Three Short Novels

by Wendell Berry

A compilation of three of the shorter of Wendell Berry’s works of book-length Nathan Coulter (1960), Remembering (1990), and A World Lost (1996).

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[Camie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Southern Bookclub has read a lot of Wendell Berry’s books which feature the small community of Port Williams and its inhabitants. They are mostly farm folk with a strong sense of family, heritage, friendships,
hard work, and a deep abiding love of the land which supports them.
In these three short novels we are given a chronicle of the community as it struggles with the harsh realities, sense of loss, and changes brought about by WWII.
Berry is a master of prose and of giving us a sense of renewed kinship with the land and nature.
Being of a certain age, I confess to enjoying a good story ( or in this case three) about simpler times.
4.5 stars
Read for Dec - On The Southern Literary Trail

[Myersandburnsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me forever to finish because I did not fall in love with the first two novellas. Although I knew the characters, their stories were raw and difficult. The third novella, A World Lost, was raw and beautiful. Regardless, I still love Wendell Berry, I love how he writes.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Berry is one of my favorite authors. He is much into taking stewardship of the land, which I am also interested in. His book contains 3 short novels: Nathan Coulter, A World Lost (which I had previously reviewed) and Remembering. All three stay true to his views.

Nathan Coulter is a coming of age book about the Coulter family who have lived on the family farm for generations. Both Nathan's grandparents and his father see the necessity of taking care of the land and preserving it for future generations. This a growing up tale of Nathan's life from a small boy to a young adult.

REmembering is also set in Kentucky. It is about a Andy CAtlett and is set in the 1970's. Andy goes off to college, graduates, goes to law scholl, but learns that his real love is the family farm. At first he works for his friends modern farming magazine, but a chance encounter with the Amish and their farming methods opens his eyes to the harm done by large scale farming. Eventually he returnes to be a steward of the land, himself.

Both stories were well written and very interesting.

[Jude Zoeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

All three of these novels are gorgeous. Mr. Berry is a deep thinker with an authentic, inspired voice and a vision of life and land intertwined that I've never encountered before. "Remembering" in particular struck me with its prescience and power.

[Longfellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathan Coulter (1960)

I’m tempted to say not much happens in this novella. But I just wrote a review of Jayber Crow in which I proclaimed a person shouldn’t read Wendell Berry and look for plot. Still, while Berry’s token topics and style are present, there’s a shade less richness in Nathan Coulter than much of Berry’s other work. I attribute this to the fact that this novella was published in 1960: Berry had forty three more years of age and experience when he published Jayber Crow, as one example.

We still get characters: Burley Coulter, the most developed character in this novella, Nathan’s dad (David), Nathan’s grandparents, Jig Pendleton, Gander Loyd, and of course Nathan himself. But I was expecting to know Nathan much better after having read this; there really isn’t much revealed about his character. The entire novella spans at most a couple of years of Nathan’s life as a child and an early adolescent.

Remembering (1988)

I read this one a few years ago. Remembering is narrated in third person, limited to the perspective of a middle-aged Andy Catlett. He reflects on his relationship to farming, particularly as he copes with a recently suffered physical trauma at the hands of a piece of farm equipment. This was the first Berry fiction I read, and I loved it enough to immediately pick up Fidelity (short stories), and I proceeded directly to The Memory of Old Jack from there. These reviews are on Goodreads from June to July of 2008.

A World Lost (1996)

Switch the words in the title around a bit, substitute an article, and you’ve got yourself an old sci-fi novel. But the words are properly ordered here. Rather than finding something, the narrator, Andy Catlett, experiences loss, yet in his losses he achieves some level of self-discovery. Perhaps more than this, though, he discovers the depth of character in his family, his community, and his place.

In this novel, like in Remembering, Catlett is middle-aged, but the stories in A World Lost are primarily from his childhood and adolescent years, and this novella serves primarily as a memoir of Uncle Andrew, his namesake. Through his reflection on these memories, Catlett attempts to understand who his uncle was, what made him tick, and why he loved him; and in remembering, he succeeds.

In contrast to the rather sparse, relatively shallow narrative of Nathan Coulter, Berry’s maturity as a fiction writer is in full effect here (thirty-six years does make a difference; still, perhaps I owe the narrative style of Nathan Coulter more credit, as the stories—while written down by an older Nathan Coulter I assume—are told from the perspective of a young boy). For me, the richness of Berry’s later fiction comes primarily from the additional commentary the narrators offer, a depth of observation regarding people, events, and nature that is profound and gracious. “Yes!” or “That is beautiful,” I find myself exclaiming as I read. As usual, Berry doesn’t tease his readers toward some anticipated climax; and also as usual, I nonetheless found this novella difficult to put down.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read Nathan Coulter before; Remembering was too painful to read but I shall return to it later; A World Lost was wonderful. A young boy's memory of his uncle for whom he was named. Andrew Catlett was a wild man and he dies a violent death and young Andy fifty years later analyzes his memories of him and of the reasons for his death. Berry writes about grief in such honest terms in this novella and in other books. He writes from a child's perspective as he deals with the grief of the adults around him. ---------I did finish Remembering. It is a few days after All Saints' Days when we remember those who have gone before us and Andy's vision of Port William reminded me of that--the "communion of saints' in the past and those with us. I think it ended well--the hand was gone, but relationships repaired.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It pains me to say this because Wendell Berry is one of my favorite authors, but I did not love this book. Even though the novels are short, it took me forever to finish this book because I kept avoiding it.

[Siobhain]

Note: The three novellas in this book have time gaps if one wants to read the books and stories of Wendell Berry in chronological order so I will review each one as I read it as I may not remember much about the first novella by the time I get to the last one.

Nathan Coulter (finished June 2021):
I started the Port William membership books toward the end of the saga with Hannah Coulter. I since thought I was working my way through the short stories, novellas, and novels chronologically using the list in That Distant land but just saw from Wikipedia that I have missed some stories from other sources. Wendell Berry has a rich imagination and ability to relay setting and character in a way that places the reader in the scenes. This is accompanied by an in depth understanding of human nature, especially the male position. I may not have liked this story as much except that I had met Nathan Coulter in the book Hannah Coulter. The book Nathan Coulter has a sad rawness of dysfunction, yet acceptance of one another in the midst of dysfunction. In Nathan Coulter the story is not warm or uplifting yet it is powerful, and it greatly explains Nathan's difficulty in connecting with his son which is relayed in Hannah Coulter. I love the complexity of each main character. No one is a good guy or a bad guy. Each is flawed but doing the best he can given those flaws. I absolutely love that Hannah Coulter starts with a flashback to the last scene in Nathan Coulter. This is probably a non traditional way to get into the Port William books and stories, but it has been rich for me. I look forward to reading more.

[Jackie Stewart · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as I enjoy Wendell Berry's work, I found these 3 short novels were rather redundant in their treatment of the characters of Williamsport and Hargrave. Each character was so similar to others that it was hard to keep them separate while reading the three novels. Berry's themes were on full display and felt like the whole reason for the stories, with the characters functioned as place keepers.

[Nikki · Rating 1 out of 5]

None of the stories in this book were very good. There were many inappropriate parts in these stories as well as many confusing places and parts that didn't make sense or fit in with the rest of the series. I have been very disappointed with this entire series so far and these stories were just as bad as the rest of the series.

[Robert Ott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such warm feelings. I was taken back to my childhood in La Grange, Oldham County, Kentucky. I knew people just like in the book. My family members were like them. So extremely real and honest. It takes a gift and vision to write like that.

[Dan Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our best living writer !

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed this to read Nathan Coulter and I did. Good but sad. Then I read half of Remembering.ILL book due back, so I did not finish the other two short knowledge.

[Nicholas Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Wendell Berry novel I’ve finished. Enjoyed Nathan Coulter and Remembering the most.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Young Nathan, in Nathan Coulter, struggles to grow up and understand the value of land and family. With the death of his grandfather, Nathan sees that "his life couldn't be divided from the days he'd spent at work in his fields." In Remembering, it is 1976 and Andy Catlett is alone in San Francisco, walking the streets at dawn. In the eight months since losing his right hand to a corn-picking machine, he has also lost himself and his sense of place. Two thousand miles from home, he begins to remember - people, places, the comfort of knowing land intimately." A World Lost opens in the summer of 1944 when nine-year-old Andy is engrossed in the cool water of Chatham Spring and fields full of tumblebugs and meadowlarks. But calamity strikes Andy's world on a hot July afternoon when his Uncle Andrew is murdered."

I had only read quotes from the author prior to reading this book. I was prepared to like it -- the subject matter sounded like one of my favorites: life on a farm & in the woods by people who are close to the land.

But the book remained at arms' length for me. After a lot of thought, I think it's because these stories delved into Nathan's feelings, and Andy's feelings rather than being about their relationship with the land, or about the changing of the seasons on the farm. In short, I expected it to be more about nature and less about the people. And angst.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first of these novels, Nathan Coulter, is (I think) Berry's first novel, written around 1960. The first books I read of his was written some forty years after this first one. So, he's refined his writing in a lot of ways since then and my four star rating is simply for that reason.

I really enjoyed these stories. It's amazing to me how powerful fiction can be. I have been wondering why a fictional farming community in Kentucky is so fascinating to me. Maybe it's because my grandmother on my mother's side grew up a cattle and horse rancher's daughter. Maybe because my mother grew up with her parents doing sheep ranching. Perry's grandparents were dairy farmers and grew crops. I never lived near any of my grandparents, so I am pretty far removed from their lives. I wish I had lived near them, because I would have been able to hear their oral histories day in and day out.

I did call up my grandmother that grew up on a ranch outside of Gridley, California. She recalled for me a number of aspects of her childhood on the ranch,among other things the unforgettable rough personality of her father, whom she and her siblings called "that damn Ozzie."

I've now read nine stories of Berry's in the last few weeks. It feels kind of like eating an entire cherry pie instead of just one slice. A bit too much of one good hing.

[Kati · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of three related short stories is a charming read, focusing on farm-life in rural Kentucky and the people there who have farming in their blood. It is a patient set of stories that spring from a respect for the sanctity of everyday life and the beauty of simple pleasures like a drink of cold water on a hot day.
I had read Wendell Berry's essays, but never his fiction. I felt suspicious that it would be as good as his non-fiction, but I was entirely wrong. Berry's values as stated in his essays are present in his stories, but not in a didactic or preachy way, just as a point of fact.
My one complaint against the book would be that it is written from a firmly male perspective, seeming to value the male experience over the female experience. Not only are females not main characters, but they often remain largely undeveloped in these three stories. The only females that get much development at all are a couple of pathetic, needy creatures without much to offer. So that's my little piece of feminist criticism. The book is still, obviously, very much worth reading and very well written.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long loved reading Berry's occasional essays in The Progressive and elsewhere, but ashamed to say I've not touched - and been touched by- his fiction until now.
Nathan Coulter, Remembering and A World Lost are a fine threesome, early and later works. The sense of time and place, of family and generations, of rootedness in a rootless world, of tradition and frugality amid all the consumer crap of now, of being quiet in order to know who you are and who you came from, the love of land and the past, but looking to the present and future - these and more make me stop and think and feel.
Love is the key. Finding the source of love amid all that would destroy it. Love of land and people and your grandmother's recipes and cut glass bowl. Trying to find a way to say no and mean it in the face of all that destroys. Taking years to find all this. And wanting to take the time.
I was especially taken with Andy Catlett and his journey away and back again on so many levels.
Thank you, Wendell Berry, for your life and work.

[Joel]

I'm reading each short novel separately, putting the book down between stories, so this will move between currently-reading and to-read, so you know.

Nathan Coulter, the first of the three, surprised me. I had to work to stay with the book through the beginning, but after that, Berry drew me in to the story and I finished more quickly than I expected. The story revolves around the Coulter family through the perspective of Nathan, who is traversing his formative years. Berry uses everyday experiences in compelling ways: working the land, fishing, trips in to town, conversations, fights. The family dynamic shifts and shapes and molds, and through the Coulters we weigh themes of community,the land, religion and God, finding meaning in faithfulness. A good read, with some stunning lines scattered throughout.

[Stephen C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional writer with a clear view of the world. While all 3 are good stories I was especially moved by A World Lost. His summary at the end about lives not having an end - coupled with how lives are tied into so many stories that go on and on seemed especially profound. He wrote too of how when the departed get to heaven they "...are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be." It isn't a long read and if you don't have time to read all three then just tackle A World Lost.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit that I only read two of the three short novels, due to having access to this book for a limited period of time. However those two left me with plenty to digest. This was my first (dare I admit it) engagement with Berry, and I found his work beautifully wrought. It managed to be nostalgic without saccharine, and I found myself laughing and fighting tears by turns. There is a sparseness to his prose that is lacking in much of the writing I have read lately, and it was refreshing.

[David A-S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though he is more likely to be found on a bluegrass hilltop than a mountain top, this height-fearing urbanist would gladly scale a rocky face to hear this sage speak. In these novels set in Port William, Berry's meta-themes of family, farm, and geography are present. They also speak to mid-life issues, identity crises, and meaning. Remembering is particularly poignant.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Berry provides 3 nostalgic stories that, while somewhat sentimental, do not lurch off into treacle. There is much to enjoy, remember, miss, and lament about life in rural settings, but Berry does not gloss over the back-breaking work, the heartache weather can bring, and the random shocks life delivers that will set families on a path no one understands (and yet, adapts to).

[J.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who know Wendell Berry only as a poet and/or environmentalist, this collection of three short works is a perfect introduction to his fiction which is an expansion on the poetry and centers on the same themes of relationships and devotion to the earth.

[Curt Klueg · Rating 4 out of 5]

My simple, to the point review:

If you want a rivetin, engrossing page-turner - this is NOT the book. If you want a plot with traditional climax - this is Not your book.

These stories are Beautiful Portraits. Portraits of Place and of Family. These stories are slow, but beautiful.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful as Berry's fiction always is. Like Remembering (the middle one) the best.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Made it through Nathan Coulter with some difficulties, but just couldn't wade through the following two novelettes.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh boy. just found my new favorite author.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am completely enthralled with Berry's stories of the Port William Membership.

[Ariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me FOREVER to read this book. Mostly my fault though.