Books Blog : reviews, Agriculture

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 Way of Ignorance and Other Essays by Wendell Berry

Bufkinite@evpl — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:19:00 GMT

Wendell Berry is by now surely the “elder statesman” of living responsibly in a sustainable fashion, with strong local allegiances to a place in every sense of the word: the local ecology, culture, community, and people. He seems to be aware of the fact that, if not a statesman, he certainly qualifies as “elder,” being now well into his seventy-fourth year, and he frequently mentions his elderly status in passing in these essays:

"I know well that I am hardly the first aging man to look back on his youth as 'a better time,' and perhaps I am sufficiently aware of the dangers. It is true nevertheless that in my lifetime I have witnessed a lot of destruction. And I can’t say that I believe this destruction has been compensated by any of the gains we designate as 'progress.'"

He also honors his elderly status in a way he hasn’t in his previous 16 books of essays: the third and final section of this book gives the stage to two younger writers in the same agrarian and communitarian vein: Daniel Kemmis and Courtney White.

Berry's writing continues to develop its plainsong character, saying what he thinks clearly in words so carefully chosen that he makes it look easy. It is nothing short of astounding that he can put such deep thought into such straightforward language. Here's a two-sentence example:

"We have to have a sort of pity for the CEO of a polluting corporation who desires wealth, healthy children, and a vacation in the restorative purity of nature. And surely we have to extend the same pity to those who are sure that 'it takes a village to raise a child' but forget that it takes a local culture and a local economy to raise a village."

Moreover, the brevity he began to develop in essays that appeared in Home Economics (an out-of-print gem which EVPL unfortunately does not have) has matured as well. The essay “Contempt for Small Places” runs less than two pages, and “Rugged Individualism,” and “We Have Begun,” both run less than three pages.

You would be mistaken to the point of foolishness however, if you assumed that he wasn’t saying very much. The book is divided into three sections, which I think of loosely as “essays about the political situation,” “essays about the cultural situation,” and “essays about how we bring the two into harmony.”

Highly, highly recommended.

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan

lotech@evpl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:54:00 GMT

This is a fascinating discussion of our relationship to the food we eat. Mr. Pollan first discusses the familiar Industrial Agricultural system, a topic that's been covered by many other books in one way or another, but Pollan provides a good overview to the problems this system presents us. I didn't care for what I felt a too extensive discussion of his coy conceit that corn has selected us to guarantee its existence, but that's a minor flaw in an otherwise overwhelmingly impressively persuasive book. Much has been written about the mass production of animals and plants for food, but Pollan may be more accessible to readers disliking shock prose and photos; no photos in this book, just very effective writing, reasoned, but passionate. Pollan interestingly writes of "Big Organic" and notes the limitations of mass produced "organic" foods. He's at his best however when he discusses the emotional issues of vegetarianism and the killing of animals for food both by raising/killing animals for food and by hunting.

The omnivores' dilemma turns out to be based on our emotional awareness of our intricate relationship and dependence on the "non-human" world. Mr. Pollan has lived and written a thoughful exploration of this relationship. As his final effort, he attempts to cook a meal based only on plants harvested from a garden and animals he has himself hunted/killed for this meal. His final pages powerfully mediatate on what our attitudes should be toward the food we often take for granted.

Earlier this summer this was a selection for two local book discusssion groups; Im sure those discussions were lively. This book was published in 2006.