Fiction,  Nonfiction

The Art of Loading Brush

The few reviews I’ve seen for this latest collection by Wendell Berry make reference to its repetition of his “usual themes.” But I felt a sadness as I read. A combination of essays, chapters of an unfinished novel, and a poem, the book has a tone of farewell. Now in his early 80’s, Berry seems to be clarifying his vision and evaluating the worth of his long effort in fiction, poetry, essays, practice, and friendship, and all of it seemed to suggest a finality.

For instance, in “The Order of Loving Care,” Andy Catlett, the fictional persona I’ve always felt (and written) to be most closely tied to Berry himself,

is forced to question the worth of the advocacy that has so occupied him and his friends for so long. He knows that their advocacy has virtually no standing with professors, intellectuals, journalists, and economists, let alone the corporations and the politicians of the capitols. He and his friends have not contributed to a reasonably expectable public conversation about the use and care of the land, as once in their innocence they may have intended to do or supposed they could do, because there is no such conversation.

Berry places Andy literally into his own network of friendships and writes appreciatively of the allies he has developed: Gene Logsdon, David Kline, Wes Jackson, Maurice Telleen, and others. Placing them in the circle of a fictional character reduces the line between fact and fiction to a hair’s breadth — or eliminates it altogether. To me the fictional selections read more like prose.

I thought of other Berry writings as I read. One in particular is his short story “The Boundary,” in which an aging Mat Feltner feels as though his departed friends and relatives are still present with him as he struggles to find his way home through a landscape rich with memories. Another is the poem “From the Crest,” from Clearing (1974), in which a younger Berry seems to be taking stock, as he is doing now:

I see how little avail
one man is, and yet I would not
be a man sitting still…

Though Berry himself may wonder about his impact, most see him as a giant on subjects such as land use, ecological health, community, sustainable agriculture, and cultural insight in general. In an interview with Bill Moyers from 2013 that I came across while reading, Bill McKibben calls him  “one of, if not the, great writer in American letters right now.”

The book is also striking to me for its political clarity. Berry doesn’t often fit neatly into a category, and in this book he distances himself from both political parties and discusses shortcomings of both in specific terms. I appreciated his incisive comments about the over emphasis on STEM, the shortcomings of the current “climate change” discussion, and his documentation and critique of various cultural transformations in general over his lifetime.  He includes as well a long essay examining the portrayal of Nature in literature.

I’ve been reading Wendell Berry for 25 years, and although he is one of my longest-term, best teachers, I do struggle at times with his refusal to provide practical instructions for implementing his ideas. Of course, he can’t do this in detail. He can write powerfully and incisively about destructive forces at work in our culture and agriculture; he can create an appealing example of a working agrarian community in fiction; he can present a poetic vision. But he can’t provide one-size-fits-all answers for us. That’s the whole point: we need to get to know our places and fit our living to its unique characteristics.

I live in the Northeast, a place filled with landmarks of burnt-out industry that created thriving communities back in the early to mid 20th century, then left. I see the decline of dairy farming here — acres of rolling farmland with charming houses and shuttered barns, but no livestock. I know that the apples and maple syrup that New York claims as its products involve industrial methods, rather than the principles of diversity that once placed the orchard and the forest as parts of a whole farm. But what can I, with my less-than-1/4-acre plot of land and tiny vegetable garden, do about these things? I have made the effort, a joyful one, to learn the plants and animals of this place and teach them to my children, as Berry does in The Long-Legged House as a first step to planting himself in his native Henry County. But the mounting problems of a democracy increasingly run by business competing on a global scale seem far beyond such small steps.

Still, Berry makes the point again and again that the big problems created by dysfunctional government and industry can only be solved from grassroots changes. Personal choices, those who practice good farming and forestry techniques (some of them are documented in this book), and organizations like the Berry Center (run by Wendell Berry’s daughter) join with Berry’s extensive, coherent body of writing to provide examples of how to see the world differently than the destructive models that seem so powerful in our world.

If you read The Art of Loading Brush, I would love to hear your thoughts about the book. For those who might enjoy it, here is Bill Moyers’ interview with Mr. Berry from 2013.

4 Comments

  • hopeinbrazil

    Wow! I loved this review. I’ve read (and loved) a few Berry novels, but you have a broader understanding of his writings that I really appreciate. You made me want to dig into his poetry and non-fiction.

  • Michele Morin

    Thank you so much for this level of detail. I’m sad to think about Wendell Berry no longer writing. And now you’ve got my curiosity raging over Andy Catlett. In 2017 I re-read both Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter, and he’s a fairly minor character in both. As you described your experience, I thought of the scene in Jayber in which all the deceased of The Membership gather and are chatting in Jayber’s dream/imagination as if all were normal.
    So glad to have found this great post today. Thanks!