Wendell Berry, well known in his native Kentucky, is a
remarkable writer. I have come to his fiction late, having experienced the
precise, logical and beautiful non-fiction already and some of his poetry.
This collection of short stories focuses on the town of
Port William, which is a thinly disguised fictionalisation of Berry’s home in
Henry County, Kentucky.
The stories span 1888 to 1981 and tie together the
stories of families in the area. They are linked by the theme of connectedness
to place. All the characters are tied to the soil that they farm, and are loyal
to the old ways.
Here are the recollections handed from father to son,
mother to daughter, repeated with affection and love. Berry was born in 1934,
and his memory extends further having assimilated the lore of his ancestors.
His skill is to interpret them, perhaps to rename, and shape the stories in a
way that teach the reader about the importance of tradition.
Rural America is often derided. The picture of America
that is beamed into our homes is shaped by the literature of the East Coast and
the Film Industry of the West. What Berry is keen to make clear is that the
centre, the backwoods, the farms and wild places, are as vital and important,
and must not be overlooked. He portrays intelligent, fair and peaceful people
who resist the creep of large companies into their lives, and the destruction
that the greed of an all consuming economy can wreak on those left behind. He
is right, of course, that most of do not see where or how the things we consume
are grown or produced. What these stories do is give an indication of lives now
passed that were just as important and vital as our own. We inhabit a world of
technology and instant pleasure. In describing rural life over a hundred year
period Berry shows us that the lives we lead are for the most part so
disconnected from our origins as to be unbalanced and unhealthy.
It is difficult to describe the simple beauty and wisdom
of these stories. They contain insights into rural America that cannot be found
elsewhere. The closest comparison is some of the writing of Annie Proulx, a
near contemporary from the other end of the country. Certainly some of the
names employed have the same strange ring.
America is so divided, and perhaps here are insights into
why it has journeyed so far down a difficult road. The past, and the wisdom
that it contained, is being ignored.
America needs Wendell Berry now, but it also needs to
have people who are willing to read, and to listen.
