What do you think?
Rate this book
Conversations with Wendell Berry
Since 1960, Wendell Berry (b. 1934) has produced one of the most substantial and consistently thematic bodies of work of any modern American writer. In more than fifty books in various genres-novels, short stories, poems, and essays-he has celebrated a life lived in close communion with neighbors and the earth and has addressed many of our most urgent cultural maladies. His collections of essays urge us to think and act responsibly as members of a community-both human and natural. Volumes of his poems seek to wed us to nature and realign our vision with its mysteries. His growing Port William cycle of novels offers us a fictional model for understanding, for compassion, and for living in constant regard for others.
Conversations with Wendell Berry gathers for the first time interviews with the writer, ranging from 1973 to 2006, including one never before published. For readers acquainted with Berry's work, this volume offers insights available nowhere else. It reveals succinctly the main currents of his life's work. What emerges is a citizen-writer profoundly affected by cultural crises at home and in the world.
Conversations with Wendell Berry gathers for the first time interviews with the writer, ranging from 1973 to 2006, including one never before published. For readers acquainted with Berry's work, this volume offers insights available nowhere else. It reveals succinctly the main currents of his life's work. What emerges is a citizen-writer profoundly affected by cultural crises at home and in the world.
238 pages, Paperback
First published August 7, 2007
6 people are currently reading
844 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 30, 2020
If you want a great introduction into the mind and art of Wendell Berry, this is it. I mean, given how many books Berry has written (over 50, including fiction, poetry, nonfiction), a new reader of Berry has to start somewhere. Berry gives great interviews--his comments are sharp, insightful, and provocative, and he comes across as engaging and caring, a man who gives a damn about how technology and industrialism are destroying the natural world, humanity included. How could you not admire this man who has been taking his stand for farmers, small towns, the natural world, and human dignity for going on (or maybe more than) five decades.
As to be expected, Berry's commentary here focuses most often on his concern for what might be called his communitarianism--his concern for the necessity of community in a world given to radical individualism and corporate control. "A good community is one in which people understand that in order to have certain good things, they have to have them in common," he says in one interview, adding, "That’s all." That's of course putting it simply, and elsewhere Berry goes into much greater detail about how we must resist economic totalitarianism that global corporations enforce and direct. He also spends a good deal of time talking about the value of grounding oneself in a place and committing oneself to that place; or, as he likes to quote the words of Gary Snyder, critiquing the cultural ideal of mobility (just pick up and move on if things go bad, and don't worry about the destruction you may be inflicting on those you leave behind): "Just stop." He also often zeroes in on the value of small gestures in ushering in change, that the first (and most important) step in making the world a better place is changing yourself. Amen.
There's also a good deal of discussion about Berry's fiction and poetry, both his artistic concerns and influences, as well as the tremendous joy he finds in writing. "I agree with Robert Frost," he says at one point, "who said in one of his letters that he hoped to communicate to the readers of his work 'what a hell of a good time I had writing it.'" He adds that his essays "come from a desire to understand what I love and hope for and to defend those things," while his fiction and poetry are his "way of giving thanks, maybe, for having things worthy of defense."
This is a fabulous collection by one of our most important cultural critics and writers. And by the way, we probably need a second volume, as this one ends with interviews from 2006, and Berry is still going strong (2019) in these increasingly fraught and dangerous times. "If I am still writing on the last day of my life, that will be fine with me," Berry comments. "However, if the well should go dry, I hope I will have sense enough to quit going to it with a bucket." His well is far from dry.
As to be expected, Berry's commentary here focuses most often on his concern for what might be called his communitarianism--his concern for the necessity of community in a world given to radical individualism and corporate control. "A good community is one in which people understand that in order to have certain good things, they have to have them in common," he says in one interview, adding, "That’s all." That's of course putting it simply, and elsewhere Berry goes into much greater detail about how we must resist economic totalitarianism that global corporations enforce and direct. He also spends a good deal of time talking about the value of grounding oneself in a place and committing oneself to that place; or, as he likes to quote the words of Gary Snyder, critiquing the cultural ideal of mobility (just pick up and move on if things go bad, and don't worry about the destruction you may be inflicting on those you leave behind): "Just stop." He also often zeroes in on the value of small gestures in ushering in change, that the first (and most important) step in making the world a better place is changing yourself. Amen.
There's also a good deal of discussion about Berry's fiction and poetry, both his artistic concerns and influences, as well as the tremendous joy he finds in writing. "I agree with Robert Frost," he says at one point, "who said in one of his letters that he hoped to communicate to the readers of his work 'what a hell of a good time I had writing it.'" He adds that his essays "come from a desire to understand what I love and hope for and to defend those things," while his fiction and poetry are his "way of giving thanks, maybe, for having things worthy of defense."
This is a fabulous collection by one of our most important cultural critics and writers. And by the way, we probably need a second volume, as this one ends with interviews from 2006, and Berry is still going strong (2019) in these increasingly fraught and dangerous times. "If I am still writing on the last day of my life, that will be fine with me," Berry comments. "However, if the well should go dry, I hope I will have sense enough to quit going to it with a bucket." His well is far from dry.
December 13, 2015
I don't think Berry could be a member of my church, but I wish all the members at my church would read what he has to say about membership and community and place and marriage and children etc... Much wisdom here.
November 17, 2013
It was interesting to "hear" Berry's voice over time. As I finished this book, and then got to hear him in person, I am struck with his wisdom and humility.
December 29, 2014
A life deeply lived and well observed. Very satisfying to read these conversations. More on it soon!
January 13, 2009
Bit by bit our society is learning the value of eating locally and supporting the local community. Wendell Berry has understood this for years and has lived his life with community and fidelity at its core. The interviews in this book begin in 1973 and extend through 2006. I found some of the interviewers more interesting than others. The one that drew out the most from Berry was Jordan Fisher Smith.
Here are Wendell Berry's thoughts on a stable community in the Plowboy interview in 1973.
"You've got to have people who talk to each other a lot and who have experiences in common. In a settled farming community old friends get together to work and one thing they do is tell each other again the stories they already know. This is a complex community function. They celebrate their old acquaintance in that way, they celebrate themselves. They alert each other to the realities of their lives and their history. And the effect that it has on story-telling is that it improves the stories.
But the stories in the media today cater to the wish people have for everything to be new. That's very much the emphasis in our arts today, for example. That's not different at all from the Madison Avenue ideal that thrives on the establishments and immediate wearing out of fashions and fads. Any culture building itself on this kind of novelty is bound to run thin."
Here are Wendell Berry's thoughts on a stable community in the Plowboy interview in 1973.
"You've got to have people who talk to each other a lot and who have experiences in common. In a settled farming community old friends get together to work and one thing they do is tell each other again the stories they already know. This is a complex community function. They celebrate their old acquaintance in that way, they celebrate themselves. They alert each other to the realities of their lives and their history. And the effect that it has on story-telling is that it improves the stories.
But the stories in the media today cater to the wish people have for everything to be new. That's very much the emphasis in our arts today, for example. That's not different at all from the Madison Avenue ideal that thrives on the establishments and immediate wearing out of fashions and fads. Any culture building itself on this kind of novelty is bound to run thin."
September 3, 2022
Despite the billing on its cover, I don't think this is a very good introduction for new readers to Wendell Berry. Conversations with Wendell Berry (more even than most of Berry's own books, which is saying something) isn't a text you sit down and read. Wendell Berry has good points, and a powerfully convincing voice and a lot of enormous value to say, but by the seventh or eighth back-to-back Berrying it's starting to be an awful lot of Wendell Berry. Not for nothing was his seventeenth(?!) book called Another Turn of the Crank.
Read in bits and pieces here and there, though, Conversations with Wendell Berry is superb. It's unsurprising that often the most interesting and useful thinkers don't immediately realise which elements of their thought are most interesting and useful: sometimes it takes an interviewer asking a pertinent question to unearth something crucial and insightful. These collected interviews spanning a huge part of Berry's career do exactly that, and so serve as a vital addition to the body of Berry's thought.
Read in bits and pieces here and there, though, Conversations with Wendell Berry is superb. It's unsurprising that often the most interesting and useful thinkers don't immediately realise which elements of their thought are most interesting and useful: sometimes it takes an interviewer asking a pertinent question to unearth something crucial and insightful. These collected interviews spanning a huge part of Berry's career do exactly that, and so serve as a vital addition to the body of Berry's thought.
October 21, 2019
Very thought provoking and wide ranging moving on to many surprising topics strung out over the years. It gave me occasion to reflect on a number of subjects in new ways and to deepen my understanding of place, community, marriage, and the connections between food, the economy, and politics. I very much interested to read some of his essays and novels now that I've started backwards with his interviews.
June 21, 2008
A collection of the interviews that Wendell Berry has given between 1973 and 2006. A wonderful glimpse into the mind and interests of a man who is a voice in the wilderness of our consumer culture. A convicting and inspiring read.
July 2, 2013
SO many quotable quotes!
Preach it, Wendell!
Preach it, Wendell!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews