BOOK REVIEW

Jason Peters (ed.): Wendell Berry: Life and Work

The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington

Jacob Jones

Accepted: 12 August 2010 / Published online: 18 September 2010

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Wendell Berry: Life and Work, a collection of essays edited by Jason Peters,

engages the prominent themes that run throughout Berry’s essays, poetry, novels,

and his daily involvement with others. As Peters writes in his introduction, the main

goal of this collection is ‘‘either to commence an accurate biography or to

inaugurate a careful consideration of Berry’s place in American life and letters’’

(Peters 2010). The operative word in Peters’s statement is ‘‘or,’’ because the essays

in this collection fit into either categories of biographies or academic essays. This

pairing creates a unique and interesting reading experience because the reader

moves from one author’s recollection of the first time he met Berry to a discussion

about Berry’s political views as presented in his novels. Usually this presentation

would create a disjunctive reading experience, and while this is still true at times,

this feeling is mitigated by focusing on Berry, whose intimate connection between

his life and work provides the underlying structure that ties together these

biographies and academic essays. Despite this unification, there are still distinct

differences between these two types of essays, e.g., tone, content, and intention,

which reinforce the basic division stated in the editor’s introduction and gives rise to

approaching this collection from this perspective.

The biographies usually center on the author’s relationship with Wendell Berry

and the ways that this relationship has been an inspiration and rewarding, both

personally and professionally. Many of these biographies are very personal and

highlight the key character traits of Berry and ultimately humanize the man because

the reader has been given a glimpse into his personal life. Some of the more

standout biographies, for examples see Donald Hall, Hayden Carruth, and Katherine

Dalton, reveal personal moments of their lives shared with Wendell and his wife,

Tanya Berry, which highlights many of the qualities that Berry emphasizes in his

J. Jones (&)

Department of Religion, University of Florida, 107 Anderson Hall,

P.O. Box 117410, Gainesville, FL 32611-7410, USA

e-mail: jakeljones@gmail.com

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J Agric Environ Ethics (2012) 25:239–241

DOI 10.1007/s10806-010-9291-1

writings, community, fidelity, and responsibility. Other biographies discuss the

impact that Berry’s writings have had in their lives. David Kline and Barbara

Kingsolver write about how Berry’s ideas shaped their lives and helped them

reorient their values and in both cases preserve something on the brink of being lost.

The academic essays in this collection are as diverse as Wendell Berry’s writings

and by drawing upon his poetry, novels, and essays the authors engage prominent

themes in these works and, in many cases, build upon them. A number of essays use

Berry’s novels and poetry to further explore humanity’s place in the world and our

responsibility to it, while others draw from his social commentary. Through these

mediums, the authors explore topics ranging from political involvement, war and

the country, the economy and consumption, and human beings’ reciprocal

relationship with where they live.

Two essays that ‘‘inaugurate Berry’s place in American life and letters’’ are Allan

Carlson’s ‘‘Wendell Berry and the Twentieth-Century Agrarian ‘Series’’’ and

Norman Wirzba’s ‘‘An Economy of Gratitude.’’ Allan Carlson explores the

influences and connections between Berry and the works of early twentieth century

agrarians Liberty Hyde Bailey, Louis Bromfield, and the Twelve Southerners,

especially their ‘‘Statement of Principles’’ from I’ll Take My Stand (1930). All of

these authors speak of how human beings need to be connected to nature, the role

that machines play in severing those connections, and how detrimental industri-

alization has been to our civilization (Carlson 2010). Carlson builds towards the

conclusion, which he notes Berry also asserted, that Berry’s writings are a

continuation of these authors’ ideas or, as his title implies, the next iteration of this

series (Carlson 2010). While Carlson’s essay highlights Berry’s connections to other

agrarian writers, Wirzba engages and builds upon Berry’s ideas about community.

Wirzba addresses how many of our current societal practices directly undermine a

healthy community and the best ways to support it is through acts of gratitude that

recognize the origins and cost of all that sustains us (Wirzba 2010). These two

essays are examples of why the authors of this collection believe that Berry has a

place in ‘‘American life and letters.’’

The editor did an excellent job of overcoming the challenge of creating a

collection based on the diversity of Berry’s works by gathering together essays that

acknowledge and build upon this diversity. This strength is derived from this

collection’s ability to operate as an introduction for readers, both old and new, to the

varieties of Wendell Berry’s work and it also provides a personal and intimate look

at Berry’s life. Due to the breadth of Berry’s work, there is sure to be something in

this collection that will interest almost everyone, and this is even more likely if the

reader is concerned with how to create and maintain a relationship between human

beings and where they live. As with most collections of this type, some essays are

stronger than others, but if the reader is interested in agrarian writings and how

Wendell Berry understands humanity’s place in this world then this collection is

worth checking out.

In many ways this collection reads like a tribute to Wendell Berry and through

this tribute the authors lead the reader into Berry’s thoughts on community,

responsibility, and fidelity and these qualities are the yardsticks of happiness. One of

the points driven home by this collection is that one should not consider the writings

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of Wendell Berry without also considering his life, and thus the title of this

collection is appropriate.

References

Carlson, A. (2010). Wendell Berry and the Twentieth-Century Agrarian ‘‘Series’’. In Jason. Peters (Ed.),

Wendell Berry: Life and work (pp. 96–111). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

Peters, J. (2010). Introduction. In J. Peters (Ed.), Wendell Berry: Life and work (pp. 1–11). Lexington:

The University Press of Kentucky.

Wirzba, N. (2010). An economy of gratitude. In J. Peters (Ed.), Wendell Berry: Life and work (pp.

142–155). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

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