his own barber shop, Jayber Crow, orphan, seminarian, and native of Port William, recalls his life and the life of his community as it spends itself in the middle of the twentieth century. Surrounded by his friends and neighbors, he is both participant and witness as the community attempts to transcend its own decline. And meanwhile Jayber learns the art of devotion and that a faithful love is its own reward.

Customer Reviews:

Great Read! Couldn't put it down!.......2007-02-07

I'm 45 years old, from Indiana, and a barber's daughter. I'm pretty sure I know some of the people that Jayber talks about. The stories weren't only about what the people were experiencing, but what they were thinking and feeling. My favorite quotes: "I don't get paid to cut hair. I get paid to know when to stop." "He didn't yet know all that he was going to know." AMEN to that!

Possitively Engaging..........2006-06-29

Across the pages of this novel wanders an assortment of remarkably unremarkable people who are somhow winsomely memorable. This is just a beautiful read with a timelessness quality and some simple clues as to how one person made lemonade when life gave him lemons. This is a story of Jayber Crow and a community of people who, together, unceremoniously, weave a life of love and support for each other, just because they are of each other. Wonderful!

Wonderful surprise of a book.......2006-02-19

This is a quiet yet very interesting book. What do I mean by quiet? The stories unfold at a slower pace than a lot of contemporary fiction. But don't misunderstand me -- this is not a boring book. It's really interesting and is filled with suspense and passion. Maybe it's the rural setting that makes me say "quiet." Because several scenes are in the rural outdoors and for me this brings a quietness inside.

The characters are very interesting ... very well defined.

And I like the main character's ongoing commentary about War and Business and their need for each other.

I found it also to be a profoundly sad book -- at least that's how I was affected. My grandparents were farmers and lost their land so I felt very deeply the changes that the Port William farmers went through over the years of this book.

This book has stayed with me. I've thought about it quite a bit since I finished it.

It's the first time I've read anything by Wendell Berry ... just finished it last week. I enjoyed this book so much that I went to the library and got a couple of other Port William novels by him.

A Talisman for the Journey.......2005-12-21

"Jayber Crow" is one of the most unusual and profound novels of this last century. On one level, it is a tale of the unfolding life of Jonah Crow, from his youth into his time of looking back upon the span of his life: it is the story of survival, bravery, acceptance. On this level, Jonah, who becomes Jayber, the barber of his beloved Port William, tells of the people of this town with great tenderness: their strengths and their foolishness (along with his own), and we come to know these townspeople and care for them.

Yet on another level, Jayber Crow is a philosophical reflection on the nature of love, God, time, and eternity. As a religious reflection, Wendell Berry, through Jayber, reaches to the core of our faith when he realizes that the only true prayer is "Thy will be done", a prayer that makes him tremble, but also makes him more of a whole person. Indeed, his reflections on the love of God, and the love that comes forth on this planet, is visionary and has the capacity to enlarge and fortify the heart of the reader. Chapter 23, "The Way of Love," is one of the greatest passages I have read. We see a man aching for love and for God, who some nights "in the midst of this loneliness" swings among "the scattered stars at the end of the thin thread of faith alone." We feel for his struggle and his faith gives us faith.

Concurrent with his longing for God, and his faith, is his love for Mattie. It is the most beautiful and truest portrayl of love I have seen: it is a love that personifies First Corinthians 13. It is a love that wishes only good and finds hope in knowing it has loved: nothing more. It is a love that does not seek for a payback. Again in Chapter 23, Jayber reflects on a true love that breaks the barriers of time, reminiscent of jani johe webster's poem "loving" from "a spider on the wall": "when the skin / on this body / i now call mine / shall become bone / the very bone / shall cry unto your bone / i love you." So it is with Jayber, who writes, "That is why, in marrying one another, we mortals say 'till death.' We must take love to the limit of time, because time cannot limit it. A life cannot limit it. Maybe to have it in your heart all your life in this world, even while it fails here, is to succeed. Maybe that is enough."

Another meaningful comparison between Berry and webster is brought to mind after reading Berry's metaphor of the "the Man in the Well." What happens to a man who, alone for the day in the deep woods, falls into a well? Will he survive? Who is this man in our own lives, and into what wells have we or our loved ones fallen? In webster's prose poem "the weariest river," the narrator's grandmother is locked out of her farm house on a winter's night: again, will she survive, and how? Both metaphors speak to our existential situation, to isolation and to hope.

"Jayber Crow" probes the meaning of life and our relationship to ourseves, to one another, and to God. An amazing comparison is to "Mr. Smith" by Louis Bromfield: the tale of another man, also written in the first person, who struggles with the meaning of life, but with completely different results. Both men recognize the beauty of life and its suffering, and yet the course of each life goes in almost opposite directions.

The image Jayber gives of "the rooms" made by the woods, through sunlight and shadow, is an image that is also a talisman for readers who also seek peace in the midst of life.

Priceless Reading.......2005-12-05

This is a rich and wonderful book about life. This is one book that was so good that I bought multiple copies and gave them to all my children. I have read it again and still have great pleasure in it. Read it and you will see. It made me proud to be a human being.

Average customer rating:

Button Box - Symbol of a different time
"...a knot in the net that has gathered me up...."
book in very good condition
Tranquil and verdant in old age
Warmhearted Elegy For Another Time And Place

Andy Catlett: Early Travels: A Novel
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1593761368

Book Description

Berry opens this latest installment of the Port William series with young Andy Catlett preparing to visit a place he'd been to many times before, though this would be an adventure he will take very seriously. Nine years old, Andy embarks on the trip by bus, alone for the first time. He decides it will be a rite of passage and his first step into manhood. Sometimes a handful at home, Andy was a good boy when visiting his Grandparents' houses, and he looked forward to the little spoiling certain to come his way.

Set during the Christmas of 1943, young Andy's experiences on this solitary voyage become pivot points of the entire epic of Port William. The old ways are in retreat, modern life is crowding everything in its path, and as Andy looks back many years later, he hears the stories again of his neighbors and friends.

A beautiful short novel, this book is a perfect introduction into the whole world of Port William and will be a new chapter for those already familiar with this rich unfolding story.

Customer Reviews:

Button Box - Symbol of a different time.......2007-05-08

This book is another gift from Wendell Berry which urges us in its quiet yet strong way to remember where we came from and stop and think about where we are going. Looking back through the span of his life, Andy Catlett describes a time when family ties were strong and children were given the freedom to be responsible, to learn the value of work and to watch and grow within that family network.

I was delighted to read the section about the button box, as I was lucky enough to endlessly play with my grandmother's button drawer in her old Singer sewing machine. I am still playing with those buttons with my grandchildren.

"I went to the closet..behind Grandma's chair and took out her button box. Every house I visited as a child had a button box. It has disappeared now from every house I know, but then it was a necessary part of household economy. No worn-out garment then was simply thrown away. When it was worn past wearing and patching, all its buttons were snipped off and put into the button box. And then when something old needed a new button, or when something newly made needed a set of buttons, the button box provided. Grandma's was an old shoe box better than half full of buttons of all sorts. It was a pleasure just to run your fingers through, like running your fingers through a bucket of shelled corn. My old game with it was to paw through it in search of matching sets of button, especially the intensely colored glass buttons that had come off dresses. I sat on the floor by Grandma's chair with the box in my lap and fished out a set of shapely black buttons and lined them up on the linoleum beside me.

And then it came to me that I was no longer interested in button boxes. Maybe it was because I was now traveling away from home by bus, by myself, but I knew suddenly and finally that my time of playing with buttons was past,just as one summer evening a year or two later, when I had found a perfect slingshot fork in the top of a tree, it came to me that I was no longer interested in slingshots, and I climbed down and left the perfect fork uncut."

"...a knot in the net that has gathered me up....".......2007-04-30

Andy Catlett, title character, says this of one of his beloved elders, and means it about the entire ensemble of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, family hires, and others in his close-knit world of childhood, a world that also nurtured him into and through adulthood. Nine-year-old Andy's first solo trip the ten miles to Port William is cause for the boy to ponder how best to navigate the expectations, customs, and burdens of the loved ones he visits after Christmas in 1943. Andy, the boy, is joined in his ruminations by Andy, the man already a father many years and a grandfather too, who seasons his recollections of that rite of his youthful passage with the knowledge and wisdom come from time and the bittersweetness of recollecting kin and kith all gone.

The copyright page carries the disclaimer, "This book is a work of fiction. Nothing is in it that has not been imagined." But as other readers have written, one can also imagine fictional Andy and real Wendell slipping into each others skins with ease. Wendell Berry preserves a slice of World War II rural and very small town life with such loving care and meditative dignity that it is difficult not to think of the slim book as intensely personal.

ANDY CATLETT: EARLY TRAVELS is my first dip into the "Port William series." Thanks to the irresistible thumbnail sketches of so many characters who inhabit the other novels, I'll be dipping into more -- such as HANNAH COULTER and JAYBER CROW. Ironically, because this book serves more as an introduction to the slate of Port William denizens than as a fully rounded novel, it earns from me four and a half stars instead of five. But truthfully, ANDY CATLETT: EARLY TRAVELS is no less a treasure for the absence of high drama. Berry gently sucks at the succulent and nourishing marrow of American values and reminds us all of the truly important things in life. As Andy concludes, "And now, as often before, I am reminded how grateful I am to have been there, in that time, with these I have remembered."

book in very good condition.......2007-04-01

this book was in great condition
it took a while to get here
but we are totally satisfied with the services
thank you so much

Tranquil and verdant in old age.......2007-01-19

How many authors continue to get better as they get older? Berry does, because his work is built on solid foundations of spiritual and artistic discipline. He has never wasted his energy running after fashions, but rather has invested it in his family, his land, and his art. This book is therefore something quite rich, brimming full with clear-eyed insight into the human condition but even more importantly, with deep, sober, yet passionate love for humanity. As ever, the Port William microcosm shows a distinctly American possibility for life, and is tinged with an apprehension that this possibility is just about passed, with little to replace it. For all that, there is no despair here, but a living hope, whose only support is that that life is now on the page and can live in any reader. And you, dear reader, would be well-advised to open this book and join the Port William community.

Warmhearted Elegy For Another Time And Place.......2006-12-09

"Andy Catlett: Early Travels," the latest installment in Wendell Berry's series about the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, is a perfect example of why I've read every word of fiction this author has ever published. It is 1943, and nine year old Andy sets out for a visit with his two sets of grandparents. He thinks of the trip as "an adventure," and "my first step into manhood." The novel is hardly an adventure in the conventional sense of the word, and those who, for whatever reason, need a lot of action and suspense in their fiction, should look elsewhere. Rather, this sweet book is one of reflection--about family, about time, about place, but mostly about a way of life that has all but ceased to exist. This story focuses on that probably more than any other Berry novel. It does so in such a masterful way that I find myself wishing that I had a place such as Port William in my own history, which is really saying something, since I grew up in the bustling Detroit area and have always loved city life. Here's a sample of Berry's tribute to small town life, a scene in a little store in town:

"Now, as if through a hole in the ceiling, I can see myself, small for my age, too skinny, thoroughly embarrassed. By now I had seen that none of my friends were there, and among the several men who had come in to loaf until bedtime I was the one boy. I was sorry I had come in, but I was too embarrassed to leave. If some of the women had been there it would have been better, for they would have been openly kind to a small boy, and being there among the men had made me aware again that I was a small boy. The men would not have been impressed to know that I had come alone by bus from Hargrave to Port William. The women would have been there if it had been Saturday night, for on Saturdays whole families came to town to shop and visit. Weeknights you would find only the men, and only certain men, loafing about in the places of business and spending usually not enough money to pay the proprietors to keep a fire going and the light on.

"The conversation that these loafers kept going, night after night, was Port William's sole indigenous public institution. By it, the manhood at least of the town reminded itself of itself, preserved its history to the extent that it was preserved, entertained and comforted itself, and in some measure even governed itself. And though I could not have been aware of it then, there was kindness in it too, inadvertent as it may have been. For Port William always had its fair allotment of widowers and aging bachelors, lonely men who used these nighttime gatherings to fend off between darkfall and bedtime the thoughts that come to the lonely and are hard to suffer alone."

One interesting point is that the narrator of this story, who is telling it as a kind of memoir in old age, was born the same year as the author, so one has to wonder how much of the story is autobiographical.

Don't be mislead by Amazon's description of the reading level as "Young Adult." Although young adults could unquestionably enjoy Andy Catlett's story, the work is geared for adult reading.

If you read "Andy Catlett, Early Travels" and enjoy it, there is a whole world of Port William novels by Wendell Berry. Some of the novels, such as this one, even include a map of the town and a genealogy.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness

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Making Christianity unfashionable but authentic
Wendell Berry Challenges the modern day Sojourners
A challenge to hear anew the Jesus of the Gospels
Wendell Berry "comes out" as a Christian & comes down on his brothers & sisters
I Am Always on the Lookout for Books Like This...

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness

Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1593761007

Book Description

For two thousand years, artists, social and cultural activists, politicians and philosophers, humanists and devoted spiritual seekers have all looked to the sayings of Jesus for inspiration and instruction. Unfortunately, on occasions too frequent and destructive to enumerate, the teachings of Christ have been either ignored or distorted by the very people calling themselves Christian. Today, we see a vigorous movement in America fueled by a politicized and engaged portion of the electorate involved in just such ignorance and distortion. Whether directed towards social intolerance or attitudes of warlike aggression, these right-wing citizens have claimed a power of influence that far exceeds their numbers.

This small book collects the sayings of Jesus, selected by Mr. Berry, who has contributed an essay of introduction. Here is a way of peace as described and directed by the greatest spiritual teacher in the West. This is a book of inspiration and prayerful compassion, and we may hope a ringing call to action at a time when our country and the world it once led stand at a dangerous crossroads.

Customer Reviews:

Making Christianity unfashionable but authentic.......2006-05-18

Wendell Berry begins this little book on a Kierkegaardian note by asserting that Christianity in the U.S. has become so fashionable that it has "remarkably little to do with the things that Jesus Christ taught." In our cultural endorsement of war and economic/environmental practices that destroy creation--both fashionable expediencies--we betray, for the sake of national interests (the heresy, by the way, of phyletism), the Gospel. We thereby put outselves in "an absurdity" that we can "neither resolve nor escape: the proposition that war can be made to serve peace; that you can make friends for love by hating and killing the enemies of love."

Berry goes on to reflect on the "burden" (but blessing, too) of being a good enough Christian to avoid this absurdity. His analysis focuses on Christ's promise to bring "life abundant." As Berry interprets it, "abundant life" refers to all creation, not just one's personal existence, which has its being in and through God's creative spirit. To celebrate what God has made and graciously sustains, we need to adopt ways of living that nurture rather than destroy, that encourage peace rather than war, and that affirm rather life than death.

In between the introductory and closing essay in which Berry reflects on all this, he collects 123 New Testament verses that speak to Christ's Gospel of Peace and its promise of life abundant. Actually, I think he undersells the centrality of peacemaking in the New Testament: I'd add at least half again as many verses. But Berry's point is well-taken: one either takes scripture seriously, or one doesn't. What the Bible says is pretty clear, and it's not so easy to interpret away as many of us wish or believe.

Berry offers a litmus test for whether we take scripture seriously: if we heard some guy named Joe Green in the public square saying exactly the same things Jesus said 2,000 years ago (only we're hearing them for the very first time), would we drop everything and follow him? Or would we mock him as unfashionably crazy? How many of us who call ourselves Christians, I wonder, would pass this test? Would I?

Highly recommended. As usual, Berry's style is heartbreakingly beautiful, and his reflections insightful.

Wendell Berry Challenges the modern day Sojourners.......2005-12-16

It is wonderful to hear a contemporary author remind Christians that the Prince of Peace was truly that -- and not a Prince of Preemptive War. I recomend this book highly for anyone who wishes to rise to the challenge of Christ's message.

A challenge to hear anew the Jesus of the Gospels.......2005-12-05

Berry is a prophet somewhat in the mold of Amos from the Hebrew Bible, though a bit more disarming in his challenges. His selection of Jesus-sayings on peacemaking is intriguing for what it reveals both about what Jesus said and about Berry. The book is worth the price for the introduction and the essay, "The Burden of the Gospels," that are included. In the introduction, Berry indicts modern Christianity: "It seems to have remarkably little to do with the things that Jesus Christ actually taught." In the concluding essay, he suggests that a more honest reading of the Gospels could improve the modern practice of the Christian faith.

Anyone who seeks to take seriously the Gospels and the Jesus they present, should read the above referenced essay. It was first presented in August 2005 at the joint convocation of Lexington Theological Seminary and Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, two institutions that share space in Lexington, Kentucky. Berry's essay has an important word for all readers and interpreters of the Gospels--be they in the pew or in the pulpit.

Wendell Berry "comes out" as a Christian & comes down on his brothers & sisters.......2005-11-04

Wendell Berry--the agrarian conservationist I hate to love--has, I think, always been a low-profile Christian. He respects Christ's teachings but really does not want to be associated with the Christianity of today's America. Now, though, he's picking up the cross of Christ's supposed pacifism and decided to knock us over the head with it. (He was already leaning hard in this direction when I saw him at a book reading in Seattle just days after the 2004 elections.)

In his new book, Berry attempts to play both the pious follower of Christ and a dangerous boat-rocker, a sort of Big Bad Wolf, here to gobble up the precious naivete of Little Red Riding Christian ("My, what a big conscience you have, Mr. Berry!" "Yes, the better to beat you with, my dear.")

This 68-page book, at its center, consists of a large selection of Jesus' words (the "red text" of the Bible), cut free of context and bookended by two essays from Berry. The book's back cover gives a good summary of Berry's modus operandi:

"...[Berry] began to wonder how a large segment of the Christian community could ignore the bold and direct teachings offered by Christ and recorded by the authors of the Gospels. How could a community founded on peaceableness become a community encouraging war on its neighbors? How could a community founded on compassion and forgiveness become enflamed by intolerance?"

"Here is a way of peace, a challenge offered by the greatest spiritual teacher in the West, a book of inspiration, of prayerful compassion, and we may hope a call to action at a time when our country and the world it once led stand at a dangerous crossroads."

But enough about the outside of the book. Berry tops all of that with his inflammatory, ill-considered statements inside:

"I am not a learned man and I may have missed something, but I know of no Christian nation and no Christian leader from whose conduct the teachings of Christ could be inferred."

"One may feel that, in the name of honesty, Christians ought either to quit fighting or quit calling themselves Christians."

"They have justified their disobedience on the grounds of the impracticality of obedience, though we have little proof of the practicality of disobedience, and precious few examples of obedience."

"[Many Christians] are confident, moreover, that God hates people whose faith differs from their own, and they are happy to concur in that hatred."

Also, he paraphrases Christ as saying: "Don't resist evil. If someone slaps your right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too." Don't resist evil?! This is a big difference from what Christ actually said--that is, we should not struggle against someone who does evil to us. Resisting evil is something Christ himself made rather a habit of.

Okay, Mr. Berry. Take a breath.

Certainly, one cannot argue against Christ being an advocate of love, compassion and forgiveness. However, He did employ violence at least once (taking whips to the money changers in the temple). Also, in Matthew 10, He says that He came not to bring peace but "a sword." Now this may or may not be a figurative sword (as Berry himself interprets it), but it obviously means conflict and not peace. This directly contradicts Berry's statement that "love, forgiveness, and peaceableness are the only neighborly relationships that are acceptable to God." Furthermore, it is obvious to anyone who has read the Gospels that Christ's own relationship with the religious authorities of his day was anything but peaceable. Christ did not believe in "peace at any price."

We also have to consider what Christ didn't say and didn't do; the negative space gives shape to the picture here.

Unfortunately, we do not have examples from Christ for dealing with some of the worst situations that life can throw at us. How, for example, would Christ enact the dictum to "love your neighbor" if He came across a murder threat or a rape in progress? Is it neighborly love to allow a victim to be abused and even killed; is it neighborly love to allow a criminal to continue in his evil? And if Christ were given executive power in a modern government, would He combat terrorism simply by holding massive prayer vigils and sending emissaries of compassion to the terrorists?

Also, why did Christ not take his preaching to the world leaders of his time? Why did He focus it on twelve men at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder? Did He think that governments should honor exactly the same "love" commands that were given to the individuals who followed him? Now that's a really interesting question. If He believed that the Roman government--or even the politically-active Jewish rebel groups of his time--should have turned pacifist, why didn't He take that message to them? Wasn't he just wasting his time with those twelve fishermen? The fact is, we have no evidence that Christ believed that governments could function on the "turn the other cheek" philosophy. On the contrary, all the evidence we see from the Gospels suggests that Christ was utterly uninterested in politics--that is, in the secular public square. His interest seems to have been primarily with the private life of the human heart and with the religious public square, the community of faith.

It is worth taking a close look at Christ's command to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and asking ourselves: what should our relationship be to the governing powers above us? How much are we to "render" up? In Romans 13, the Apostle Paul expounded these words of Christ, saying that governments are invested, by God, with certain powers and duties, including the duty to punish the guilty and reward those who do good. Paul goes on to give a short list of our personal duties as individual Christians. That list, the commandments, is followed by this simple line: "Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep" (v. 11, RSV). In other words, let the government perform its God-given duties so you can go about minding the responsibilities of your own life and the immediate burdens of your own soul.

There is no evidence that Christ or his apostles thought that governments should back off from criminals, that they should let the Hitlers, Saddam Husseins and Osama bin Ladens of the world run amok until such time as they might "see the light." In fact, loving one's neighbor may often mean protecting the weak from the evil.

Finally, this is what always troubles me most about Berry. He vents his spleen, criticizing The Terrible Way Things Are, but never shows us just how his alternative utopia is supposed to work, never shows us his Good and Perfect Way. He's all complaint and no concrete policy. (How, for example, can traditional agrarian life rescue the modern world from the troubles of our hyper-industrial progressivism?) And that, in the end, is why Wendell Berry is the writer I hate to love.

I Am Always on the Lookout for Books Like This..........2005-11-03

There are very, very few essential living authors. Berry has once again proven that he is among them. An absolutely inspirational work. Jefferson said: "the words of Jesus shine in this world like diamonds in a dung-hill".

Berry lifts these coruscating words and sayings -- and gently turns them so that their fiery truth is sometimes illuminating... and sometimes blinding. +Aaron K

Average customer rating:

Prose as poetry
Too much love?
I am speechless!
The Language of Loss and Love
Near perfection

Hannah Coulter: A Novel
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Jayber Crow
A Place on Earth: A Novel
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Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness

ASIN: 1593760787

Book Description

"Ignorant boys, killing each other," is just about all Nathan Coulter would tell his wife, friends, and family about the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. Life carried on for the community of Port William, Kentucky, as some boys returned from the war and the lives of others were mourned. In her seventies, Nathan's wife, Hannah, has time now to tell of the years since the war. In Wendell Berry's unforgettable prose, we learn of the Coulter's children, of the Feltners and Branches, and how survivors "live right on."

Customer Reviews:

Prose as poetry.......2007-05-18

Wendell Berry is a wonderful writer. Due to his training as a poet, his prose often reads like poetry with every word in its proper place. "Hannah Coulter" is a soft-spoken narrative of the life of a small village woman who loves the land and people that she is so close to. It is a novel about change from life before WWII to life after WWII. Berry has captured it well. He points out that not all the change has been beneficial.

What seems to be an agrarian literary work has universality, because everyone is touched by love, grief and death the way Hannah was touched, whether he lives on Fifth Avenue in New York City or on Elm Street in Port William, Kentucky.

It is a gentle book of deep meaning for people who realize they are living in a hectic age, without the roots they lost among the years. Less introspective readers will simply wonder what the author was smoking.

Too much love?.......2007-04-30

This is my first Wendell Berry novel, and I've been told that perhaps this is not the right place to start. I can agree with the other reviewers that his writing acheives the tone of ths spoken word, and often I simply forgot that I was reading and instead seemed to be listening to the narrator. On the other hand, reading the book is a little like listening to someone blissed-out on prozac. There is simply too much love and when there is hardship (especially with respect to her relationship with her children), it is dismissed with a rather cold acknowledgment that sometimes life is hard. I enjoyed the book but it lacked a certain tension that really grips the attention.

I am speechless!.......2007-02-19

What can I say that other reviews have not already said so beautifully? This precious book touched my heart in many many ways. I will never forget Hannah and her family and the people that touched her life. This author has a way with words that I have not seen in the hundreds of other books that I have read. I can't wait to read more & just hope that they can come close to the beauty of this book.

The Language of Loss and Love.......2007-02-12

Wendell Berry is perhaps one of the most masterful storytellers writing fiction in America today: it is truly a shame that his work is not more widely recognized. Time and again he crafts simple yet complex, almost elegiac tales that are odes to a time past and a present and future forever affected by the passage of time. "Hannah Coulter" is a focused memoir of a woman who has known both love and loss, joy and pain, and what it means to keep on living.

Readers familiar with Berry's works know that his stories center around the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. They will also be familiar with the bare bones of Hannah's story - the young bride who lost her husband to WWII, left widowed with a daughter who will never know her father, a soldier forever "missing in action". Eventually she learns to love another, Nathan Coulter, a WWII soldier himself who never speaks of the atrocities he witnessed and Hannah never presses him. They live out their life together, starting in debt on a worn-down farm, having two sons of their own, scratching out a life for many years before they can establish themselves, relying on the "membership" of the community around them for love, guidance and support.

Hannah's narrative is the most far-reaching of Berry's novels and stories of Port William: she is still alive in this century, having outlived both of her husbands and witnessed the loves and losses of her own children and grandchildren. The author has a keen insight into Hannah's loss and grief, offering a thread of connection to tie grief to living and loss to love. His words and ponderings are truly alive through Hannah's experiences, as she ponders the changes that life brings. The common theme among Berry's works, the deterioration of community, is ever-present and deftly examined through Hannah's eyes.

In his Acknowledements, Wendell Berry makes note of the fact that this novel has put him "more in need of help than any of the previous six." Indeed, this novel touches on the very real experiences of the young men who fought in the Battle of Okinawa and he places himself in debt to those who helped him in his research. But it is fair to offer the opinion that we as readers are indebted to Wendell Berry for his novels; for the hope he manages to offer in the face of overwhelming despair, for his poetic way of describing life, for crafting a fictional world that is remarkably alive and real to any who read it. The literary world owes a great debt to Wendell Berry.

I must admit that "Hannah Coulter" sat on my shelf until the day I knew there was another Port William novel I had not read. I dread the day when that is not a possibility, but relish the fact that any story I read about Port William will be an experience of coming home, whether it is a new story to me or one I have read and cried over and rejoiced over in the past. That is the power a great storyteller has - to make an imaginary world come alive for a reader, to make words feel like home, to offer healing and hope in the darkest despair.

Near perfection.......2006-09-14

I have a sinking suspicion that Wendell Berry is a woman. He gets this voice pitch perfect.

Average customer rating:

An enthusiastically recommended, thought-provoking cross-examination of modern society.
A fine addition to Berry's ouevre
A Plea for Humility
Open your mind to Berry's ideas
A Timely and Important Contribution to the Present Zeitgeist

The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1593761198

Book Description

The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, Terry Schiavo — contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the “free market” or “free enterprise?” What is really involved in our National Security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career.

Customer Reviews:

An enthusiastically recommended, thought-provoking cross-examination of modern society........2006-11-05

The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays is an anthology of writings by cultural critic Wendell Berry - one of Smithsonian magazine's 35 People Who Made a Difference - about topics ranging from what freedom is really being discussed when one speaks of "free market" or "free enterprise", to the costs of so-called rugged individualism in a democratic commonwealth, to sharp-laced observations on the Kerry campaign, and much more. Written in plain terms, The Way of Ignorance takes a cold, hard look at the doubletalk and doublethink that saturates modern American airwaves, stripping them down to bare conundrums, all with a heavy dose of the author's practical evaluation. An enthusiastically recommended, thought-provoking cross-examination of modern society.

A fine addition to Berry's ouevre.......2006-09-15

This collection of essays centers on the concept of accepting humankind's inevitable ignorance, as an antidote to deadly hubris. As Berry says, "Creatures who have armed themselves with the power of limitless destruction" must not pridefully embrace their limited knowledge. Instead, the "way of ignorance ... is to be careful, to know the limits and efficacy of our knowledge. It is to be humble, and to work on an appropriate scale."

Scale is a recurring theme here as Berry returns to the roots of his thinking in the realm of family farming. His essays touch on environmental destruction, factory farming, the weaknesses of the 'save the blank' movement. But also on The Gospels, the future of the Democratic party, and the value of husbandry in a materialistic world.

I always enjoy Berry's thoughts as I find him one of the clear, non-polarized voices out there. He speaks not just as a conservationist but as a working farmer, not just as a liberal but as a Christian. He points out the faults of the liberal movement as readily as he criticizes the corporate culture. I prefer his book-length work as i feel here he can only briefly touch on subjects. The collection also includes essays that feel a bit redundant or not of as much interest. Still his work here is also humble and to scale, and so the 180 pages can be quickly read and the best of the harvest pulled out for closer attention.

A Plea for Humility.......2006-05-28

The Way of Ignorance is a plea for humility. Wendell Berry asks the simple question, "Can great power or great wealth be kind to small places?" and knows that the earnest believer-in-what-could-be will have to live with heartbreak. "By living as we do, in our ignorance and our pride, we are diminishing our world and the possibility of life." The purity of Berry's vision enables him to speak with a voice that is radical and simple. He restores us to our forgotten common sense. He opens our eyes to the beauty of small places and calls us to tend to their uncompromising complexities. He bids us hold tight to the irreplaceable.

Berry's plea for humility extends to all, from overly confident scientists and self-assured political leaders to the "many Christians who are exceedingly confident in their understanding of themselves in their faith." "When Jesus speaks of having life more abundantly . . . He is talking about a finite world that is infinitely holy, a world of time that is filled with life that is eternal. His offer of more abundant life, then, is not an invitation to declare ourselves as certified `Christians,' but rather to become conscious, consenting, and responsible participants in the one great life . . . To [this offer] we have chosen to respond with the economics of extinction." "Violence, in short, is the norm of our economic life and our national security. The line that connects the bombing of a civilian population to the mountain `removal' by strip-mining to the gullied and poisoned field to the clear-cut watershed to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight."

In a time of arrogance and high-risk miscalculation, technological, economic and military overreaching, Berry is there to call us back - back to our senses. "If we find the consequences of our arrogant ignorance to be humbling, and we are humbled, then we have at hand the first fact of hope: We can change ourselves." I recommend The Way of Ignorance.

Open your mind to Berry's ideas.......2006-01-24

Wow! I am blown away again by Wendell Berry's thoughts and way of seeing the world. His ideas should be shouted from the rooftops. First of all, his writing conveys the strength of friendship. He respects and honors his friend, Wes Jackson, throughout the book and especially in the essay "The Way of Ignorance". I ordered the tape of this talk which he gave at Wes Jackson's Land Institute at the Prairie Festival in 2004.

There is so much of value in this book, but the other essay I would highly recommend is "Renewing Husbandry".

The best way to review Berry's work is to quote him.

"The most forceful context of every habitat now is the industrial economy that is doing damage to all habitats. We can't preserve neighborliness or charity or peaceability or an ecological consciousness, or anything else worth preserving, at the same time that we maintain an earth-destroying economy. Nothing ultimately flourishes in our present economy but selfish aims, and these are often mutually contradictory. We have to have a sort of pity for the CEO of a polluting corporation who desires wealth, healthy children, and a vacation in the restorative purity of nature. And surely we have to extend the same pity to those whio are sure that "it takes a village to raise a child" but who forget that it takes a local culture and a local economy to raise a village."

And.
"Harmony between our human economy and the natural world-local adaption-is a perfection we will never finally achieve but must continously try for. There is never a finality to it because it involves living creatures who change. The soil has living creatures in it. It has live roots in it, perennial roots if it is lucky. If it is the soil of the right kind of farm, it has a farm family growing out of it."

A Timely and Important Contribution to the Present Zeitgeist.......2005-11-03

This book is disturbingly honest. The honesty oozes from the pages of these analytic and interpretative literary compositions. It's a bracing honesty that I am not always prepared for -- but have come to expect from this septuagenarian agrarian. In my favorite of these essays - "The Burden of the Gospels", Mr. Berry muses:

But what, for example, are we to make of Luke 14:26: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." This contradicts not only the fifth commandment but Jesus' own instruction to "Love thy neighbor as thyself." It contradicts his obedience to his mother at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. It contradicts the concern he shows for the relatives of his friends and followers..."

And then with stunning clarity offers the following:
" We may say with some reason that such apparent difficulties might be resolved if we knew more, a further difficulty being that we don't know more. The Gospels, like all other written works, impose on their readers the burden of their incompleteness. However partial we may be to the doctrine of the true account or "realism," we must concede at last that reality is inconceivably great and any representation of it necessarily incomplete."

Wendell Berry has subtitled this essay "An unconfident reader"... I suggest that this sums up the whole of this collection of essays. Berry is unconfident as he reads the American landscape of theologizing, politics, commerce, conservation, and thought. Unconfident -- but as always, uncompromisingly honest in his reading. +Aaron K.

Average customer rating:

Worthy Read
Remember the partridge
A good argument for a return to our roots
Should Be Read By All
If Only More People Listened

What Are People For?
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: North Point Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0865474370

Book Description

In the twenty-two essays collected here, Wendell Berry, whom The Christian Science Monitor called “the prophetic American voice of our day,” conveys a deep concern for the American economic system and the gluttonous American consumer. Berry talks to the reader as one would talk to a next-door neighbor: never preachy, he comes across as someone offering sound advice. He speaks with sadness of the greedy consumption of this country’s natural resources and the grim consequences Americans must face if current economic practices do not change drastically. In the end, these essays offer rays of hope in an otherwise bleak forecast of America's future. Berry’s program presents convincing steps for America’s agricultural and cultural survival.

Customer Reviews:

Worthy Read.......2007-05-14

With sharp insight Berry's essays serve as a vision of a different life with different values: values of family, land, preservation, and thrift. Worth the time to read though Berry's vocabulary may be a hindrance to some less accomplished readers.

Remember the partridge.......2005-02-23

Certainly Wendell Berry is a writer who helps us decipher our wings from our weights. We Americans need that as our things so weigh us down that we forget to try our wings. In quoting Blake, "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings," he reminds us of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus the craftsman could use his craft to fashion waxen wings to help his son escape murderous pursuit but could not protect Icarus from the consequences of his own poor judgement. Daedalus himself was guilty of poor judgement when he pushed from a high tower his nephew whose invention surpassed his own. Fortunately a goddess intervened and before impact the nephew was transformed into an humble creature, the low-flying, bush-roosting partridge.
Our model here, the partridge, knows his limits. Knowledge and technology help us but do not help us infinitely. Our judgement in using technology may be flawed but it is not the fault of technology. Afterall, our bare hands were ill-used before there were axes to blame. Berry warns that our damages make us pestilent and that culture provides apology but seems to forget his own tenet that culture arises from community and our communal spirit, including our joys and our sorrows.
As humble servants and caretakers of what we are graced with, we stand in awe of earth and sky. When we yoke ourselves with the weight of the damage we have done we are being mindful. But if we confine our spirit with scruples we will never soar. And we are nothing if not flocking creatures magnificent in full formation stroking the air for all we are worth.

A good argument for a return to our roots.......2004-09-14

Berry is a highly-respected environmental writer who advocates a move back to smaller communities more closely tied to the land. This is a collection of his essays. They are good, although I enjoyed his book Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community better because it was more of a cohesive unit.

Should Be Read By All.......2003-05-24

This book sits on my coffee table in the living room. I draw from Mr. Berry's philosophy and writings almost daily. This book should be required reading in colleges and universities. It speaks of the sensibilities most of us have forgotten. I have loaned my copy to many friends, all have read it, it has changed the way they approach their lives and how they look at how we all live.

If Only More People Listened.......2002-02-24

I do not agree with everything Berry says in this book, but I must confess that he changed the way I see the world. His lucid dissections of American culture and economical practices, his bottom-up solutions to the problems facing us today, and his unselfish, honest prose convinced me of most of his points. Here is a writer not in it for fame or awards or prestige. Here we have a truly passionate, motivated, moral voice for these hollow times.

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

Average customer rating:

prophetic
Discovering a buried treasure
As Usual, Wonderful Writing of Real Truth
Wendell tells it like it is. Truth or Consequences
This book should come with a warning label...

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Sierra Club Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays

ASIN: 0871568772

Amazon.com

The mid-20th-century environmental crisis that led to important protective legislation in the 1970s, is, to poet/farmer Wendell Berry's mind, also a crisis of character, agriculture, and culture. Because Americans are divorced from the land, they mistreat it; because they are divorced from each other, they mistreat those around them. Berry, writing in a prophetic mode, argues that if Americans are to heal the environmental wounds their land has suffered, they will also need to create more meaningful work, sustain happier and healthier lives, and return to what conservatives call "family values." The Unsettling of America is a quarter century old now, but most of its arguments remain current.

Book Description

Since its original publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural development and spiritual discipline. But today's agribusiness takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families, and as a nation we are thus more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it.
Sadly, as Berry notes in this edition, his arguments and observations are even more relevant than ever. We continue to suffer loss of community, the devaluation of human work, and the destruction of nature under an economics dedicated to the mechanistic pursuit of products and profits. Although "this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong," Berry writes, there are good people working "to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth." Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.

Customer Reviews:

prophetic.......2005-11-20

So many things talked about in this book have happened. There's things he talks of that seem unbelievable...but years ago he said there would be dairy farms here and beef farms there and the diverse farms would give way to specialization. That has happened. There's a good many points in this book that presents his views - and that of many Americans - straight up. Not everyone will agree. There are companies who say it's safe to use their chemical or it's only the other guy who's careless. Country and farms are disappearing today at a rate that most don't even realize. When it's all paved over or subdivided...reread this book.

Discovering a buried treasure.......2005-04-29

I grew up in Clarksville, TN, on the border with Guthrie, KY. Up the road not too far is Port Royal, KY, where one of the greatest living Americans still resides. He has lived there as long as I have been alive, and I am now over 30, but I had never heard of Wendell Berry until I had passed my thirtieth year. Were it not for the incomparable radio program "Unwelcome Guests", I may never have heard of him. It is a testament to the failure of our economy, education system, and culture, and it is why no thinking American doubts we are nearing a tragic and historic collapse; we are sliding fast down a snow-packed slope like a child on a greased sled. Our only short-term destiny is to smack into a tree.

"The Unsettling of America" is nearly as old as I am, and it is as alive and timely as the day it was written. Probably even more so, since its remedies are the salves for our national malady, and they need an even more urgent prescription and application today than they did 30 years ago. Berry not only succinctly and brilliantly describes how we lost our small farmers, he astutely ties that loss to the loss of culture, belonging, responsibility, community, and character we all feel and mourn in our modern lives, even if we don't understand or fully comprehend that empty feeling. It is, after all, called agri-CULTURE because the land is tied intimately with culture, and to convert agriculture into agribusiness is to divorce people from nature, from a responsibility towards nature, and from an understanding of her cycles and patterns, without which, we are incomplete; it is to convert all of us from nurturers into usurpers and exploiters, as Berry explains throughout.

So, this is not just a book about the loss of the small farmer. It is a book about our loss of liberty, independence, personal satisfaction, wealth, pride, mystery, and community. The way Berry weds these losses together throughout the book is a completely compelling. Berry's clean, beautiful, crystal clear prose moves deliberately, with a purposeful trajectory, and it effortlessly maintains a palpable weight of authority that can only be derived from real wisdom. He is a voice at once profoundly conservative and astutely liberal, or, in short, a real prophetic voice.

"The Unsettling of America" is indeed wise, and it was indeed prophetic. The dangerous excesses he foresaw 30 years ago have come to pass in ever accelerating fashion. His remedies absolutely essential for the preservation of America, and for that matter, the world. Everyone should read this book and read Wendell Berry in general. Should we carry on our culture after we smack that tree (we might, after all, break our necks), Wendell Berry will be remembered when Polk, Buchanan, Clinton, and Bush are long, long forgotten, or so we should all hope.

As Usual, Wonderful Writing of Real Truth.......2005-04-12

Wendell Berry's writings have to be the most to-the-point, profound and real about life in rural America, how it used to be, how it might still be, but how often it is not. 'The Unsettling of America' encapsulates this all with a strong and real writing style and which tells the truth about our current way of living.

I would recommend this book to all readers, country and city dwellers alike, as it is so telling and exposing of the mess we have made of our landscape, the reasons why, and how we might actually return it to being more vibrant and real.

I would also recommend reading "Against the Machine" by Nicols Fox, recently published, which goes into more detail about the destruction of people's lives by the 'machinery' of the system in which we live, and how we might stop this also.

Wendell tells it like it is. Truth or Consequences.......2005-03-07

Just simply blowed away by negative reviews of this book. I grew up on a small farm when you could still make a living there. Our rural community was much closer, neighborly, trusting, and thick with the smells, sounds and sights of country living. I left home at 18 traveling the world in our military and ran from that "work ethic and way of life" on the farm. Lived in some of this worlds largest cities discovering first hand all the reasons why country living was "paradise on earth."
Oh, I've heard all the urban preachers and their reasons why they love the city. I lived it!!!!!
Is there any wonder why higher income people are moving into rural america! Land prices are thru the roof, they come here with their city mind, mouth and motivations. Why? Because they want a view and try to escape all those negative things in the city. Not to mention raise their kids in a small coummunity in hopes of everyone and everything turning out ok. They don't understand farming communities, our culture, our history nor our way of life.
Ah! We are free! But wait, they come here and destroy our pastoral settings and fill the land with strip malls, fast food joints, quick marts and infrastructure that makes it "country no more."
If any farmer holds out in this "developers dream of a jauggernaut" these new "country folk" start raising cain about the country sights, smell and sounds and want the farmer gone.
Wendell is right on in this book. Oh sure there are bits and pieces of his opinion that rub some liberal wrong. But hey I'm sure a few conservatives cried foul too.
Open up your mind and heart. Look at the facts. Can you trust corporate america? Big brother? Individual selfishness and greed? A bank director and his real estate developer friend once told me that they had joined forces with our county commissioners and planning commission community and preach their "farming is dead lets split up the land and develope the farms" gospel. If they build people will come! Hmm, sounds like a movie I once saw. They are building and people are coming.
Reality of wendell's book tells it like it is. There has been a movement (I like the word conspiracy better but that will alienate a few) to industrialize american agriculture since 1940's. The corporate machine and its disciples have forclosed on many family farms, driven off the "inefficient", destroyed many lives, all in the name of progress!!!!!!
It is all about just a select few industrial size farmers doing business as corporations, corporate chemical company profits off corporate farmers, college/universities gifted $$$millions of dollars to report and publish thru sound science (you don't believe that do you?) the wonderful benefits of more food with less land, by less farmers and healthier for you. And oh yes, our environment will be cleaner because splicing plant genes with chemical compounds and breeding new GMO (genetically modified organisms)foods means the farmer uses less chemicals (is that what the chemical company wants to do, put itself out of business for the sake of humanity? -- remember a portion of your 401k is tied to that companies performance and if they don't do well, neither will you) Roundup Ready Corn/beans/cotton/wheat is here. Spray roundup on your lawn and it does what? Dies!! Put a teaspoon of pure roundup in your coffee each morning and stir, how long before you may come up with cancer or some other ailment? No! Corporate America and our Universities have managed to fill our food pipeline with RR products for years and you consume a portion of it everytime you dine. Just a few steady PPM on a weekly basis, you'll be fine and live to a ripe old age?
Thanks Wendell for preaching the TRUTH!!!!!!

This book should come with a warning label..........2004-03-06

I had to read this in high school. It is a dangerously seductive piece of propaganda that persuasively hits all the "right notes," especially for anyone with a muddle-headed agenda that exists in defiance of common sense. When looked at rationally, it is probably the single most evil, hate-filled piece of writing I have ever encountered. It could only have been written from one of two perspectives. Either the author has absolutely no understanding of the realities that make human life possible, or else he has a profound and deep-seated loathing of civilization. I am not exaggerating when I state my feeling that, if there is ever another truly dangerous ideology that, like Nazism, will be embraced by the weak-minded and easily misled, a book like this could very easily be their bible. In it, they will find all of the misguided ammunition they need to justify destroying everything of value and beauty in the human world.

In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World (The New Patriotism Series, Vol. 1) (The New Patriotism Series)

Average customer rating:

Berry should have been laughed out of the publishing world long ago
already in "Citizenship Papers"
Clarity of thinking
an eye opening analysis
Not the best Berry

In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World (The New Patriotism Series, Vol. 1) (The New Patriotism Series)
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Orion Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0913098604

Book Description

In these three poignant essays, prolific author Wendell Berry reflects deeply on the current sources of world hope and despair. Thoughts in the Presence of Fear, written in response to the September 11 attacks, has since been reprinted in 73 countries and seven languages. The three essays provide a much-needed road map to a full cultural recovery.

Customer Reviews:

Berry should have been laughed out of the publishing world long ago.......2007-04-02

American presidents, understandably and out of what must be very close to grammatical necessity, have always used the pronoun "We" to speak of American policy. Yet in 2002, Berry said President Bush's use of this "We" was the royal "we" and ran counter to the Declaration of Independence.

Rather than being laughed at, Berry's essay has been anthologized and praised. It's time to speak the truth: never have inanity and insipidity been so fused in one author to the extent that they are fused in the ridiculous Wendell Berry.

already in "Citizenship Papers".......2006-11-18

These nice and thoughtful essays were already in Berry's "Citizenship Papers: Essays" I wish I had known that before I bought both.

Clarity of thinking.......2006-01-12

It has taken 5 years, but the ideas expressed by Wendell Berry shortly after 9/11 are finally starting to spread. Thought XXIII In the Presence of Fear - " We must not again allow public emotion or the public media to caricature our enemies. If our enemies are now to be some nations of Islam, then we should undertake to know those enemies. Our schools should begin to teach the histories, cultures, arts, and languages of the Islamic nations. And our leaders should have the humility and the wisdom to ask the reasons some of the people have for hating us."

As I hear more and more frustration from those caught in the mechanical web of phone tree "service" and the difficulty of having problems addressed by a real person, Berry's call for Local Economies rings loud and true. For the sake of real security, for the sake of community and knowing where your food or other goods come from, for the sake of jobs for our kids, his words should be carefully considered.

For fuller treatment of the subjects discussed in these essays, read Wendell Berry's new book, "The Way of Ignorance".

an eye opening analysis.......2003-10-27

This book helped me to see how modern so-called self-named "First World" countries are guided by the worship of the dollar. One can take it to the next level and say that ultimately racial and class issues today are a result of this love of the dollar and that white supremacism in this world is based on it. In order to dismantle white supremacy you need to get to the heart of it's greed which creates a necessary lack of respect for humanity and ultimately LIFE on earth. God's creations are sorely put upon for the sake of vain greed. America has caused problems in this world and has yet to fully face them. I say this as an igbo woman born here in america being forced daily to realize things mainstream whites can and do ignore.

Not the best Berry.......2003-09-01

A small book with little development. Perhaps if your taste runs to that, it might be okay. I think I would find it a confusing introduction to Berry and hesitate to recommend it to newcomers to Berry. The second essay is particularly brief. Readers who do not know Berry might better sample essays in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, a collection that locates Berry in his particular landscape, and explicates his ideas about "Agrarian Economics" and "Agrarian Religion." The first essay is a series of twenty-seven numbered statements. It can be found online. The third essay contains some solid ideas. Movement efforts are often "insincere," Berry argues, in that they focus on policy or other people's behavior, not on the behavior that we can best change--our own. This, in a sense takes us back to the numbered statements which are advices for living towards a changed world. Berry is worth reading, but this does not seem a book for beginners nor for experienced Berry readers.

Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Christian Practice of Everyday Life, The)

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We need practices that can lift us out of our narrowness and alienation

Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (Christian Practice of Everyday Life, The)
Norman Wirzba
Manufacturer: Brazos Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Sabbath

ASIN: 1587431653
Release Date: 2006-12-01

Book Description

Sabbath is one day a week when we should rest from our otherwise harried lives, right? In Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba leads us to a much more holistic and rewarding understanding of Sabbath-keeping. Wirzba shows how Sabbath is ultimately about delight in the goodness that God has made--in everything we do, every day of the week. With practical examples, Wirzba unpacks what that means for our daily lives at work, in our homes, in our economies, in school, in our treatment of creation, and in church. This book will appeal to clergy and laypeople alike and to all who are seeking ways to discover the transformative power of Sabbath in their lives today.

Customer Reviews:

We need practices that can lift us out of our narrowness and alienation.......2007-06-06

For most of us, if we are at all concerned with "keeping Sabbath," it is because of and in terms of the Commandment given to Moses: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." We set aside one day out of seven to worship and rest. But in LIVING THE SABBATH, Dr. Norman Wirzba digs deeper into the meaning and intent of the biblical concept of Sabbath as introduced in the Genesis creation account.

In an early chapter titled "The Meaning of the Sabbath, Wirzba introduces the Hebrew word menuha, "the rest, tranquility, serenity, and peace of God." (Think of the deep peace of shalom.) "Menuha, not humanity, completes creation. God's rest or shabbat...is not simply a cessation from activity but rather the lifting up and celebration of everything." In that context, Sabbath, "the climax of creation, is thus the goal toward which all our living should move." It is more than a one-day interlude. It is an attitude "suffusing every moment with the potential for peace and joy." It is delighting in the gifts of God. "The experience of delight is what the Sabbath is all about." It is seeing and valuing the sanctity of all creation --- this in opposition to exploiting our land, our food supply, our energy sources, our time, our fellow travelers. Wendell Berry, who wrote the book's foreword, plays heavily in Wirzba's scenario, as does Abraham Joshua Heschel.

A warning: Part 1 of the book ("Setting a Sabbath Context") is theoretical and theological. It defines terms ("The Meaning of the Sabbath"; "The Practice of Delight"). It explains our errant ways ("The Decline of Delight"). An introductory chapter titled "Losing Our Way" goes into some detail of what is wrong with the "current state of food production." It addresses the problem of evil ("Pain and Suffering"). These initial chapters may be boring if not mind-numbing to the average or recreational reader.

Having said that, Part 1 lays the ground work for Part 2 ("The Sabbath in Practical Context"), which is engaging and practical --- much easier to read. Though there is still snow on the ground, it makes me eager to go out and plant radish and spinach seeds in my tiny border garden. It makes me resolve to buy locally grown seasonal vegetables at the nearby farmer's market even if they are no bargain. It reminds me of the delight --- even if tinged with frustration --- of working alongside other church members on a group project. It makes a case for the "family meal" and family meal preparation --- moments and rituals that engender relationships and community.

Some of Wirzba's suggestions or conclusions may seem unrealistic, pushing toward utopian, but his book challenges me and makes me feel hopeful, seeing that even small changes in my life can paradoxically both cause and be the result of my delighting in God and in God's creation and Christ's redemption. Wirzba concludes: "In a time of consumerist individualism, often empty of generosity and deep delight, we need practices that can lift us out of our narrowness and alienation." Amen, brother.

--- Reviewed by Evelyn Bence

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays

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Clear and lucid thinking...how rare these days.
One of the best...
One to read slowly and thoughtfully
One of those "if you don't read any other book this year...
An original and developed mind

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays
Wendell Berry
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679756515
Release Date: 1994-09-13

Customer Reviews:

Clear and lucid thinking...how rare these days........2007-04-24

Every day it seems the world looks a little more broken to me. It helps so much to read a few pages of Wendell Berry. He is a fantastic example of someone who thinks for himself; and really strives to get to the core truth about the important issues we face as a civilization. It should be required reading for everyone in the United States - IF we want to get on a path to restoration and healing of our society. But that's where the scary part comes in. I'm beginning to think people would put this book down and give up on it a few pages in. Even if they did get all the way to the end, not many would be willing to put the ideas into practice in their daily lives.

I picked this selection for my book club, and it was very interesting to watch the responses of the participants. You could sense the tension - watch them wiggling in their chairs. They were so relieved when we were finally done with the book; and not because it was poorly written; just because it requires an examination of how far we've all fallen from what is true. I will continue to encourage people to read this excellent and important book, but it will never be an easy sell...and that's a shame.

One of the best..........2003-06-30

...thinkers I was exposed to in high school while researching for an essay report. His well-balanced thoughts on various agrarian and community-based themes are the most eloquent I have found from a single writer. His words and rationales spring from the land and argue pursuasively for more restraint for the betterment of the world by the human animal. The most compelling living philospher I know of is Wendell Berry. I recommend all of his written works.

One to read slowly and thoughtfully.......2000-01-10

This highly stimulating collection of Berry's essays contains some of the most important things Berry has written. The essay "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" is one of the most insightful and important theological statements of our day. It is in everyone's best interest to work to see that the organized churches take Berry's essay to heart. Of course, the book is also notable for the beauty of Berry's writing -- not coincidental, since he argues here and elsewhere for a recovery of the idea of work as sacred and for beauty as a measure of "right livelihood."

One of those "if you don't read any other book this year..........1998-12-15

If you're a content postmodern, don't read this book. It will leave you unsettled. The title essay from Berry's book is worth the price of the whole book. If you were to read only one book this coming year to guide both your thinking and your behavior (aside from the Bible which undergirds Berry's thinking), this would be a great choice. If the following snippet from the title essay resonates with your spirit, you'll want to pick this one up.

"If you destroy the ideal of the "gentle man" and remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration toward women and children, you have prepared the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people, but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold."

Why is it that we have our best thinkers like Berry running old family farms, and our worst thinkers running our national government? Sigh.

An original and developed mind.......1998-01-21

Berry is an original and developed mind, and is a champion of rural life and communities. His analysis goes beyond simple sentimentalism for rural life and ties in the role of an economy and a popular culture that are disconnected from any sense of community. His defense of the tobacco industry aside (how can one attack the defense industry, whose job it is to kill people, and defend the tobacco industry, who also make money on death?) this is one book to read slowly and deliberately. It's worth it.

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