{"id":876,"date":"2011-11-11T10:00:43","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jolene-test.com.bishopcompsol.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2011-11-11T10:00:43","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:00:43","slug":"a-place-on-earth-by-wendell-berry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jolenephilo.com\/staging\/a-place-on-earth-by-wendell-berry\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not too long ago, I posted a review of Hannah Coulter<\/em> by Wendell Berry. Since then, I\u2019ve been slowly reading Berry\u2019s entire Port William series. Each book has been a delight, the meeting of a new friend, the unfolding of a world both complex and simple.<\/p>\n

Rather than write a review of A Place on Earth<\/em>, the second book in the series – since it would be so similar to the Hannah Coulter<\/em> review – here\u2019s an excerpt from the book. The conversation is between Mat and Margaret, a long-married couple. Their only son and World War 2 soldier, Virgil, has been missing in action for several months. The war is now over, and the are coming to understand their son is not MIA, but dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cMat, when we\u2019ve lost it all, we\u2019ve had what we\u2019ve lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to lose it. Isn\u2019t there anything in you that rebels against that?\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks steadily at him, considering that – whether unsure of her answer or unwilling to answer too readily, he cannot tell. He is aware that Margaret is trying him, drawing deliberately at the bindings between them, as he has tried with her with his singleness.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVirgil,\u201d she says as if to remind or acknowledge what they are talking about. \u201cFrom the day he was born I knew he would die. That was how I loved him, partly. I\u2019d brought him into the world that would give him things to love, and take them away. You too, Mat. You knew it. I knew so well that he would die that, when he did disappear from us the way he did, I was familiar with the pain. I\u2019d had it in me all my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tone of weeping has come into her voice, though not openly, and Mat does not yet move toward her. The weeping seems on the circumstance of what she is saying, not the result – an old weeping, well known, bearable by an endurance both inborn and long practiced. The dusk is thickening so their eyes no longer clearly meet, though they still look toward each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t believe that when his death is subtracted from his life it leaves nothing. Do you, Mat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cI don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it leaves is his life. How could I turn away from it now any more than I could when he was a little child, and not love it and be glad of it, just because death is in it?\u201d
\nHer words fall on him like water and like light…<\/p>\n

…\u201dAnd, Mat,\u201d she says, \u201cwe belong to each other. After all these years. Doesn\u2019t that mean something?\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a long time before he answers…\u201dI don\u2019t know what it means,\u201d he says finally. \u201cI know what it\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something shifted in me after reading that passage. And this is a book filled with such passages, interspersed with humor and homeyness to comfort the soul.<\/p>\n

If you could use some humor and homeyness, check out Wendell Berry\u2019s Port William series. Let them comfort your soul, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not too long ago, I posted a review of Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Since then, I\u2019ve been slowly reading Berry\u2019s entire Port William series. Each book has been a delight, the meeting of a new friend, the unfolding of a world both complex and simple. Rather than write a review of A Place on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[533,550,735,959,1232],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-grief","tag-hannah-coulter","tag-loss","tag-port-william-series","tag-wendell-berry"],"yoast_head":"\nA Place on Earth by Wendell Berry - Jolene Philo Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry - Jolene Philo Staging\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not too long ago, I posted a review of Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. 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