I can’t read the Port William stories and novels of Wendell Berry without thinking of my own father’s family. There’s a resonance between my relatives from north Louisiana and Berry’s characters in his fictional town in Kentucky that I times I think he’s repeating my family history.
A World Lost is no different. Published in 1996, the now adult Andy Catlett is looking back at his childhood, and specifically the years of World War II. In his reminiscences, he’s trying to understand how his Uncle Andrew Catlett, his namesake and boyhood hero, came to be murdered.
In their 40s, both his uncle and his father were too old to be drafted in the war. For this story, the war is mostly far away, never intruding upon the narrative. Except for rationing, life seems unchanged. His father, whose heart is farming, works as a lawyer. Uncle Andrew, whose heart is not farming, is charged with helping their parents with the family farmstead. Uncle Andrew, married without children, much prefers to be roughhousing with his friends, dancing, and entertaining the ladies. But the uncle adores his nephew, who often accompanies him on his escapades.
The murder happens will Uncle Andrew and several other men are working at an abandoned lead mine, scavenging wood for reuse. A man not working with him shoots and kills the uncle. The man is caught, charged, and tried, but serves only a few years in prison.
Wendell Berry
The adults never talk about the death and trial around the child Andy. But the boy new at the time and still knows how his uncle’s death changed everything for his grandparents, his father, and Andy himself. It’s only much later that it becomes important for Andy to know and try to understand what happened.
He researches court archives and old newspaper articles, and he mines the memories of the few people who are left who remember and will still talk about it. He eventually comes to a kind of answer, but he knows it’s a limited one. How well can we know the past and the people who inhabited it, even if we ourselves were once part of it?
Berry is a poet, novelist, essayist, environmentalist, and social critic. His fiction, both novels and stories, are centered in the area he calls Port William, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. He’s won a rather astounding number of awards, prizes, fellowships, and recognitions. He lives on a farm in Kentucky.
A World Lost is a relatively short novel, about 100 pages, but it’s a powerful one. It evokes a memory at every turn. It speaks to what we know and what we don’t, and to what about our own family history that has vanished, never to be remembered.
Related:
My review of Berry’s That Distant Land.
My review of Berry’s Jayber Crow.
Wendell Berry and This Day: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Wendell Berry and Terrapin: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Wendell Berry’s Our Only World.
The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry.
Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry.
Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry.
Some Monday Readings
Authentic Humanity – Eric Miller at Current Magazine.
Lauded Writer and Emeritus Professor Fred Chappell Remembered – University of North Carolina.
Writing the Character-Driven Story: Chapter 1 – Harvey Stanbrough.
1 comment:
Thanks for the mention, Glynn. The rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. I appreciate it.
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