Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry

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Category: Novel Acquired: Christmas 2008, gift from Todd and Betsy Read: February-March 2009 Briefly: Boy lives out his life on the banks of a majestic river, which rolls on unchangeably while his small farming village gradually withers and dies.

Comments: The setting is the small fictional town of Port William, on an unnamed river somewhere in Kentucky. The story begins with the birth of Jonah Crow, soon orphaned, who is raised by an aunt and uncle at their farm along the river. Small town life works its way into his soul, you could say, because after years at boarding school and living in the big city, he is eventually drawn back to the only place that has ever felt like home to him. Upon his return, he finds that many of the names and faces have changed, and in just those few years the town has become a little more modern, while a few of the farms have become vacant.

And so the story goes. It's low key all the way, as Crow becomes established in town, to the point where he earns his own nickname (Jayber is the combination of his first initial and his occupation as the town barber, and Cray turns into Crow because... well, just because). There are dozens of interesting characters, plus many episodes and subplots, but the main plot is about change - Jayber's change from an adolescent to a young adult to middle age and eventually old age, and the town's change from a vibrant farming village to a nothing little town that time forgot and the interstate bypassed.

If you've read Wendell Berry before, you know the plot well. The American shift from a rural, agricultural economy to an urban, industrial economy during the 20th century is the theme that he's spent much of his life writing about. He decries how we've traded something that was fundamentally good for a lifestyle and societal structure that's ultimately doing us great harm (OK, my gross oversimplification). His fictional writings make it all very real - you feel the tide of change, the emotions, the sense of loss.

I agree with a lot of his message, but perhaps not all - my copy of his earlier non-fiction book Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition is full of notes I've added to the margins, arguing points that I wasn't quite ready to take at face value. But even so, his is an important voice that will give you a perspective on 20th century progress that may be new to you. It's well worth reading and pondering.