Wendell Berry, "The most important living writer in America"
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,802
Today was set up day for my last book fare. It's been fun but also a bit stressful for me and definitely hard on the body. Sometimes the best wisdom is to know when to say, "enough". I felt a great sadness setting up my last showing but not all was sorrow. What really made it happen for me today was having Ken Sanders come by and take time to talk with me awhile. Ken is very well known in the book world. His store, Ken Sanders Books, has been around a long while and has been featured in at least one documentary that I know of. Ken was good friends with writer/activist/curmudgeon and all-around desert rat, Edward Abbey.
We got to talking about Abbey when suddenly Ken noticed that I was featuring not only some Abbey books but also some works by Wendell Berry. That quickly got his attention. He told me he had met Berry and I so , "Oh great! When was that?" He said that actually, he has know Berry for quite some time and has spent time camping with him and hanging out with him and has called and written to him often. I said that was great. Ken recited a few bits of Berry's work for me and then got very serious and said to me very powerfully, "Wendell Berry is the most important American writer living today." I nodded my head and told him that I had met Berry and was just amazed by the man's presence, humanity and humility. I also mention that Berry's Unsettling of America; Culture and Agriculture is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Ken nodded his head in return.
The phrase "National Treasure" gets tossed around a lot these days but if ever there were such a thing, it would well fitting to refer to Wendell Berry as such.
We got to talking about Abbey when suddenly Ken noticed that I was featuring not only some Abbey books but also some works by Wendell Berry. That quickly got his attention. He told me he had met Berry and I so , "Oh great! When was that?" He said that actually, he has know Berry for quite some time and has spent time camping with him and hanging out with him and has called and written to him often. I said that was great. Ken recited a few bits of Berry's work for me and then got very serious and said to me very powerfully, "Wendell Berry is the most important American writer living today." I nodded my head and told him that I had met Berry and was just amazed by the man's presence, humanity and humility. I also mention that Berry's Unsettling of America; Culture and Agriculture is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Ken nodded his head in return.
The phrase "National Treasure" gets tossed around a lot these days but if ever there were such a thing, it would well fitting to refer to Wendell Berry as such.
"Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth. And to hope."
-Jim Acosta
Post edited by brianlux on
0
Comments
Anyone who reads often has had that experience where a writer voices opinions, philosophy, ethics, or values that you hold dear but had never worked into fully formed and cogent ideas that you could articulate. Sometimes writers express things that you didn't even realize were already important to you until you heard them articulated.
My wife discovered Berry through his musings on the absurdity of our modern society and politics and brought him into our home, but it was his writing on food production and living with the land which sustains us that struck a deep chord within me.
We had just moved out of the Columbus metro to a house in the boonies and I was very excited to keep expanding my efforts at producing food and appreciating the simplicity of a life lived in the woods. I hadn't yet considered the deep subconscious reasons and motivation for this desire and suddenly, here's Wendell talking with supreme reverence about the merits of picking berries and performing what I now call the Sacred Ritual, which is putting my bare hands in the dirt and coaxing life into being to sustain myself and those I love. It was a game changer for me, my brain now had the language to express what my deepest heart was shouting up at it all along.
There's no way to put a value on that.
It wasn't long after that I happened upon Lynn Rosetto Casper's NPR food program "The Splendid Table" and over time heard her and her guests talking reverently about the ancient and immensely important ritual of sharing food.
Together, they gave me a voice to express my deepest passion, which is producing and sharing food, and gave me the tools to understand why it was something I cared so much about.
Thanks Wendell!
Thanks Lynn!
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.