Review: Remembering
There is a peculiar light to Monday mornings–uneasy, as if hurry thrums in the very color of the day. The workday rush was mobbing my conscience, but I gated it out because I was reading a book I truly could not put down. It was noon before I finished, and by that time all my bustle had been scattered by the slow, sweet rise of joy that ached in my story. I don’t think I’ve ever been so immediately affected by a book as I was by Wendell Berry’s short novel, Remembering.
I have taken Wendell Berry for my mentor. His books challenge me, especially his fiction, because they make me face what is real, hungry, and true in my own heart. This is not escapist literature–there is no whisking away involved in reading Hannah Coulter, or A Place on Earth. You don’t put down his novels like you do some modern books and wish your life weren’t so mundane. In Berry’s characters, you meet yourself. The loves, the quiet losses, the unspoken griefs, the desires for transcendence and hope that plague every one of us every day get articulated in the thoughts and lives of his characters. Because of this, Mr. Berry also manages to put his finger on the pulse of what we have lost in modern culture. He writes about the loss of community, the breakup of families, the deadening ways of consumerism, the way wonder is poisoned by a materialistic view of life, and he does it with quiet, logical eloquence, demanding that we value the old ways again. He speaks what we all feel, but have no idea how to say.
I must admit though, that I have often wanted to write him a letter of protest. How, I would say, do you return to community if you never had one? I yearn for a history, for a people that know me. But how do you learn rootedness without roots? Berry himself grew up in Kentucky, the son of farmers. He left to study, and could have stayed away, breaking the “membership” (one of his terms) of the life to which he was born. But he came back. He re-entered the fellowship of place and family that were his history and gift. Lucky him. What if you don’t have that to come back to? Could he possibly understand the sense of displacement felt by so many in my generation? I have the priceless grounding of a strong, loving family, but I’ve moved at least 15 times in my 25 years. I yearn to be settled, and ultimately, known. Can a nomad soul like mine ever find community? There is no “place on earth” waiting, hoping for my return.
That’s why I loved Remembering.
For the first time, I knew that Berry had felt my own sense of being lost in a huge grey world where nothing is personal, and no one will hold you. Remembering is a journey in and through the thoughts of middle-aged farmer Andy Catlett. I knew Andy from previous books as every story Mr. Berry writes is set in the fictional town of Port William. Andy had been a boy when I knew him in Hannah Coulter, but now he was a man who had made the hard decision to return to the farming and family he had left when he was young. The story opens in a dark San Francisco hotel room, where Andy is questioning not only his decision, but everything he loves. Injured, alienated from his wife, far from home, rejected by his peers, feeling that he is a relic from an old time never to be reclaimed, he walks out into the pre-dawn of the San Francisco streets.
The first chapters are surreal; as a reader I felt disoriented. Only at the end of the book did I realize that I was meant not just to read, but experience, the terror of being unmoored from the people who love you and the place that knows you. Everything becomes strange. Andy wanders the streets, wondering if he can return to the life he thought he had chosen in Kentucky. Homeless men and suspicious woman grip his eyes; he sees the river-like flow of nameless faces stream through the city, and wonders how anyone can ever be known, can ever get home again. The worst comes gradually to him. He has failed. Does he even want to be found? But then there is this moment as dawn creeps up the edge of the ocean. He sits on a bench, watching. And he begins to remember. Snippets from tales told in his childhood, about the courtship of his great grandparents, or the first farm of his father. The stories of the lives of the men and women whose choices and loves had made possible the shape of his life. They rise up around him and:
“He is held, though he does not hold. He is caught up again in the old pattern of entrances: of minds into minds, minds into place, places into minds. The pattern limits and complicates him, singling him out in his own flesh. Out of the multitude of possible lives that have surrounded and beckoned to him like a crowd around a star, he returns now to himself… He has met again his one life and one death, and he takes them back. It is as though, leaving, he has met himself already returning…meeting…a few dead and living whose love has claimed him forever. He will be partial and he will die; he will live out the truth of that. Though he does not hold, he is held. He is grieving, and he is full of joy.”
I won’t tell you anymore, but for me, every word from there out was the slow swell of a music only known in loving, and choosing to love again in the face of loss and grief. It is a music half broken, but singing itself whole. In hearing it, I knew that Mr. Berry had known the ache of being lost. I knew he had fought, as I am fighting, to believe that constancy in friendship and fidelity in love is possible. I knew he had heard, as I have, the derision of a fast-paced, impersonal world, and still chose to believe that the sort of life that grows up slow and rich from the ground of faith, hope, and love was so precious it could demand the whole of his life. I even think he’s wondered if he had it in him to stay that course.
When I got up from my chair on that Monday, I felt held. Mr. Berry, I realized, is generous with his history, offering his own memories to cradle the hopes of nomads like me. He affirmed that my hope for a place on earth is already creating one. It is a struggle and a journey, but my very desire to love creates the possibility of community. Mr. Berry and Andy Catlett were blessed to have places to come back to, but someone had to begin it. In my case, I’m the beginner. My actions of hope as I search for my place are creating the memories that will one day hold my children. I will find my place on earth. But the story I am making in the process will be part of the “remembering” that grips those coming after me. This journey is a fight, but every step of it is also an act of creation.
With Andy, I was suddenly full of joy.
[We've only got a copy or two left in the Rabbit Room Store. Better get 'em quick.]
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Your writing touches deep places in my soul. I resonate with your desires and also long to be the one who starts a history. Thanks for this gift.
sarah…what a beautiful review! i just recently met wendell berry and those in port william in hannah coulter. on completeion of it, i ordered remembering. i received my copy 2 days ago. i have not yet started it, but i am so eager…now even more so!
Wow, I’ll have to check out Berry’s book. I haven’t read anything of his, but your review whetted my appetite.
Wow, like Laura said. I haven’t read any Berry yet, and I chose not to read the last few paragraphs so as not to spoil the wonder, but he’s on my list now.
For those new to Wendell Berry, I think Sarah would agree with me that it might not be the best introduction to his work.
The disjointed nature of the first half of the book is, as Sarah points out, structurally brilliant yet difficult and somewhat uncomfortable to read. I would hate for a newcomer to Berry’s work to stumble over that first impression.
Hannah Coulter, Jayber Crow, or The Memory of Old Jack might be better places to get ones feet wet.
Oh yes, I agree with Pete that Remembering is not the best introduction to Wendell Berry. I might have put his books down in puzzlement if I’d started there first.
I actually began with his short stories. A World Lost is a good novella. Fidelity, a collection of five short stories, was the first book of his I read and I found it a good introduction, though not as satisfying as his longer novels.
Have to say though, Hannah Coulter is my favorite of any of his books so far. It would make a good starting place for a new reader.
Sarah, Welcome to the Rabbit Room! You sound a bit like me with all the moving. I still dread being asked the question, “Where are you from?” The answer takes at least five minutes. When I was your age, my average stay in one town was about 2 years, just long enough to get out before it really hurts to leave. We will have been in Knoxville for 4 years in January. Before that, we were in Maryland for almost 6, so my stretches are getting longer. Arkansas is where I’ve spent most of my years, so it’s strange to think I may one day call Tennessee home. But not wanting to uproot my kids is worth it.
I have only read a little of Berry’s poetry, but have been wanting to get more familiar with him. Sounds like some writing I would really enjoy. Thanks for the review.
Along this theme, Carolyn Arends wrote a blog entry on remembering. http://www.carolynarends.com/site/blog/lest-we-forget-plus-free-song-and-book-excerpt
I have loved Wendell Berry’s poetry since Pete first posted about Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front here in the rabbit room. I picked up a novel of his, but found it much too dry. However, I decided to give his fiction another chance, and read his collection of short stories, Fidelity. It was so beautiful that it made me think I could handle a full novel of his now. My point being, if you are new to Berry, his short stories may be a great place to start.
I started reading Wendell Berry with Jayber Crow and was completely blown away. If you decide to start with a novel, I would recommend that one, though Hannah Coulter is also beautiful.
Diane Rehm is broadcasting an interview with Wendell Berry today at 11 am EST
[...] The author Wendell Berry was recommended to me for related writing … I have not read them, yet but his books “A Place on Earth: A Novel” and “Remembering” both sound interesting. A reviewer says of Berry …. “He writes about the loss of community, the breakup of families, the deadening ways of consumerism, the way wonder is poisoned by a materialistic view of life, and he does it with quiet, logical eloquence, demanding that we value the old ways again. He speaks what we all feel, but have no idea how to say…. (to read the entire review) [...]