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Port William
A World Lost: A Novel
In this, Wendell Berry’s fifth novel and ninth work of fiction, Andy Catlett revisits his own ninth year in the summer of 1944 when his beloved uncle is shot and killed by the surly and mysterious Carp Harmon. This is his Uncle Andrew, after whom the boy is named, someone who savored “company, talk, some kind of to-do, something to laugh at.” Years later, still possessed by the story, Andy seeks to get to the bottom of all this, to understand the two men and their lethal connection.
“Berry deftly balances Andy’s investigation into the town’s past with an equally moving realization not only of the sustaining value of memory but of the manner in which they are shaped in enduring ways by what they love . . . a sharp portrait of a town nursing its secrets over decades.” ― Kirkus Reviews
“Berry deftly balances Andy’s investigation into the town’s past with an equally moving realization not only of the sustaining value of memory but of the manner in which they are shaped in enduring ways by what they love . . . a sharp portrait of a town nursing its secrets over decades.” ― Kirkus Reviews
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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1660 people want to read
About the author
Wendell Berry
292 books4,891 followersWendell 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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
April 8, 2020
4.5 stars
"The world that I knew had changed into a world that I knew only in part; perhaps I understood that I would not be able ever again to think of it as a known world."
It might seem that this was a poor choice of a book, given the state of our world right now. I hesitated only momentarily before downloading it to my kindle. My instinct told me, however, that I could rely on Wendell Berry to soothe my soul. I was right. Despite the fact that A World Lost is a story about a senseless death, I knew that somehow Berry would whisper in my ear that it was going to be okay. His writing has an easy, refined quality that reassures you in its telling.
"We can love, it seems, beyond imagining. But how little we can understand!"
This little book is told from the point of view of Andy Catlett – from an older Andy Catlett looking back several decades to the time when he was nine years old. So of course it has a wonderfully nostalgic feel to it. Andy is a character I have come across in other Berry novels so it was like visiting an old friend. The young Andy, like most children, observes closely what happens around him – not always quite understanding, but yet soaking in so much. He earnestly tries to make sense of the adult world. Boy do I remember those days. I still find myself desperately trying to fathom the words and actions of my own contemporaries more often than I should! Andy was content with the simpler, carefree life. Not that it was easy; his grandparents and parents were hardworking farmers. What he loved most was to run about the countryside, either alone or with a pal.
"All at once the countryside felt big and easy around me, and I was glad to be alone in it."
He also appreciated sitting and listening to the elder generations talk. As this is told from the older, wiser Andy, we see him come to terms with some of the things he maybe didn’t quite “get” as a youngster. How often do we all think back to our own childhoods with the desire to put some of the pieces together? Naturally there are still those gaps, both in our memories as well as in life itself. Not all could ever be revealed to us, and Andy has come to know this.
"I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist, though it must lie all around us every day, is mostly hidden from us, like birds’ nests in the woods."
Wendell Berry’s writing is something so special. You will not find dramatic plots – even the big events are written with a great sense of reserve. His emphasis is on the internal lives of his people, the stirring connections between individuals, and the beauty and reverence for the land. Yes, A World Lost deals with death and grief. Yet, despite the melancholic tone at times, it always returns to that feeling of peace that Berry’s words and reflections leave in your heart. I have found this to be true in all of his writing I’ve experienced so far. I’ve not yet exhausted all of his work, so I’m grateful that I can visit my Port William friends again when I am in need of more comfort.
"A story, I see, is not a life. A story must follow a line; the telling must begin and end. A life, on the contrary, would be impossible to fix in time, for it does not begin within itself, and it does not end."
"The world that I knew had changed into a world that I knew only in part; perhaps I understood that I would not be able ever again to think of it as a known world."
It might seem that this was a poor choice of a book, given the state of our world right now. I hesitated only momentarily before downloading it to my kindle. My instinct told me, however, that I could rely on Wendell Berry to soothe my soul. I was right. Despite the fact that A World Lost is a story about a senseless death, I knew that somehow Berry would whisper in my ear that it was going to be okay. His writing has an easy, refined quality that reassures you in its telling.
"We can love, it seems, beyond imagining. But how little we can understand!"
This little book is told from the point of view of Andy Catlett – from an older Andy Catlett looking back several decades to the time when he was nine years old. So of course it has a wonderfully nostalgic feel to it. Andy is a character I have come across in other Berry novels so it was like visiting an old friend. The young Andy, like most children, observes closely what happens around him – not always quite understanding, but yet soaking in so much. He earnestly tries to make sense of the adult world. Boy do I remember those days. I still find myself desperately trying to fathom the words and actions of my own contemporaries more often than I should! Andy was content with the simpler, carefree life. Not that it was easy; his grandparents and parents were hardworking farmers. What he loved most was to run about the countryside, either alone or with a pal.
"All at once the countryside felt big and easy around me, and I was glad to be alone in it."
He also appreciated sitting and listening to the elder generations talk. As this is told from the older, wiser Andy, we see him come to terms with some of the things he maybe didn’t quite “get” as a youngster. How often do we all think back to our own childhoods with the desire to put some of the pieces together? Naturally there are still those gaps, both in our memories as well as in life itself. Not all could ever be revealed to us, and Andy has come to know this.
"I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist, though it must lie all around us every day, is mostly hidden from us, like birds’ nests in the woods."
Wendell Berry’s writing is something so special. You will not find dramatic plots – even the big events are written with a great sense of reserve. His emphasis is on the internal lives of his people, the stirring connections between individuals, and the beauty and reverence for the land. Yes, A World Lost deals with death and grief. Yet, despite the melancholic tone at times, it always returns to that feeling of peace that Berry’s words and reflections leave in your heart. I have found this to be true in all of his writing I’ve experienced so far. I’ve not yet exhausted all of his work, so I’m grateful that I can visit my Port William friends again when I am in need of more comfort.
"A story, I see, is not a life. A story must follow a line; the telling must begin and end. A life, on the contrary, would be impossible to fix in time, for it does not begin within itself, and it does not end."
May 22, 2021
While the world around us is reeling from a pandemic from which there is yet no end in sight, I sought refuge in one of my happy places in literary fiction. I took a trip back to Port William, a farming community in Kentucky. It was a respite of sorts.
A World Lost is a sad story but it has a warm heart. One of my favorite stalwarts of Port William, Andy Catlett, recalls a family tragedy that took place in the summer of 1944, the year he was nine years old. I love catching a glimpse of Andy as a child, defying rules set for him, and stealing away for a forbidden solitary swim. You gotta love a kid who knows how to enjoy his own company. Andy recalls, ”For a long time then I just sat in the grass, feeling clean and content, thinking perhaps of nothing at all. I was nine years old, going on ten; having never needed to ask, I knew exactly where I was; I did not want to be anyplace else.” Then his blissful world is upended when he returns home to horrific news.
This is Andy’s story of his very special relationship with his Uncle Andrew, after whom he was named at birth. They share an enviable and lovely closeness that was wonderful to read about. In his recollection, Andy said, “I was Uncle Andrew’s namesake, and I had come to be his buddy. ‘My boy,’ he would call me when he was under the influence not only of the considerable tenderness that was in him but of what I now know to have been bourbon whiskey.” In Uncle Andrew, Berry created a marvelously spontaneous and colorful individual you cannot help but love. Uncle Andrew, unhappily married, loves company, laughing, and dancing. In Andy’s memory, ”He loved ribaldry, raillery, impudence. He spoke at times a kind of poetry of vulgarity.” ”He was another thing, he was as wild, probably, as any human I have ever known. He was a man, I think, who was responsive mainly to impulses: desire, affection, amusement, self-abandon, sometimes anger.” A fun uncle! In recalling his best years with Uncle Andrew, Andy also lets us into his relationship with Wheeler, his father who is a full-time lawyer and farmer; Grandma and Grandpa Catlett; and Elton Penn, a close contemporary.
The beauty of this novel rests in the strength of the strong bond among Andy’s family members and close friends. There is in Berry’s novels a deep appreciation of the ties that bind. Across his Port William stories, Berry’s exploration and description of this theme never ever get old or hackneyed. Fifty years after that summer, Andy reflects, ”But now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but it is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
Reading this book is like returning home, and I discover this every time I head back to Port William. Thank you, Wendell Berry.
A World Lost is a sad story but it has a warm heart. One of my favorite stalwarts of Port William, Andy Catlett, recalls a family tragedy that took place in the summer of 1944, the year he was nine years old. I love catching a glimpse of Andy as a child, defying rules set for him, and stealing away for a forbidden solitary swim. You gotta love a kid who knows how to enjoy his own company. Andy recalls, ”For a long time then I just sat in the grass, feeling clean and content, thinking perhaps of nothing at all. I was nine years old, going on ten; having never needed to ask, I knew exactly where I was; I did not want to be anyplace else.” Then his blissful world is upended when he returns home to horrific news.
This is Andy’s story of his very special relationship with his Uncle Andrew, after whom he was named at birth. They share an enviable and lovely closeness that was wonderful to read about. In his recollection, Andy said, “I was Uncle Andrew’s namesake, and I had come to be his buddy. ‘My boy,’ he would call me when he was under the influence not only of the considerable tenderness that was in him but of what I now know to have been bourbon whiskey.” In Uncle Andrew, Berry created a marvelously spontaneous and colorful individual you cannot help but love. Uncle Andrew, unhappily married, loves company, laughing, and dancing. In Andy’s memory, ”He loved ribaldry, raillery, impudence. He spoke at times a kind of poetry of vulgarity.” ”He was another thing, he was as wild, probably, as any human I have ever known. He was a man, I think, who was responsive mainly to impulses: desire, affection, amusement, self-abandon, sometimes anger.” A fun uncle! In recalling his best years with Uncle Andrew, Andy also lets us into his relationship with Wheeler, his father who is a full-time lawyer and farmer; Grandma and Grandpa Catlett; and Elton Penn, a close contemporary.
The beauty of this novel rests in the strength of the strong bond among Andy’s family members and close friends. There is in Berry’s novels a deep appreciation of the ties that bind. Across his Port William stories, Berry’s exploration and description of this theme never ever get old or hackneyed. Fifty years after that summer, Andy reflects, ”But now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but it is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
Reading this book is like returning home, and I discover this every time I head back to Port William. Thank you, Wendell Berry.
April 11, 2020
"The older I have got and the better acquainted among the dead, the plainer it has become to me that I live in the company of immortals".
Though these are Andy Catlett's words at the end of this book, this is exactly how I feel every time I read a Wendell Berry novel. I leave Port William happy to have been among old friends and family. I have shared their griefs and happiness, rejoiced at every little success, understood their reasoning, and was comforted by their very presence. It is one of the great pleasures of being a reader to be able to visit this world whenever I choose.
Though these are Andy Catlett's words at the end of this book, this is exactly how I feel every time I read a Wendell Berry novel. I leave Port William happy to have been among old friends and family. I have shared their griefs and happiness, rejoiced at every little success, understood their reasoning, and was comforted by their very presence. It is one of the great pleasures of being a reader to be able to visit this world whenever I choose.
June 5, 2020
This was my introduction to Wendell Berry. I have heard very favorable comments about the author. This was a slim novel about a boy’s uncle, Uncle Andrew, who was murdered (the perpetrator was known, that was not an issue in the novel), and as the boy grew from boy to young man to older man he would be questioning why his uncle was murdered. He would ask his relatives and come away unsatisfied, and then eventually he went to newspaper accounts of the trial to try and get at the motive for the murder.
And that is more or less what the novel is about. Even as a slim novel, it was not enough for me. Wendell Berry describes Andy and relatives who are part of his sphere and the characters are OK…but they really to my mind, don’t figure into the plot or story line, and it just seemed to be filler to me. And I didn’t find Uncle Andrew to be much of a character to build a story around.
There was something unexpected near the end of the novel that came out of the blue and was a stunner and that was a plus to the novel. There were also a couple of places where I was struck by the beauty and clarity of the prose and Berry being able to encapsulate meaningful life issues into a couple of paragraphs but it wasn’t enough to leave me sufficiently impressed in my overall assessment of the this novel to give it a higher rating than I did. I hope with the next piece of writing I come across by Wendell Berry I can be more effusive in my praise.
Reviews:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
And that is more or less what the novel is about. Even as a slim novel, it was not enough for me. Wendell Berry describes Andy and relatives who are part of his sphere and the characters are OK…but they really to my mind, don’t figure into the plot or story line, and it just seemed to be filler to me. And I didn’t find Uncle Andrew to be much of a character to build a story around.
There was something unexpected near the end of the novel that came out of the blue and was a stunner and that was a plus to the novel. There were also a couple of places where I was struck by the beauty and clarity of the prose and Berry being able to encapsulate meaningful life issues into a couple of paragraphs but it wasn’t enough to leave me sufficiently impressed in my overall assessment of the this novel to give it a higher rating than I did. I hope with the next piece of writing I come across by Wendell Berry I can be more effusive in my praise.
Reviews:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
February 4, 2018
Yet another brilliant Wendell Berry novel. I will be reading many more.
I have said this before, but Berry does not employ literary pyrotechnics, he does not need them. His style is graceful, lovely, filled with hope and yet infused with a melancholy that is realistic and sometimes even heartbreaking. His characters are among the richest I have ever read. They are people you wish you knew, but knowing that they exist in his pages is enough to comfort you that they could truly exist in this world.
I began reading this while sitting on a hidden little dock in the middle of a local nature reserve. My son was happily visiting his cousins, my daughter was at the reserve attending a nature class, and I had just finished running the trails for 75 minutes. I was exceedingly happy, but still jacked up from my run (turtles can get runner's high apparently). I sat on the dock looking out at one of the beautiful lakelets and the surrounding marshes. I remember feeling that being on that dock was the perfect metaphor for my love of Berry's writing. I was in this reserve which you would not know was even there from the interstate that passes by it. I was taken from the craziness of the world and let down from my running adrenaline simply by entering A World Lost and allowing Berry to provide me a peaceful spot. The view I had of my world at the moment was of an idyllic scene and yet the wind was blowing cattails across the water in a manner that imbued the setting with just a tinge of sadness--hard to explain. I had the same experience in the book; lovely and graceful writing, but all within the context of a death of a beloved uncle and a world lost to Andy Catlett.
"I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
I have said this before, but Berry does not employ literary pyrotechnics, he does not need them. His style is graceful, lovely, filled with hope and yet infused with a melancholy that is realistic and sometimes even heartbreaking. His characters are among the richest I have ever read. They are people you wish you knew, but knowing that they exist in his pages is enough to comfort you that they could truly exist in this world.
I began reading this while sitting on a hidden little dock in the middle of a local nature reserve. My son was happily visiting his cousins, my daughter was at the reserve attending a nature class, and I had just finished running the trails for 75 minutes. I was exceedingly happy, but still jacked up from my run (turtles can get runner's high apparently). I sat on the dock looking out at one of the beautiful lakelets and the surrounding marshes. I remember feeling that being on that dock was the perfect metaphor for my love of Berry's writing. I was in this reserve which you would not know was even there from the interstate that passes by it. I was taken from the craziness of the world and let down from my running adrenaline simply by entering A World Lost and allowing Berry to provide me a peaceful spot. The view I had of my world at the moment was of an idyllic scene and yet the wind was blowing cattails across the water in a manner that imbued the setting with just a tinge of sadness--hard to explain. I had the same experience in the book; lovely and graceful writing, but all within the context of a death of a beloved uncle and a world lost to Andy Catlett.
"I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
May 12, 2008
Oh, oh, oh, I love Wendell Berry.
This is a short book about a little boy and the violent death of his uncle, but it is a profound study of human hearts, human loves, and all the little choices we make that so form the stories of everyone around us.
Also, such a sense of place, as always, pervades W.B.'s stories.
This is a short book about a little boy and the violent death of his uncle, but it is a profound study of human hearts, human loves, and all the little choices we make that so form the stories of everyone around us.
Also, such a sense of place, as always, pervades W.B.'s stories.
September 23, 2024
Rounding up to 4 stars
When Andy was 9, his Uncle Andrew was shot and killed. Now 50 years later, Andy reflects on his beloved uncle’s life, and how this loss affected him and reverberated through the community of those he loves.
This novel has everything that readers of Berry’s work have come to expect and value. His observations are pensive and wise. There is always an important sense of community and its interdependence. The pacing is gentle and pastoral. Unsurprisingly, this one has more of a melancholy tone, but as with much of Berry’s work there is a deep peace at its heart. It’s not quite nostalgia. Or at least not only nostalgia. Maybe it is more of a joyful yet painful longing? Sehnsucht?
Bob wrote a great review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
When Andy was 9, his Uncle Andrew was shot and killed. Now 50 years later, Andy reflects on his beloved uncle’s life, and how this loss affected him and reverberated through the community of those he loves.
This novel has everything that readers of Berry’s work have come to expect and value. His observations are pensive and wise. There is always an important sense of community and its interdependence. The pacing is gentle and pastoral. Unsurprisingly, this one has more of a melancholy tone, but as with much of Berry’s work there is a deep peace at its heart. It’s not quite nostalgia. Or at least not only nostalgia. Maybe it is more of a joyful yet painful longing? Sehnsucht?
Bob wrote a great review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 5, 2019
Summary: Young Andy Catlett's life is forever changed the day his namesake Uncle Andrew is murdered, an event he spends a lifetime trying to understand.
Andy Catlett is nine years old on the summer day when his adored Uncle Andrew refused to take him on a job salvaging material from an old building. Otherwise it is a perfect day with a satisfying dinner with grandparents, meandering across farm fields, quenching his thirst at a cold spring, watching insects and a world alive, and swimming in a pond to cool off, even though it was forbidden. He arrives home that evening in 1944 to be told by his father that Uncle Andrew had been shot twice by the ill-tempered Carp Harmon. Shortly after he dies.
It is like a long swath of fabric being torn out of a favorite shirt for all of them, never to be repaired. He tells of being with his grandparents and father one night, all of them in tears as they think of what they've lost. And shortly after, grandfather dies. Andy's father no longer plays songs on their piano. We learn how close his disciplined, responsible father came to savage revenge. Something had been snatched out of their world that left it irreparably changed. As the title states, a world lost.
But who was the beloved uncle, brother, son, and why did Carp Harmon kill him? Andy spends the rest of his life trying to understand these things and this novel is his narrative of both discovery and lingering questions. Uncle Andrew was the strong, handsome ladies man who married into the town's elite, only to live in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriac wife and demanding mother-in-law. He struggled financially, drank too much, and was trying to put his life back together with his brother's help. This complicated man was the uncle Andy adored.
He interviews witnesses to the murder, reads news stories, and trial records. None of it fully makes sense and often seems contradictory. Even the accounts of whether Uncle Andrew had done anything to provoke the murder conflict. Letters in his father's effects, shed little more light. It was senseless, as all murder is senseless. He wonders sometimes if things would have been any different had he been with Uncle Andrew that day.
This is the narrative of any family who has suddenly lost someone by violent means. Life may go on but it can never be the same. We discover the complicated mystery of the one we have loved and lost, the shades of light and dark that comprise the portrait of a life, and the ambiguities that fail to resolve. We wrestle with making sense of the senseless--and fail. We carry our own private grief, guilt, perplexity, and trauma, hidden to the world but never far from mind.
Wendell Berry, in his measured way, unfolds this exploration of a world lost in the context of the Port William membership we've met in other novels. We have the familiar backdrop of the web of relations and the care of the family farms and the work that must be done that reminds us of the tension of darkness and life within which we live. Berry captures that tension in the narrator's concluding reflections:
"I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be.
"That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent."
Andy Catlett is nine years old on the summer day when his adored Uncle Andrew refused to take him on a job salvaging material from an old building. Otherwise it is a perfect day with a satisfying dinner with grandparents, meandering across farm fields, quenching his thirst at a cold spring, watching insects and a world alive, and swimming in a pond to cool off, even though it was forbidden. He arrives home that evening in 1944 to be told by his father that Uncle Andrew had been shot twice by the ill-tempered Carp Harmon. Shortly after he dies.
It is like a long swath of fabric being torn out of a favorite shirt for all of them, never to be repaired. He tells of being with his grandparents and father one night, all of them in tears as they think of what they've lost. And shortly after, grandfather dies. Andy's father no longer plays songs on their piano. We learn how close his disciplined, responsible father came to savage revenge. Something had been snatched out of their world that left it irreparably changed. As the title states, a world lost.
But who was the beloved uncle, brother, son, and why did Carp Harmon kill him? Andy spends the rest of his life trying to understand these things and this novel is his narrative of both discovery and lingering questions. Uncle Andrew was the strong, handsome ladies man who married into the town's elite, only to live in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriac wife and demanding mother-in-law. He struggled financially, drank too much, and was trying to put his life back together with his brother's help. This complicated man was the uncle Andy adored.
He interviews witnesses to the murder, reads news stories, and trial records. None of it fully makes sense and often seems contradictory. Even the accounts of whether Uncle Andrew had done anything to provoke the murder conflict. Letters in his father's effects, shed little more light. It was senseless, as all murder is senseless. He wonders sometimes if things would have been any different had he been with Uncle Andrew that day.
This is the narrative of any family who has suddenly lost someone by violent means. Life may go on but it can never be the same. We discover the complicated mystery of the one we have loved and lost, the shades of light and dark that comprise the portrait of a life, and the ambiguities that fail to resolve. We wrestle with making sense of the senseless--and fail. We carry our own private grief, guilt, perplexity, and trauma, hidden to the world but never far from mind.
Wendell Berry, in his measured way, unfolds this exploration of a world lost in the context of the Port William membership we've met in other novels. We have the familiar backdrop of the web of relations and the care of the family farms and the work that must be done that reminds us of the tension of darkness and life within which we live. Berry captures that tension in the narrator's concluding reflections:
"I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be.
"That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent."
April 30, 2020
This book is extraordinary. Its reflections on character, redemption, and necessity are quietly presented to the reader through the lens of a young man coming to grips with tragedy.
June 10, 2012
Oh, Mr. Wendell Berry. How is it you possess the ability to transport a reader to a different time and place through every sense imaginable? The humid warmth of a southern day, the coolness of pond water on a boy's skin as he takes a forbidden swim, the buzz and hum of the summer's insects.
If this weren't enough, you make us inhabit his every thought.
This story made me wish I'd been born a boy.
Before you jump to strange conclusions, let me explain. Girls often drape themselves in their mother's dresses, smear on their lipstick, and douse themselves in their perfume-- longing, I suppose for that far off, elusive stage of womanhood.
I know I did those things. But I what I remember doing more often, or rather what I have keener memories of, are the sights, sounds and smells surrounding the older men in my life-- particularly my grandfather. The scents of lake, mixed fuel for the boat engine, and fish will always catapult me back to summer days on the lake.
Andy Catlett spends a goodly portion of this book reminiscing similarly about his namesake uncle. Reading his descriptions of being caught in a sudden downpour with Uncle Andy ... to have him take his nephew under the outstretched "wings" of his canvas coat, protecting him from the rain. His feeling secure, safe ... and smells of pipe tobacco and sweat enveloping him in that warmth.
I was hit with the realization of how different it must be for boys to have these experiences with men. To observe and file away the antics, words, actions of these larger than life heroes in their midst. Something to attain when they reach manhood themselves.
A beautiful, short novel which does precisely that. And at the same time makes us question our own childhood memories and perceptions ... to wonder how well we truly did know those who had such an impact on us.
If this weren't enough, you make us inhabit his every thought.
This story made me wish I'd been born a boy.
Before you jump to strange conclusions, let me explain. Girls often drape themselves in their mother's dresses, smear on their lipstick, and douse themselves in their perfume-- longing, I suppose for that far off, elusive stage of womanhood.
I know I did those things. But I what I remember doing more often, or rather what I have keener memories of, are the sights, sounds and smells surrounding the older men in my life-- particularly my grandfather. The scents of lake, mixed fuel for the boat engine, and fish will always catapult me back to summer days on the lake.
Andy Catlett spends a goodly portion of this book reminiscing similarly about his namesake uncle. Reading his descriptions of being caught in a sudden downpour with Uncle Andy ... to have him take his nephew under the outstretched "wings" of his canvas coat, protecting him from the rain. His feeling secure, safe ... and smells of pipe tobacco and sweat enveloping him in that warmth.
I was hit with the realization of how different it must be for boys to have these experiences with men. To observe and file away the antics, words, actions of these larger than life heroes in their midst. Something to attain when they reach manhood themselves.
A beautiful, short novel which does precisely that. And at the same time makes us question our own childhood memories and perceptions ... to wonder how well we truly did know those who had such an impact on us.
December 19, 2017
Wendell Berry’s novella is told by Andy Catlett looking back to a summer when he was 9 years old, just at the end of the Second War. It is a story about family life that in a close knit farming town in Kentucky, a way of life that has been lost to us in these recent years of TV, internet and such a great awareness of stranger danger. Andy and his friends swim in creeks by themselves, hitchhike between towns tomsee friends and family, and work on their parents’ farms.
More specifically though, it is the story of how young Andy deals with the death of his favourite uncle, and the effect that has on the family around him. Berry’s writing is so powerful paints a picture in the reader’s mind strong enough to be familiar with the small town and its folks. It is a short and quite simple story that has a lasting effect.
More specifically though, it is the story of how young Andy deals with the death of his favourite uncle, and the effect that has on the family around him. Berry’s writing is so powerful paints a picture in the reader’s mind strong enough to be familiar with the small town and its folks. It is a short and quite simple story that has a lasting effect.
May 8, 2012
Wendell breaks a lot of MFA rules, which is only one of the reasons I love him and his writing. A World Lost is set, as usual for Berry, in the northeastern Kentucky area of Port William (Now Carrollton) which has become Berry country among those who know and admire this unique author’s work. A World Lost has the flavor of a memoir because the voice of Andy Catlett is so strong, authentic, redolent with experience. There I go, breaking one of the MFA rules right along with Wendell--stringing those adjectives together. For example, in speaking of his uncle Andrew, his namesake, Andy says, “and then he writes the sentence--troubled, tender, hopeful, and, I know, hopeless--that binds me to him closer than my name ... .” Authors, the conventional wisdom says, are supposed to limit themselves to one or two, or risk lessening the impact of any of their descriptors, but if Berry can ... but I digress.
Berry spends many pages in this short work--at 151 pages, it seems to fit into the category of a novella--on backstory, description, musings. Again, a violation of the dictum that the modern author is well-advised to slice out those parts the reader is inclined to skip; namely, backstory, description, musing.
When our association began [the one between the protagonist, Andy Catlett, and his Uncle Andrew] I appointed myself his hired hand at a wage of a quarter a day. Since I was not big enough to do most of the jobs I wanted to do, I tended to spend the days in uneasy search for something I could do to justify my pay. I served him mostly as a sort of page, running errands, carrying water, opening gates, handing him things.
There’s a great deal of such seeming trivia. Long stretches with no dialogue. At this point, we know that Andrew has been murdered, but the narrator doesn’t know why or seem to care very much. He’s just remembering these mundanities. It’s one of the miracles of modern literature that there is still a place for Wendell Berry and his world of small farms (tobacco farms, no less), rural simplicity, and simple prose tailored to match the characters and landscape he describes. Yes, the characters are simple, with grandmothers saying such things as “Aren’t you the limit?” and village gossips sitting on porches and muttering over scandalous hemlines. But there are also murders and affairs and frauds and thefts. And with elegant simplicity Andy Catlett turns a Grandma Moses-like countryside into a universe of moral puzzles.
Andrew Catlett, the elder, you see, is a man of “plentitude”, one inclined to do “whatever he thought of”--as he and buddies with wonderful names like Yeager Stump like to put it. He is a man who is married and committed to a life of farming and moral limits, but is unable by nature to stay within those limits, try though he might. It’s as if, as Berry puts it, you built a henhouse and told a fox to go live in it. The creature and his habitat were simply unsuited to one another. Or, put another way, “Andrew and my father [Andrew’s brother] were as unlike as a bird and a tree.”
Much of the book is about the pain Andrew and his escapades and death visit upon the family and community. In one scene which I must count as among the most powerful I have ever read, Andy watches quietly as his father, mother, and grandmother, sitting in silence in the parlor, simultaneously begin weeping--weeping without a sound or words or significant movement, just letting tears flow until after a time they wipe the tears away and go on with life. After he reaches adulthood, when the people--father, grandmother, grandfather--for whom questions might cause the most pain have died, Andrew begins to explore the mystery behind his Uncle’s murder. He was too young at the time to be told much of the story, and no one let him in on the story as the years went by. I won’t tell you what he finds out except to tell you that it’s the exploration that really matters more than anything he discovers.
In sum, A World Lost could as well be entitled A World Found. My wife observed how much we lose these days by not sitting on porches and talking and sharing the stories of the past and present that make us and our families who we are. I’m sure that’s part of what Berry had in mind, here, and it’s quite true. The world lost that impressed me was the part of Andy Catlett that was the free spirit of his uncle. Andy became the kind of adult his father was, but always wished he could be the kind of adult his uncle was, the kind of man he was named for. “A man responsive mainly to impulses:desire, affection, amusement, self-abandon, sometimes anger.” Andy’s sorry about the man he’s become, but he’s sorry about the man he was denied. Sorry about the man who was buried when he was so young.
I’m mostly glad about the wonder of Wendell Berry.
Berry spends many pages in this short work--at 151 pages, it seems to fit into the category of a novella--on backstory, description, musings. Again, a violation of the dictum that the modern author is well-advised to slice out those parts the reader is inclined to skip; namely, backstory, description, musing.
When our association began [the one between the protagonist, Andy Catlett, and his Uncle Andrew] I appointed myself his hired hand at a wage of a quarter a day. Since I was not big enough to do most of the jobs I wanted to do, I tended to spend the days in uneasy search for something I could do to justify my pay. I served him mostly as a sort of page, running errands, carrying water, opening gates, handing him things.
There’s a great deal of such seeming trivia. Long stretches with no dialogue. At this point, we know that Andrew has been murdered, but the narrator doesn’t know why or seem to care very much. He’s just remembering these mundanities. It’s one of the miracles of modern literature that there is still a place for Wendell Berry and his world of small farms (tobacco farms, no less), rural simplicity, and simple prose tailored to match the characters and landscape he describes. Yes, the characters are simple, with grandmothers saying such things as “Aren’t you the limit?” and village gossips sitting on porches and muttering over scandalous hemlines. But there are also murders and affairs and frauds and thefts. And with elegant simplicity Andy Catlett turns a Grandma Moses-like countryside into a universe of moral puzzles.
Andrew Catlett, the elder, you see, is a man of “plentitude”, one inclined to do “whatever he thought of”--as he and buddies with wonderful names like Yeager Stump like to put it. He is a man who is married and committed to a life of farming and moral limits, but is unable by nature to stay within those limits, try though he might. It’s as if, as Berry puts it, you built a henhouse and told a fox to go live in it. The creature and his habitat were simply unsuited to one another. Or, put another way, “Andrew and my father [Andrew’s brother] were as unlike as a bird and a tree.”
Much of the book is about the pain Andrew and his escapades and death visit upon the family and community. In one scene which I must count as among the most powerful I have ever read, Andy watches quietly as his father, mother, and grandmother, sitting in silence in the parlor, simultaneously begin weeping--weeping without a sound or words or significant movement, just letting tears flow until after a time they wipe the tears away and go on with life. After he reaches adulthood, when the people--father, grandmother, grandfather--for whom questions might cause the most pain have died, Andrew begins to explore the mystery behind his Uncle’s murder. He was too young at the time to be told much of the story, and no one let him in on the story as the years went by. I won’t tell you what he finds out except to tell you that it’s the exploration that really matters more than anything he discovers.
In sum, A World Lost could as well be entitled A World Found. My wife observed how much we lose these days by not sitting on porches and talking and sharing the stories of the past and present that make us and our families who we are. I’m sure that’s part of what Berry had in mind, here, and it’s quite true. The world lost that impressed me was the part of Andy Catlett that was the free spirit of his uncle. Andy became the kind of adult his father was, but always wished he could be the kind of adult his uncle was, the kind of man he was named for. “A man responsive mainly to impulses:desire, affection, amusement, self-abandon, sometimes anger.” Andy’s sorry about the man he’s become, but he’s sorry about the man he was denied. Sorry about the man who was buried when he was so young.
I’m mostly glad about the wonder of Wendell Berry.
May 28, 2022
My 2020 Review (see below for my 2022 review):
A World Lost is very difficult for me to rate; it has sentences and paragraph the likes of which you could find no better and it has Berry's characteristic humor and his way of capturing the language and posture and motivations of a generation that most of us know only second-hand. On the other hand, I felt like I wanted to finish reading it so I could go on to other things.
Of course, that's how I often feel when reading Berry. I love his stuff, but sometimes it's a little slow going. Which makes sense since his fiction reflects on a time and place where everything is slow going (until harvest time, that is). There's a lot of time to reflect in his novels.
Then the last few pages are some of the very best of Berry's writing (I'm referring to the novels and stories I've read so far, but I can't imagine that these pages could be compared unfavorably to anything else he has written).
A World Lost, written from young Andy Catlett's point of view (Andy is 9 when the story begins) is about the tragic death of his beloved namesake Uncle Andrew. (This is no spoiler; you know that much if you've read the inside flap.) Because of that, of course, this short book is a long meditation on life and death, including the lives and deaths of that whole host of "sharers in this mortal damage" who have "borne its burden out of the present world." Ultimately, the list of characters is increased indefinitely because it can't help but include the readers' own list of people loved and gone from this world.
OK, fine! I guess it's a five-star book. I guess I can love some perfect books a little more than others without giving them fewer stars.
2022 Updated Review: Well, I changed this to 4 stars after all. I didn't remember reading it in 2020, and although the story takes place in 1944, it has already been alluded to in stories that took place earlier but which are being reflected upon later, often (as in this case) by the adult Andy. In fact, I was beginning to think that we'd never find out about the murder of Uncle Andrew (which is on the inside flap of the book, so it's not a big secret). In one way I may have enjoyed the book more than I did in 2020 because reading everything else in the Berry's Port William oeuvre creates layers of meaning, experience, history, personalities, the lay of the land . . . there's so much more to it than one story can contain.
And yet . . . the way this story was written, about one incident that had a huge effect on the entire family for the rest of each of their lives, didn't necessarily work to its benefit. It was too one-pointed (unlike Andy Catlett: Early Travels or Nathan Coulter and, later, Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter, which each contain chunks of time with all the complication a longer time-period necessarily creates) and I found myself wanting to move on, even though, as usual, the words and sentences and insights are powerful. The story itself is exciting, but it isn't wrapped up neatly and tidily like a murder-mystery. So I gave it four stars, but that's only in comparison with everything else Wendell Berry has written; compared to most authors it would be a solid 5 stars, for sure!
A World Lost is very difficult for me to rate; it has sentences and paragraph the likes of which you could find no better and it has Berry's characteristic humor and his way of capturing the language and posture and motivations of a generation that most of us know only second-hand. On the other hand, I felt like I wanted to finish reading it so I could go on to other things.
Of course, that's how I often feel when reading Berry. I love his stuff, but sometimes it's a little slow going. Which makes sense since his fiction reflects on a time and place where everything is slow going (until harvest time, that is). There's a lot of time to reflect in his novels.
Then the last few pages are some of the very best of Berry's writing (I'm referring to the novels and stories I've read so far, but I can't imagine that these pages could be compared unfavorably to anything else he has written).
A World Lost, written from young Andy Catlett's point of view (Andy is 9 when the story begins) is about the tragic death of his beloved namesake Uncle Andrew. (This is no spoiler; you know that much if you've read the inside flap.) Because of that, of course, this short book is a long meditation on life and death, including the lives and deaths of that whole host of "sharers in this mortal damage" who have "borne its burden out of the present world." Ultimately, the list of characters is increased indefinitely because it can't help but include the readers' own list of people loved and gone from this world.
OK, fine! I guess it's a five-star book. I guess I can love some perfect books a little more than others without giving them fewer stars.
2022 Updated Review: Well, I changed this to 4 stars after all. I didn't remember reading it in 2020, and although the story takes place in 1944, it has already been alluded to in stories that took place earlier but which are being reflected upon later, often (as in this case) by the adult Andy. In fact, I was beginning to think that we'd never find out about the murder of Uncle Andrew (which is on the inside flap of the book, so it's not a big secret). In one way I may have enjoyed the book more than I did in 2020 because reading everything else in the Berry's Port William oeuvre creates layers of meaning, experience, history, personalities, the lay of the land . . . there's so much more to it than one story can contain.
And yet . . . the way this story was written, about one incident that had a huge effect on the entire family for the rest of each of their lives, didn't necessarily work to its benefit. It was too one-pointed (unlike Andy Catlett: Early Travels or Nathan Coulter and, later, Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter, which each contain chunks of time with all the complication a longer time-period necessarily creates) and I found myself wanting to move on, even though, as usual, the words and sentences and insights are powerful. The story itself is exciting, but it isn't wrapped up neatly and tidily like a murder-mystery. So I gave it four stars, but that's only in comparison with everything else Wendell Berry has written; compared to most authors it would be a solid 5 stars, for sure!
January 21, 2019
Love, love this book, as I love all of Berry’s. I’d like to have the complete set of Port William stories and reread them sometime.
March 28, 2021
Wendell Berry’s 1996 novel, A WORLD LOST, opens with Andy Catlett looking back at 1944: the summer he turned ten and the summer his uncle was murdered. As a narrator, Andy meanders in and out of memories about that season, his uncle, his father, the murder, and his childhood. A narrative arch doesn’t exist, almost, and yet the reader is fully invested and can follow Andy’s trail of thought. Andy’s hazy sense of memories about his uncle and his recalling of some seemingly random, yet very vivid, details feels accurate of a narrator recalling his childhood. His caution to bring up these broken and gap-filled memories until most of the memory-bearers are passed, also holds truth.
Before reading this novel, I was experiencing a major book slump. Nothing holds my attention and admiration. But what Wendell does with his stories is gather the pieces of me: the myths cultivated by my uncles, the unique speech of my grandpa, the funny way my dad gets ready for the day; he gathers them and binds them in a narrative that breathes hope back into my ordinary moments. When my world feels lost, Wendell says that these immortal souls have beat a rhythm into my everyday life that gives lyric and melody and sound to my days.
The final chapter, at only two-pages, took me nearly fifteen minutes to read as I underlined every other sentence and sobbed into my shirt. When you finish a book with a vision of Heaven, it will linger with me long after I close the cover.
“That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent... my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
Before reading this novel, I was experiencing a major book slump. Nothing holds my attention and admiration. But what Wendell does with his stories is gather the pieces of me: the myths cultivated by my uncles, the unique speech of my grandpa, the funny way my dad gets ready for the day; he gathers them and binds them in a narrative that breathes hope back into my ordinary moments. When my world feels lost, Wendell says that these immortal souls have beat a rhythm into my everyday life that gives lyric and melody and sound to my days.
The final chapter, at only two-pages, took me nearly fifteen minutes to read as I underlined every other sentence and sobbed into my shirt. When you finish a book with a vision of Heaven, it will linger with me long after I close the cover.
“That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent... my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
November 25, 2025
An atmospheric exploration of what it means to speak for the dead.
May 28, 2020
A slow, tender story told by Andy Catlett, as he tries to understand his Uncle Andrew's character and murder over a period of decades.
I like Berry's setting (rural, small town northern Kentucky) and his strong sense of place and land. I do think he romanticizes the farming life and the hardships of the time.
There are some wonderful lines in the book, especially at the end, when Andy, as an older man, reflects, "The dead remain in thought as much alive as they ever were . . . I live in the company of immortals."
The characters of the grandparents, especially Grandma, were beautifully drawn, as was life in their house. I will be traveling on in the Berry world, looking for more about Andy Catlett.
I like Berry's setting (rural, small town northern Kentucky) and his strong sense of place and land. I do think he romanticizes the farming life and the hardships of the time.
There are some wonderful lines in the book, especially at the end, when Andy, as an older man, reflects, "The dead remain in thought as much alive as they ever were . . . I live in the company of immortals."
The characters of the grandparents, especially Grandma, were beautifully drawn, as was life in their house. I will be traveling on in the Berry world, looking for more about Andy Catlett.
April 23, 2012
I do love Wendell Berry. Simple, eloquent, quiet, measured, wise. He's very good at understanding human nature and his mind is original. There is no one else like him.
"I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist though it must lie all around us everyday, is mostly hidden from us, like birds' nests in the woods."
"In that time of grief and discouragement and defeat--it comes clear to me now--all that my father was and would ever be depended on my mother. I can see how near he came to turning loose all that he held together and how in holding it together, with my mother's help, he preserved the possibility of our life here; he quieted himself, lived, stayed on, bore what he had to bear. With my mother's help, he kept alive in his life our lives as they would be." As I type that I think of how few American novels seem to celebrate people who stay rooted, who with patience bear grief or loss or simply the mundane. It seems that we believe in change and movement and adventure and we don't want to 'settle'. It isn't the American way. And yet, there are these many many lives, quiet lives, lives of patience, lives of work, people who stay the course and who take care of the little place they have been given, and they take care of the people they have been given. I like that Berry honors them and that way of life. I like to read about them.
" Standing there in the brilliance with my ears sticking out under the brim of my straw hat and my mouth probably hanging open, I saw how beautiful the field was, how beautiful our work was. And it came to me all in a feeling how everything fitted together, the place and ourselves and the animals and the tools, and how the sky held us. I saw how sweetly we were enabled by the land. . . "
"I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist though it must lie all around us everyday, is mostly hidden from us, like birds' nests in the woods."
"In that time of grief and discouragement and defeat--it comes clear to me now--all that my father was and would ever be depended on my mother. I can see how near he came to turning loose all that he held together and how in holding it together, with my mother's help, he preserved the possibility of our life here; he quieted himself, lived, stayed on, bore what he had to bear. With my mother's help, he kept alive in his life our lives as they would be." As I type that I think of how few American novels seem to celebrate people who stay rooted, who with patience bear grief or loss or simply the mundane. It seems that we believe in change and movement and adventure and we don't want to 'settle'. It isn't the American way. And yet, there are these many many lives, quiet lives, lives of patience, lives of work, people who stay the course and who take care of the little place they have been given, and they take care of the people they have been given. I like that Berry honors them and that way of life. I like to read about them.
" Standing there in the brilliance with my ears sticking out under the brim of my straw hat and my mouth probably hanging open, I saw how beautiful the field was, how beautiful our work was. And it came to me all in a feeling how everything fitted together, the place and ourselves and the animals and the tools, and how the sky held us. I saw how sweetly we were enabled by the land. . . "
June 8, 2015
I loved this book. Berry's insights and his eloquence always inspires. In this novel, I particularly appreciate the way he weaves thoughts on life, death, and the interconnectedness of every living being. One of my favorite passages:
“Perhaps it was from thinking about him after his death, discovering how much I remembered and how little I knew, that I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist, though it must lie all around us everyday, is mostly hidden from us, like birds’ nests in the woods.” (p. 62).
This is a book I will pick up and read again.
“Perhaps it was from thinking about him after his death, discovering how much I remembered and how little I knew, that I learned that all human stories in this world contain many lost or unwritten or unreadable or unwritable pages and that the truth about us, though it must exist, though it must lie all around us everyday, is mostly hidden from us, like birds’ nests in the woods.” (p. 62).
This is a book I will pick up and read again.
March 23, 2023
"a time of ending, not just to lives but of a kind of life and a kind of world. I did not recognize that ending as consciously then as I do now, but I felt its shadow."
Probably one of my favorites from the Port William novels, along with Jayber Crow and A Place on Earth. Wendell Berry is really good with loss, grief, love, and the bonds of family and community.
Probably one of my favorites from the Port William novels, along with Jayber Crow and A Place on Earth. Wendell Berry is really good with loss, grief, love, and the bonds of family and community.
August 9, 2020
I’m becoming on first name basis with “Wendell” Berry. (thanks to Sara)
I love the old Kentucky town and countryside of Port William. I love the folks and families who live there.
Uncle Andrew was a free - wild spirit, whom his namesake, Andy has a fascination
Wendell brings their emotions and feelings to life. Sometimes it is the simple things.
side note ~ I love a man who can dance 😊
I love the old Kentucky town and countryside of Port William. I love the folks and families who live there.
Uncle Andrew was a free - wild spirit, whom his namesake, Andy has a fascination
Wendell brings their emotions and feelings to life. Sometimes it is the simple things.
side note ~ I love a man who can dance 😊
May 27, 2020
You know when you go on Amazon and you see every single album by an artist rated 5 stars? I have come to realize that the people who love a particular musician will rate EVERYTHING five stars, which is fine unless you're someone who has never heard the artist before and you want a starting place. I'm thinking that most of the people who rated this novella (104 pages with a map and family tree inexplicably AFTER the text) 4 and 5 stars probably love Wendell Berry and his writing. If that's true, those reviews may puzzle a first-time Wendell Berry fiction reader like myself. The reading of this novella was a tremendous effort, something like literary mud-boggin'. There were paragraphs I had to go back and read again just to make sure there really wasn't anything important going on. There were many, many words and descriptions used when a few would have been sufficient. I didn't make any connections with the characters, and pages of narrative exposition does not propel a story. The ending is beautiful and I felt I deserved it when I finally arrived. I am certain Mr. Berry is a wonderful person, but this is the second book of his I've read and not enjoyed. It will probably be my last.
September 21, 2017
It's Wendell Berry, do I need to say more
March 23, 2018
A Lost World, by Wendell Berry is something I wasn’t expecting. I wondered if this was autobiographical, and guess it’s possible, but I don’t need it to be true. Berry was born in 1934, was a kid during WW2, and does briefly mention the Great War in the book while referring to a sugar ration, not this isn’t a war-era novel. This is a book that lends itself to nostalgia, even for me (born in 1980 WAY after indoor plumbing and electricity were standard in almost all homes).
The story is about Andy, who at the telling of the story is looking back at his life and remembering his family, members of his community, and the murder of his Uncle Andrew. Something that struck me in this story was that adult Andy’s entire dialogue is dedicated to people who are gone, having died long ago, and he’s trying to remember all the important details of those lives. At no point does he mention whether he is married or had children of his own. So many elements in the story are life-changing, and I was curious to know how they changed Andy as an adult. Is he married? If so, does he treat his spouse like his Uncle Andrew treated women, or more in line with his own father and mother’s relationship? Does he have children? Is he constantly worried they will be injured or drown in the river?
My own father was born in 1955, and the way this is written is something I could imagine my own dad doing in how Berry describes the past. Berry had the hindsight and maturity of older age, of time, and I loved how he would reference his childhood emotions (from the perspective of the now-adult Berry) and admit that he’s actually not sure how he felt anymore while the whole event was happening. He lived when people still drew water from the well, had an outhouse, and a bad crop could make for a VERY tough winter. These were lean times, children of the Great Depression, children of the Great War. I’ve always been fascinated by the era and by believable characters from this era.
I would like to learn more about Wendell Berry, to find out if any of this is based on his own childhood or entirely fictional.
The story is about Andy, who at the telling of the story is looking back at his life and remembering his family, members of his community, and the murder of his Uncle Andrew. Something that struck me in this story was that adult Andy’s entire dialogue is dedicated to people who are gone, having died long ago, and he’s trying to remember all the important details of those lives. At no point does he mention whether he is married or had children of his own. So many elements in the story are life-changing, and I was curious to know how they changed Andy as an adult. Is he married? If so, does he treat his spouse like his Uncle Andrew treated women, or more in line with his own father and mother’s relationship? Does he have children? Is he constantly worried they will be injured or drown in the river?
My own father was born in 1955, and the way this is written is something I could imagine my own dad doing in how Berry describes the past. Berry had the hindsight and maturity of older age, of time, and I loved how he would reference his childhood emotions (from the perspective of the now-adult Berry) and admit that he’s actually not sure how he felt anymore while the whole event was happening. He lived when people still drew water from the well, had an outhouse, and a bad crop could make for a VERY tough winter. These were lean times, children of the Great Depression, children of the Great War. I’ve always been fascinated by the era and by believable characters from this era.
I would like to learn more about Wendell Berry, to find out if any of this is based on his own childhood or entirely fictional.
September 12, 2010
Oh, why did I not read every Wendell Berry book I could when I was first
introduced to his writings a few years ago? This would have been a good beginning book to the continuing characters in Port William, a small town and farm community in Kentucky. This book is set in the summer of 1944 and narrated by Andy Cartlett, nine at the time. Andy gains insight into the lives of his parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. (grandfather) "He was a comforting man to be with. Perhaps that was enough." (Aunt Judith) "Yet as her afflictions grew she seemed to become increasingly self-concerned. Her sufferings finally were not at all conditioned by the understanding that others also suffered; she suffered in an almost pristine innocence, as if she were the world's unique sufferer and the world wanted curiously to hear of her pains. She was so prompt and extravagant in pitying herself that she drove away all competitors." (father) "He fascinated us, I think, because he was so completely alive and passionate and intelligent, so precisely intent upon the things he loved, so eager to get work done, so fiercely demanding of us, and yet so tender toward us. We would be angry at him often enough, and yet he delighted us, and we were proud of him." I loved reading the book and getting to know the characters. I look forward to meeting them again in other Berry books.
introduced to his writings a few years ago? This would have been a good beginning book to the continuing characters in Port William, a small town and farm community in Kentucky. This book is set in the summer of 1944 and narrated by Andy Cartlett, nine at the time. Andy gains insight into the lives of his parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. (grandfather) "He was a comforting man to be with. Perhaps that was enough." (Aunt Judith) "Yet as her afflictions grew she seemed to become increasingly self-concerned. Her sufferings finally were not at all conditioned by the understanding that others also suffered; she suffered in an almost pristine innocence, as if she were the world's unique sufferer and the world wanted curiously to hear of her pains. She was so prompt and extravagant in pitying herself that she drove away all competitors." (father) "He fascinated us, I think, because he was so completely alive and passionate and intelligent, so precisely intent upon the things he loved, so eager to get work done, so fiercely demanding of us, and yet so tender toward us. We would be angry at him often enough, and yet he delighted us, and we were proud of him." I loved reading the book and getting to know the characters. I look forward to meeting them again in other Berry books.
June 20, 2009
I gave this book a 3 because even though it's a short book, I felt like it could have ended sooner. I got what I wanted out of it in the first half. That said, I enjoyed this book for what it was. There were simple phrases and witty remarks that made me laugh out loud, you don't hear this kind of stuff in this day and age. For example: Spoiler: There's a part where his Grandma puts a pillow of feathers over the phone to insulate it during the storms from lightning (takes place in 1940's in the backwoods in Ky.} Anyway, about the idea of this, her son says, "I believed that too, Dorie, till I saw lightning strike a goose." The dry humor and the back country humor is so refreshing. This book also makes you really consider the hardship of death on a family that doesn't understand the concept of an afterlife.
July 8, 2025
Wendell Berry is a master of his craft, and all of his books are elegantly written. A World Lost is no exception, and I have learned from the inhabitants of Port William that Berry writes with even more eloquence when dealing with the subject of grief. This particular book deals with the grief and confusion that follow the murder of Andrew Catlett, and the resulting reminiscences of his nephew and namesake, Andy Catlett. It is a beautiful story about pain and misunderstanding, but it is also a story about the love and respect a boy has for a man, and what happens when he is taken from him.
April 29, 2025
This is my third book of Wendell Berry’s series set in Port William, Kentucky, based on his hometown. The first one I read was Jayber Crow, the second was A Place on Earth. This book differed in scope from those two. Jayber Crow is the story of the town barber and we see everyone and every event through Jayber Crow’s eyes while we get his insights and philosophical musings over the span of many years. A Place on Earth does not have a single center but the reader sees the people and events through the eyes of various Port William, Kentucky residents but in a shorter time period. A World Over is similar to Jayber Crow in that it is told through the eyes of one character, Andy Catlett, but unlike Jayber, it is about the impact of one event on a character rather than a depiction of a character over their lifetime.
In 1944 the nine-year-old Andy experienced the murder of his Uncle, also named Andy Catlett. Uncle Andy was an important figure in younger Andy’s life and his death greatly impacted young Andy. This story has the 60ish Andy Catlett looking back on the events surrounding Uncle Andy’s death. While some of the story involves the adult Andy still investigating what happened, the majority of the story involves Andy describing what his life was like generally as a nine-year old in Port Washington at the time before the murder. We get more background on his father, lawyer Wheeler Catlett, his mother the former Bess Feltner, his grandparents and other Port Washington residents. It does not have the scope of either of the first two novels I read and, at 104 pages, was more like a long short story.
But considering its intended limited scope, the story was successful. While there are the dramatic events, the story is more about young Andy’s internal search to accept what happened and what he can and cannot know about it. Also, as with the other Port Washington books, it is very endearing and rewarding just reading about the residents’ feeling of communal responsibility toward each other and their attitudes while performing this responsibility. As a result, these moments of human interactions are as important than any dramatic event. Berry is skilled at making even the more mundane day-to-day details interesting.
I rate this story as 4+ stars.
In 1944 the nine-year-old Andy experienced the murder of his Uncle, also named Andy Catlett. Uncle Andy was an important figure in younger Andy’s life and his death greatly impacted young Andy. This story has the 60ish Andy Catlett looking back on the events surrounding Uncle Andy’s death. While some of the story involves the adult Andy still investigating what happened, the majority of the story involves Andy describing what his life was like generally as a nine-year old in Port Washington at the time before the murder. We get more background on his father, lawyer Wheeler Catlett, his mother the former Bess Feltner, his grandparents and other Port Washington residents. It does not have the scope of either of the first two novels I read and, at 104 pages, was more like a long short story.
But considering its intended limited scope, the story was successful. While there are the dramatic events, the story is more about young Andy’s internal search to accept what happened and what he can and cannot know about it. Also, as with the other Port Washington books, it is very endearing and rewarding just reading about the residents’ feeling of communal responsibility toward each other and their attitudes while performing this responsibility. As a result, these moments of human interactions are as important than any dramatic event. Berry is skilled at making even the more mundane day-to-day details interesting.
I rate this story as 4+ stars.
October 24, 2024
4.5 rounded down to 4
Adult Andy Catlett tells of his life and the time his uncle (Andy's namesake) is shot and killed, and the effects it has on his family as he grows up and becomes a man with his own family. Andy recounts how Uncle Andrew would take him along with him around town, around the farm and locals areas, and how his world changed when he is told Uncle Andrew has died.
"Perhaps I did not grieve in the usual sense at all. The world that I knew had changed into a world that I knew only in part; perhaps I understood that I would not be able ever again to think of it as a known world. My awareness of my loss must have been beyond summary. It must have been exactly commensurate with what I had lost, and what I had lost was Uncle Andrews as I had known him, my life with Uncle Andrew. I had lost what I remembered.
The two Port William novels I've read thus far have been very nostalgic for me having grown up in the country around farm land; around farmers who were friends of ours; around hearing the slam of a screen door and the creak of the spring and the hinges; running barefoot though fields and stepping on sandspurs; "Come here, suga', and give me a kiss" from aunts you go visit every few months; as well as stories my husband has told me of he and his cousins and brother growing up. This is why I've loved these books (Nathan Coulter and A World Lost plus a few short stories).
Adult Andy Catlett tells of his life and the time his uncle (Andy's namesake) is shot and killed, and the effects it has on his family as he grows up and becomes a man with his own family. Andy recounts how Uncle Andrew would take him along with him around town, around the farm and locals areas, and how his world changed when he is told Uncle Andrew has died.
"Perhaps I did not grieve in the usual sense at all. The world that I knew had changed into a world that I knew only in part; perhaps I understood that I would not be able ever again to think of it as a known world. My awareness of my loss must have been beyond summary. It must have been exactly commensurate with what I had lost, and what I had lost was Uncle Andrews as I had known him, my life with Uncle Andrew. I had lost what I remembered.
The two Port William novels I've read thus far have been very nostalgic for me having grown up in the country around farm land; around farmers who were friends of ours; around hearing the slam of a screen door and the creak of the spring and the hinges; running barefoot though fields and stepping on sandspurs; "Come here, suga', and give me a kiss" from aunts you go visit every few months; as well as stories my husband has told me of he and his cousins and brother growing up. This is why I've loved these books (Nathan Coulter and A World Lost plus a few short stories).
January 8, 2024
“And then the day seemed to collapse around me into what it had become. There was no place where what had happened had not happened.”
This book was able to articulate things that I have been feeling since my father died that I haven’t been able to adequately express. I am grateful for it. Throughout this book it is easy to see the beauty of both mourning and dancing. It must be true that life continues after death. Nothing else makes since.
I’ll end my little review with how Wendell Berry ends his book. He makes me look forward to entering into the Mystery.
“But now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years.”
This book was able to articulate things that I have been feeling since my father died that I haven’t been able to adequately express. I am grateful for it. Throughout this book it is easy to see the beauty of both mourning and dancing. It must be true that life continues after death. Nothing else makes since.
I’ll end my little review with how Wendell Berry ends his book. He makes me look forward to entering into the Mystery.
“But now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years.”
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