04/06/2020
Thank you to all of you who signed on to join us in reading Wendell Berry’s novel A Place on Earth. (And if you haven't yet, there's still time: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfiPkm5g2oKqSeoL9U2pg6QGMsePpO7AccSDo8gb9-k69bXww/viewform) Today, and on the next four Mondays, we’ll send you a brief email with three or four questions drawn from each of the novel’s five parts. Below are question from Part One. If you've signed up with your email, you'll also receive a brief excerpt from my book Virtues of Renewal. This section discusses the fairly drastic revisions Berry made to this novel and considers what these revisions might show us about how to practice fidelity in difficult circumstances. Our hope is to include selections from other essays or book chapters about this novel in the coming weeks; don’t feel obligated to read all these, but if your reading of the novel raises questions or whets your appetite for further discussion of its themes, you might find these of interest. And we’re looking forward to dialoguing with you all about this novel on May 7, at 7:30 pm (EST).
1) “The seed bins are empty.” This opening sentence perfectly describes the situation in which the characters find themselves. The seeds are gone; the young men are off at war; there seems to be little hope for the resumption of life’s seasons. How do those who remain wait well in the suspension of normal rhythms? What might we learn from the rummy players—or other Port Williamites—about how to wait well in such circumstances?
2) At the conclusion of the afternoon’s game, the rummy players turn up the radio to hear the day’s update on the war. The narrator compares the radio to “an idol come to life above its alter, a crude cyclopean head erected and drowsily alert on the room’s edge” (22). The announcer’s voice provides a sense of clarity as he states facts and statistics. These numbers cannot adequately account for the loss and suffering to which they refer, yet we may be tempted to clutch at the false sense of security and meaning they offer. Later, we are told that Old Jack in particular “mistrusts what he reads in the papers. The war is more serious, it seems to him, than the papers make it out to be” (52). What is the value of news in a time of war or pandemic? How might we avoid idolizing it? Berry’s narrator provides an interesting contrast to the barren numbers in the news through the description of the business accounts Jack keeps in his pocket notebook: “His figures grunt and bleat and bray and bawl” (55). Perhaps only those who feel the losses can figure the real costs.
3) In the final scene of this section, we see Mat Feltner working to save a lamb’s life after its sibling dies. It is dark and cold outside, and earlier that day he has received word that his son Virgil is missing in action. Death and the threat of more death haunt him, yet Mat goes about the humble, skilled work of care. How can we tend life in our own places even while the world outside is dark with loss and uncertainty?
Please join us in reading Wendell Berry’s A Place on Earth. We’ll gather via the now ubiquitous Zoom on Thursday, May 7 at 7:30 pm (EST) to talk about the book. To receive an invitation to our Zoom discussion, just enter your email below. Why this novel? Well, it’s written by Wendell Berry. Bu...
