Essays 1969-1990 (LOA #316)

Library of America #316

by Wendell Berry, Jack Shoemaker (Editor)

In celebration of Berry’s extraordinary six-decade-long career, Library of America presents a two-volume edition of his essays, selected by the author and his longtime editor, Jack Shoemaker, which reveals as never before the evolution of Berry’s thoughts and concerns as a farmer, neighbor, citizen, teacher, activist, and ecological philosopher. This first volume includes the whole of Berry’s now classic book The Unsettling of America (1970) and thirty-two essays from eight collections published from 1969 to 1990: The Long-Legged House (1969), The Hidden Wound (1970), A Continuous Harmony (1972), Recollected Essays: 1969–1980 (1981), The Gift of Good Land (1981), Standing by Words (1983), Home Economics (1987), and What Are People For? (1990).

In The Unsettling of America, Berry explores how and why, even in our modern global economy, locally adapted farming is essential to the flourishing of culture, to healthy living and stable communities, and ultimately to our survival as a species. In his 1995 Afterword to the Third Edition, included here, Berry notes with mounting urgency that his argument about the long-term ecological and human costs of industrial agriculture has “not had the happy fate of being proved wrong.”

Other essays in this volume include his early autobiographical pieces “The Long-Legged House” and “A Native Hill,” the indispensable “Think Little,” “Writer and Region,” “Preserving Wildness,” “The Work of Local Culture,” and the still provocative “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” in which he posits his standards for embracing a new technology, including: “It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.”

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Agriculture

841 pages, Hardcover

Published May 21, 2019

About the author

Wendell Berry was a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).

Berry was an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He was also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, from 2014 to his death, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

abridged from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[alex]

going to try add more to this later, but this had a pretty profound effect on me. I should swap my TV for a garden

[Jeanne Grunert]

I love Wendell Berry's prose. He writes with precision and elegance in a way that few have mastered. His characters are memorable and realistic. Some of his stories are humorous, but it's a gentle, good-natured humor. He brings rural living to life without preaching and from a view that is often lost in the modern world. Highly recommended, especially his novels, "Nathan Coulter" and "A Place on Earth."

[Jane]

I greatly recommend this essay collection to anyone interested in the development of corporation agriculture in the United States, rural life and farming, or the role of culture in nature and vice versa. Berry writes with precision and unchanging moral guidelines (and to my understanding has done so his whole life.) Born and raised in Henry Country, Kentucky, Berry leaves for a period of time at the start of his writing career, but ultimately end ups on a farm in rural Kentucky, to live off the land and become a "regional writer" in a sense. There is a very interesting essay on the topic of regionalism in the literary world (which he argues should not exist- all literature should exist in our world, in our culture.) Regionalism often leads to romanticization or condemnation of the people it writes of.( I am currently reading a book on the Ozark region of Arkansas and this does become apparent.) There are other essays on a wide range of topics- Christianity in the modern world, the difference between a road and a path, the ever present push of our society to advance, technology, and food systems. This collection also contains The Unsettling of America, which I have read but would like to return to. Overall very interesting and thought provoking!

[Amanda]

I think he is so very right that most of living wrong, I'm just not sure where his philosophy actually gets us. It never really worked for most people to own their own farms and would not work now. He also really does not get why people objected to his "wife as stenographer solution" to not owning a computer. Not all women want to be the woman behind the man, and not all men are worth it! He seems unable to see how he leaves so many out of his vision. But still, I found reading this provocative in the best way and wish we had more such contrarian thinkers!
My favorite essays in here were actually the earliest ones which were more memoir of his childhood and early adult life and settling on the farm. The first essay (I think called The Rise) was a story of canoeing on flood waters and then how those flood waters return to damage a family cabin again and again. I was reading that right after the devastating floods in Texas and it was uncomfortable to balance the tone of these essays with the tragic stories I had been reading. And also made me think that the theme of so many lives has been our relationship with the water. Something that our lives all depend on, that also takes so many from us.

[Jwt Jan50]

Came across a review of his fiction 'Nathan Coulter,' which also mentioned the essay in this collection 'The Unsettling of America.' After the fourth chapter, I started skimming. While I basically agree with a lot of his conclusions, some of the examples he uses to support his thesis - just wouldn't stand fact checking. And, repetitive. Reminded me of the diatribe in the middle of 'Atlas Shrugged' which went straight to the DNF shelf where it has languished since 1968. Reading the reviews here, I'm still going to keep 'Nathan Coulter' on the TBR list and I may come back to some of the more autobiographical essays in this collection.

[Jessie]

I read this book in chunks over the past year and it’s too much and was too spread out an experience to rate. Some was very very good, some got way too vague and navel gazing, and after the compilation started compiling the points got a little repetitive, which is to be expected. A lot sure soaked in though.

[Kat Conover]

What’s a girl gotta do to be aware of cool people while they’re still alive? Banger after banger, especially from my perspective as a hospice nurse, mother, and aspiring pacifist. The kind of guy that makes you want to grow your own onions and take a walk around the neighborhood to tell the neighbors hello as acts of hopeful resistance

[Reader]

Definitely skipped many chapters in the middle there…a little too boring if you will…but the chapters I liked had me equally at peace and enraged. Loved the one about not owning a computer, feminism, the unsettling of America, and the long legged house :)

[Mills College Library]

814.54 B5348a 2019

[Adam Carrico]

Have I mentioned how much I love Wendell Berry?