The Ripest Moments by Norbert Krapf

Bufkinite@evpl — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:00 GMT

The Ripest Moments is a simple pleasure to read. While reading this memoir of growing up in the 40s and 50s in Jasper and rural Dubois County, Indiana, I found myself reminded over and over again of my own childhood in northern Indiana, and the cousins, aunts, and uncles we'd often visit in Ohio and West Virginia.

While this is primarily a book about place, and family, it's also a book about community, and the work ethic that built communities like Jasper - and like Evansville, for that matter - with materials and stock that, in the author's words, were "one generation removed from the farm, two or three generations removed from Germany, and a hundred years beyond the wilderness."

As the title suggests, there's quite a bit remembered about the importance of gardens, orchards, and farms in this book. Family garden plots were central to the survival of pre-suburban, working families. "Summers on the Farm," "The Rye Field," and "The Garden and the Strawberry Patch" are just a few of the more mouth-watering chapters.

If you were born & raised in southern Indiana, you'll find something familiar, and likely something warm, in this book. But even if you're a transplant, this book may speak to you. Quoting the author's preface: "I have always believed that any story set deeply in one time and place, if told well, speaks for other times, places, and people. To put it another way, a sense of time and place travels well. A life lived deeply anywhere resonates beyond the context of its specifics."

This one resonated with me.

The author's website.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

HRevvdon@evpl — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Once in a while I like to go back and read a classic that I have not read in years. This summer I pulled out my old copy of The Good Earth (1931) by Pearl S. Buck. I have read a couple other books by Buck, Dragon Seed, most notable. I enjoy her writing, but mostly I enjoy her stories. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for this novel and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. The Good Earth is part of a trilogy including Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935); neither of which I can find to read. A few years ago The Good Earth hit the best seller lists again when Oprah chose it for one of her book club selections.

Buck's novel is set in pre-revolutionary China. The lead character is Wang Lung, a poor farmer's son with a bit of land. The story opens with Wang Lung excited about meeting for the first time and marrying his pre-arranged bride, a slave girl from the house of a wealthy old family. O-lan is quiet, saying the fewest words possible and only when absolutely necessary. She is strong, homely, and a hard worker. She works diligently by her husband's side in the fields helping to make him a successful farmer, she takes care of her husband and her husband's father, but most importantly she bears him three sons.

The story follows Wang Lung through his trials, tribulations, success, poverty, and finally wealth. He is a strong man with few weaknesses, but the weaknesses he has are large. All the characters in the novel are finely drawn. Wang Lung's sons do not stay on the farm but become a scholar, a merchant, and a soldier. There are daughters, slaves, concubines, and unwanted opium addicted relatives, all serve to move the story along and make it lively!

The ending leaves me wanting more. I will be trying to find Sons and A House Divided so I can catch up on what happened to the Wang Lung family!

Books Blog : farming

The Ripest Moments by Norbert Krapf

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck