The Art of the Common place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

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Ah, Wendell Berry. The last time I attempted to read him, I, um, didn’t succeed. But then, I wasn’t getting much sleep either. And one thing I’ve learned about Berry is that you really have to focus on what he’s saying. I re-realized that with this book; I found I got the most out of the essays when it was quiet.

So, about the essays — the book is a collection of some of Berry’s essays on from the last thirty years, though I think the most recent was written in 1999. They touch on typical Berry subjects: the environment, place, community, conservation, farming. It wasn’t as extremist as I remember being Sex, Freedom, Economy & Community being (though there are several essays from that book here), but there was still food for thought.

And, as an interesting aside, I felt less guilty than usual while reading this book. I guess I have to back up a bit here: Berry makes me feel guilty. I guess it’s because I actually am persuaded by many of his arguments, and feel bad that I’m not doing more in my life. And since we’ve actually started making changes in our lives (read hubby’s post about that here) to conserve and to treat the world we live in better, I was able to read this book without the huge dose of guilt that has come along with reading Berry in the past.

Some other thoughts. I loved the first essay: “A Native Hill”. They called it a geobiography, and it was just beautifully written. Berry is such an evocative writer.

Perhaps it is to prepare to hear someday the music of the spheres that I am always turning my ears to the music of streams. There is indeed a music in streams, but it is not for the hurried. It has to be loitered by and imagined. Or imagined toward, for it is hardly for men at all. Nature has a patient ear. To her the slowest funeral march sounds like a jig. She is satisfied to have the notes drawn out to the lengths of days or weeks or months. Small variations are acceptable to her, modulations as leisurely as the opening of a flower.

There is one essay that hurt (I really can’t think of how else to put it). I was having a really bad day, as a mother, and I sat down to read “The Body and the Earth” and I got to a section entitled “Sexual Division”. And I read this:

This determinations that nurturing should become exclusively a concern of women served to signify to both sexes that neither nurture nor womanhood was very important. But the assignment to woman of a kind of work that was thought both onerous and trivial was the beginning of their exploitation… Women had become customers, a fact not long wasted on the salesmen, who saw that in these women they had customers of a new and most promising kind. The modern housewife was isolated from her husband, from her school-age children, and from other women. She was saddled with work from which much of the skill, hence much of the dignity, had been withdrawn, and which she herself was less and less able to consider important.

That’s exactly how I was feeling. Isolated. Like my life was a drudgery. It was emotional to see my feelings there on the page.

It was a good read. It is good to be reminded that nature is there and it is good, and an integral part of our lives, whether or not we live on a farm. That the real things in life: community, the growing season, nature, are what really matter. That technology and business isn’t the total sum of existence (and in fact, it just might do more harm than good). And if it takes an old crank from Kentucky to remind us of that, so be it.

A Growing Up Story

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Once upon a time, there was a girl who just knew that she wanted to be a Sports Reporter when she grew up. She was on her high school yearbook and newspaper staffs, and even had a subscription to Sports Illustrated. Then she got to college. She decided, fairly early on, that what she really wanted to be was Music and Art Critic. She took numerous music, art, theater and dance classes and worked for the campus newspaper. But never on the lifestyle desk. After a while, she decided what she really wanted to be was a Newspaper Photographer. But while that was a lot of fun, it was a short-lived dream.

After graduation, she decided that she’d had enough of Journalism (this decision was spurred on by her husband getting an arts reviewing job for the local paper), and thought she’d try Graduate School. She even took the GRE. And didn’t do so well. So much for that decision.

They move to Washington, DC, and the girl decided that she liked Writing, but since she wasn’t good at it, maybe she could be an Editor. But the competition was tough. Really tough. She didn’t get any of the jobs she applied for. She bailed and took a job at a little company which allowed her to read most of the time (while she waited for there to be work for her to do). A Reviewer was born (though she didn’t know it yet). Because she read so much, she started keeping track of all the books, writing little reviews of them.

She left the cushy job after three years, and became a Nanny. She realized very quickly that while she loved and enjoyed her children, taking care of other people’s kids was a headache and a chore.

She moved from Washington, DC (sigh), and spent the next five years in small towns in the South and Midwest. She helped out in her daughter’s kindergarten class, and thought being a Pre-School Teacher might be fun. But, after thinking about it some, realized it wasn’t that much fun. She thought she might be a Children’s Book Writer, and even took a class, but discovered that while they said she had talent, without the class she had no drive (or creativity) to write stories. She moved again — this time to a bigger city in Kansas — and thought she might want to be a Cake Decorator or Baker. Then she discovered that she liked eating the cake and frosting too much. Working around food is not a healthy option.

Then Heather posted that the editors of Estella’s Revenge were retooling the webzine to be a book publication. And they were looking for contributors. Ah, the girl (woman, now, I guess) thought, this is what I want to do. I want to read books and write about them. But wait, her husband said. That’s what you’re already doing! And she realized he was right. She’d been a book reviewer for over two years now, gathering a small but fairly faithful audience. And it’s been fun. So, she took a leap and branched out, sending in a contribution to the March issue of Estella’s Revenge. And while it’s not a brilliant piece of work, it’s a start. She’s even got an author interview lined up for (hopefully) the April issue.

So, I guess this story has a happy ending. She found out what she wants to do when she grew up, and is actually doing it. I like stories with happy endings, don’t you?

The Last of the Mohicans

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I tried.

Really, I did. I wanted to finish it — it’s my last book for the Classics Challenge.

But… I just couldn’t. And I can’t see why this is supposed to be a classic. The back said it was “Tragic, fast-paced, and stocked with the elements of a classic frontier adventure — massacres and raids, innocent settlers, hardened soldiers, renegade Indians, and a doomed love affair.” I thought it was plodding, confusing, violent and irritating. I bailed soon after one of the “good” Indians, Chingachgook, brutally killed an innocent French soldier, and Hawk-eye said this: “‘Twold have been a cruel and unhuman act for a white-skin, but ’tis the gift and natur [sic] of an Indian and I suppose it should not be denied! I would wish, though, it had befallen an accursed Mingo (slang for the “bad” Indians) rather than that gay, young boy, from the old countries!” I guess I’m just not the audience James Fenimore Cooper had in mind.

New Moon

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It is very difficult, as a sequel, to live up to the expectations created by the first book. You have expectations for the characters, and those expectations are not always what the author perceives is best. It’s the author’s book, after all, and you, as a reader, are at the mercy of the author’s imagination.

All that said, I don’t know if I had expectations for New Moon. I knew people liked it, people hated it, people resented reading it… So, I think if I did have expectations, they were pretty low.

And in one way, I was pleasantly surprised. (Spoilers, sorry.) I liked that Edward left Bella. It was sad, but I could see Edward doing something like that. (Maybe because a similar thing happened to me when I was 18, though not with a vampire. Dang.) I really liked the next 1/3 or so of the book with Jacob. I liked that Bella was moving on, I liked the relationship she was developing with Jacob. I even liked the rough patches and while the werewolf thing was a bit of a stretch, it was tolerable enough.

Then the book derailed on page 378 (it has 563 pages…). Alice shows up. Edward’s going to be rash and kill himself because he thinks Bella is dead (think Romeo and Juliet). Bella rushes with Alice to Italy to save him. And then — okay, this is true love, but sometimes true love doesn’t work out, right?! — they get back together. AGH! NO! What about Jacob? Well, we never find out about Jacob. Not really. Bella still wants to be friends. Right. Not happening. Suddenly, I don’t like Edward so much. I’m annoyed at him for coming back and interrupting Bella’s life and making her at his mercy again. And I spent today reading this. It’s frustrating. And cloying. And annoying.

And, yes, I’m just a little bit put out that I will probably get the book when it comes out later this year just to find out what happens to Bella and Edward. Grrr.

Mrs. Mike

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I hate Valentine’s Day.

Oh, I’m sure I liked it as a kid — decorating valentine’s boxes (there would always be a competition, and I would never win), handing out store-bought valentines. But sometime in high school (during my mismatched earrings, torn-jeans, hairy-legged feminist stage) I grew to loathe this holiday. Why do we need a day when we get chocolate and flowers? I don’t especially like red or pink or white, and while roses are pretty, I think I prefer them on a bush. Cheryl wrote about her friend’s anarchist fiance who boycotts major holidays. While I don’t subscribe to it during the month of December, anarchism in February sounds just about right.

All that said, Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman, is a perfect Valentine’s Day book. (It’s also book number four for the classics challenge.)

The story is simple enough: It’s 1907 and Kathy, an Irish immigrant living in Boston, is sent to Edmonton, Alberta, because of her pleurisy. Once there she meets Mike Flannigan, a Canadian Mounty, falls in love and marries him. She follows him to his post in the Northwest Territory, where she’s pretty much the only white woman. And they experience life. Fires, bears, babies, death, mutilation, festivals, friendship, love. It’s a quiet little book, but a tender one. Kathy learns to cope with a husband who belongs not just to her, but to the whole community. She makes friends, she deals with loss. She finds strength in community and in her husband.

I can see why it’s a classic.

Twilight

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I don’t read vampire books, as a rule. I’m not usually one who likes being terrified (just ask Hubby… I don’t do scary movies!). So, I tend to shy away from the whole vampire-monster-horror genre. Still when this book started popping up with positive reviews all over the blogs I usually read (like here, here and here) and when Inkling gave me a huge push, I put in on hold at the library. (It took me a while to get around to it, because I was several people down the list and because of the three copies the library has, only one is in circulation right now.)

So, what did I think?

First, this book obsessed me. I tend to lose myself in books, but for the most part I can put them down, walk away and look forward to coming back while I go on with my every day life. Exceptions occur, of course. But I couldn’t stop thinking about this one. I was drawn into it, and fascinated and haunted by it. But why? The writing is middling, more pulp fiction than really good fiction. The story borders on the harlequin; it’s first love, forbidden love, obsessive love. Yet it struck a chord in me (and probably most readers). I have a first love, forbidden love, obsessive love in my past. I was 17 once. Granted, it wasn’t with a vampire, but still.

And that’s where I think Stephenie Meyer was brilliant. Why not take the whole vampire lore, turn it on its head, and make them sympathetic? Why not make a stubborn girl, human girl, willing to sacrifice herself for the vampire, the monster? That’s where the fascination of this book truly lies.

As an aside, I’m using the book for this “Read outside the Box” challenge they’ve got going on at the library. The question I have is: Does this fall under romance or horror?

Fairest

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First of all, this is a really quick read. I started it last night. I finished it last night. I stayed up later than I usually do, though, and so I’m a bit tired today.

I wish I could say it was one of those books that’s worth staying up late. It’s not. It’s not a bad book; it’s just that it’s not Gail Carson’s Levine’s best.

It is an interesting premise, though. Take Snow White, set it in Ayortha (from Ella Enchanted), and give it a slight spin. I liked the story well enough: Aza (the Snow White character) is an innkeeper’s daughter (though adopted), she becomes a lady-in-waiting for the new queen (by accident and, um, persuasion), and ends up in prison and then exile. There are the dwarfs (gnomes, actually) and the poisoned apple, the prince, the happily ever after.

The spin though (spoilers ahead), was definitely unique: make the mirror evil. The queen is as much a victim here as Aza. But the mirror was selfish and evil, and plotted to get the people he was given to killed. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. It just wasn’t developed enough. When Aza finally encountered the mirror, it came out of left field. What? The mirror was evil? Huh? And it was given by the fairy Lucinda? Why? Huh? (Lucinda didn’t really even need to be brought into the story; she was only there by inference.)

Which leads me to other problems. While I liked the “moral” (accept the way you look, stop trying to look like everyone else, you’re unique and beautiful the way you are) of the story, I felt that Levine was a bit heavy-handed with it. Okay, we get it. Aza’s not really an oaf. The prince always loved her for who she was. She was her own worst critic. Etc.

Actually, I thought that Levine short-changed the prince. I didn’t like or dislike him at all. He was really a non-entity in the story . When I was talking to M about it this morning (she read the book first), I asked how she liked the prince. “Well,” she said, “I liked his dog.” I like that Levine has strong female characters who figure out things for themselves. But happily-ever-after endings don’t work if there’s not any real buildup to it.

One final note: I’d be curious to see what a reader does with the book-on-CD for this one. Much of it was “sung” (there are quite a few song poems and the characters don’t speak so much as sing). M’s biggest complaint was being bugged by the lack of tunes to put the songs to. It’d be interesting to see what a professional could do with it.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

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There are whimsical books (like Winnie the Pooh), there are silly books (like anything by Dr. Seuss), and then there’s Lewis Carroll. He really is in a class by himself. Part dream, part reality, all nonsense.

Out of the two, I liked Looking Glass better. It seemed it made more sense, or at least the nonsense was less, well, nonsensical. I was often annoyed by Alice in the first book — it seemed she was always getting offended or annoyed or crying. But then, I suppose, that would be a natural child’s reacation to being in such strange situations. But Looking Glass was fun. I don’t understand chess, so I didn’t really “get” that part of the book. But the rest was just plain dream-like silliness. I liked the puns (they were very punny), and I liked the poems. Jabberwocky is just fun to read aloud.

I’m sure people have dissected these books and come up with political and hidden and adult meanings to all this. But I think it’s fine as it is, even if I didn’t understand half of what was going on.

Three down for the classics challenge.