Scan barcode
linneakarchibald's review against another edition
5.0
I always love a good Wendell Berry book and this one is one I’ll be returning to again in the future. Berry’s calm and quiet work is a welcome antidote to the loud and busy world we find ourselves in today, as always.
While my favorite of his works are still “Jayber Crow” and “Hannah Coulter,” several of the stories in this collection still come to mind frequently for me and offer color and depth to some of the characters I knew less well. The stories concerning Matt Feltner in particular have stayed with me and I look forward to revisiting Berry’s other works with the knowledge these stories imparted.
The Port William membership welcomes the reader in as one of their own, giving them a seat at the table and, should you choose to pull up a chair, you won’t regret it.
While my favorite of his works are still “Jayber Crow” and “Hannah Coulter,” several of the stories in this collection still come to mind frequently for me and offer color and depth to some of the characters I knew less well. The stories concerning Matt Feltner in particular have stayed with me and I look forward to revisiting Berry’s other works with the knowledge these stories imparted.
The Port William membership welcomes the reader in as one of their own, giving them a seat at the table and, should you choose to pull up a chair, you won’t regret it.
hannahmadden's review
5.0
Reading the whole Port William series for the first time to learn more from WB about membership in a community and caring for your neighbors, and he is popping off!!!
“But Wheeler raises a hand, and goes on. ‘It's not accountable, because we're dealing in goods and services that we didn't make, that can't exist at all except as gifts. Everything about a place that's different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or woman that's different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift. I know that if you bought a calf from Nathan Coulter you’d pay him for it, and that's right. But aside from that, you're friends and neighbors, you work together, and so there's lots of giving and taking without a price- some that you don't remember, some that you never knew about. You don't send a bill. You don't, if you can help it, keep an account. Once the account is kept and the bill pre-sented, the friendship ends, the neighborhood is finished, and you're back to where you started. The starting place doesn't have anybody in it but you.’
‘It's before the line of succession,’ Elton says.
‘That's right.’”
“But Wheeler raises a hand, and goes on. ‘It's not accountable, because we're dealing in goods and services that we didn't make, that can't exist at all except as gifts. Everything about a place that's different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or woman that's different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift. I know that if you bought a calf from Nathan Coulter you’d pay him for it, and that's right. But aside from that, you're friends and neighbors, you work together, and so there's lots of giving and taking without a price- some that you don't remember, some that you never knew about. You don't send a bill. You don't, if you can help it, keep an account. Once the account is kept and the bill pre-sented, the friendship ends, the neighborhood is finished, and you're back to where you started. The starting place doesn't have anybody in it but you.’
‘It's before the line of succession,’ Elton says.
‘That's right.’”
bobbo49's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Well, now I'll have to get started with the multi-volume Port William series. These six stories are little windows into the multi-generational family farming and living near the Kentucky River, from the 1930s to the mid 1960s. Filled with thoughtful insights into family, friends, neighbors, and life on and off the farm, beautifully written and flowing like the poetry for which Berry is equally revered.
A snippet, when a central character has helped a friend and neighbor buy the farm he has been working, but refuses the suggestion that he is owed something in return: "Everything about a place that's different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or woman that's different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift."
Or, as an old man tries to hike out of a streambed at the bottom of a hillside to make his way home as darkness descends, unsure if he can survive the approaching cold darkness, and sees a hawk on a limb over his head: "'Wonders,' he thinks. 'Little wonders of a great wonder.' If a man eighty years old has not seen enough, then nobody will ever see enough. Such a little piece of the world as he has before him now would be worth a man's long life, looking and listening."
A snippet, when a central character has helped a friend and neighbor buy the farm he has been working, but refuses the suggestion that he is owed something in return: "Everything about a place that's different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or woman that's different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift."
Or, as an old man tries to hike out of a streambed at the bottom of a hillside to make his way home as darkness descends, unsure if he can survive the approaching cold darkness, and sees a hawk on a limb over his head: "'Wonders,' he thinks. 'Little wonders of a great wonder.' If a man eighty years old has not seen enough, then nobody will ever see enough. Such a little piece of the world as he has before him now would be worth a man's long life, looking and listening."
chrisiant's review against another edition
4.0
More calm, thoughtful stories of the Port William membership. I think my favorite of the six was the older fellow going for a walk in the woods to mend a fence and communing with all the men who had gone before him on trips to mend this fence before, when he was a child with the elders, then when he had children with them and the generation above him, and now, having left the care of the fence to the generations below him but wanting to go check just in case. The description of a long walk in the woods in the body of an 80 year-old - looking carefully for each step, remembering what it was to have a body that responded easily to your brain and bounded along undaunted and realizing how different it is now - was just beautiful.
The pro-farming/agrarian agenda was a little more blatant here than in Jayber Crow. On to more Wendell!
The pro-farming/agrarian agenda was a little more blatant here than in Jayber Crow. On to more Wendell!
gregbodwell's review against another edition
4.0
Reading Wendell Berry’s fiction is like drinking from a cool glass of water.
book_beat's review against another edition
5.0
“In body, now, he is an old man, but mind and eye look out of his old body into the shifting leafy lights and shadows among the still trunks with a recognition that is without age, the return of an ageless joy.” — Wendell Berry.
.
I raved about JAYBER CROW last month and immediately picked up another book by Wendell Berry. THE WILD BIRDS follows a handful of the Port William residents — living, dying, farming, and saving each other with lots of grace and forgiveness. I’ve found this collection to be very healing for me, particularly a story about a grandson sitting at his dying grandfather’s bedside. Berry has broken into my all-time-favorite authors because he writes about the quiet, mundane moments. He shows how every tiny detail of life can be observed and redeemed with love.
.
I raved about JAYBER CROW last month and immediately picked up another book by Wendell Berry. THE WILD BIRDS follows a handful of the Port William residents — living, dying, farming, and saving each other with lots of grace and forgiveness. I’ve found this collection to be very healing for me, particularly a story about a grandson sitting at his dying grandfather’s bedside. Berry has broken into my all-time-favorite authors because he writes about the quiet, mundane moments. He shows how every tiny detail of life can be observed and redeemed with love.
samuelblakey's review against another edition
5.0
As always, Wendell Berry has a way of expressing the heart of a man with stunning clarity. In these fragmented short stories, held together by the characters and the town of Port William, you see how the town holds steady even as things continue to change. Each book feels like revisiting old friends and becoming acquainted with new friends. I can’t get enough!
leucocrystal's review against another edition
5.0
"Such a little piece of the world as he has before him now would be worth a man's long life, watching and listening. And then he could go two hundred feet and live again another life, listening and watching, and his eyes would never be satisfied with seeing, nor his ears filled with hearing. Whatever he saw could be seen only by looking away from something else equally worth seeing. For a second he feels and then loses some urging of the delight in a mind that could see and comprehend it all, all at once. 'I could stay here a long time,' he thinks. 'I could stay here a long time.'"
Everything Berry describes about living in nature, farming, being a part of the physical world, making a home and a life in a small town, manages to just be absolutely, completely beautiful, and more compelling than any other writer I've ever read to tackle those particular subjects. I don't know what more to say than that.
Everything Berry describes about living in nature, farming, being a part of the physical world, making a home and a life in a small town, manages to just be absolutely, completely beautiful, and more compelling than any other writer I've ever read to tackle those particular subjects. I don't know what more to say than that.