…to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.” Kurt Vonnegut
I discovered Wendell Berry a few years back.
I loves his fiction first. Most of his novels and short stories are set in rural Kentucky where six generations of Berry’s ancestors on both sides of his family were farmers. His first novel, Nathan Coulter, published in 1960, is a great place to start reading him.
I love his non-fiction. He has been writing about the importance of the local economy and agriculture’s place in it for forty years. Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community is a collection of essays that helps us think about what is worth conserving from our past and worth preserving in our present.
And he is a poet. From Sabbaths:
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
I was so delighted when I saw this first review of The 53rd Parallel from an Irish reader, Eamon Howley, and read how much he enjoyed the Irish scenes. From the beginning I have been fascinated by the idea of bringing together Irish and First Nations Ojibway cultures and stories–the working title of this book was Dreams of Irish and Indians. I love to listen to Irish and the Indian voices, and smile each time I hear them in conversation with each other.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20560424-the-53rd-parallel#other_reviews
Carl Nordgren 