The Wild Birds/Collected Poems 1957-1982/Standing by Words/Recollected Essays 1965-1980
Swann, Brian
Principia Scriptoriae, hardly a name for a marquee, was rightness of the gesture for General Milne, but because I effectively produced for a limited run by the Manhattan Thea- ...
...writing what those needs are, and "by refusing utopian (and sometimes his tone might about "Discipline and Honor...
...Everything Berry up such laws, Berry says...
...It can Commonweal: 346...
...As might his use of certain good to look at...
...In the acting and in the writing, The Petition seems General Milne, never become transformed into a character designed to pull at our heartstrings...
...Because there is an ab- Standing by Words, and "The Body and tion...
...ignorance," "love," "obedience" be for the work of Wendell Berry...
...His poem "The Silence" asks totalitarian kind: a kind of updated Great cal or cultural unit, marriage or domestic the question: "What must a man do to be Chain of Being...
...In 'one of his essays he says ence, and its machines...
...If there doesn't call attention to itself, and the Milton and Dante, since he too is posses- is one main theme Berry starts from it is subject shines through...
...At one point, Cronyn's foot toriae, which, whatever its weaknesses, was aimed at the made an odd little turn that caught my eye, a playful twist that mind...
...ately to do," the eagerness of a man largest sense, an ordering of the world This disintegration is seen in all aspects whose aim is "a decent, open, generous that can best be described as hierarchic, a of society, from language (the theme of relation between a man's life and the "just hierarchy," not the inflexible or Standing by Words) to the basic biologi- world...
...We just need to essays are "Poetry and Marriage" in has written attempts to answer that quesrediscover them...
...valuable collection of essays that reflect distinguish spirituality from docBerry's themes do not vary from book upon "the historical manifestations of trine in that it concentrates not on to book, or from genre to genre...
...Tandy is effective enough as Lady Elizabeth, lost in her impending death - the terrible secret that reviewers but I was oddly unmoved by the performance or, perhaps, the (New York Times, Time) have refused to reveal as though the character...
...If, in with Jean Leclercq prise of this nature" is well-founded...
...Since "spirituality" is itself a term ily see how we can return to the land, we whose definition is not a matter of comcan take away with us Berry's emphasis Margaret R. Miles mon scholarly agreement, the editors on "restoring the wholeness of work" offer a working definition: ("work is the health of love" - Berry's C HRISIIAN SPIRIIUAIIFY, Origins to the Christian spirituality is the lived many aphorisms stay in the mind...
...Tandy and Hume Cronyn in what they say will be their last From the beginning, she has felt a prisoner not of the general, two-character play...
...He takes words as seriously as he takes also includes three novels, Nathan Coul- farming, and for him poets are the bearter, The Memory of Old Jack, and A STANDING BY WORDS ers of our culture...
...The appearance of the petition in the Times is an Petition, hailed not for its content but because it stars Jessica occasion for a long delayed discussion about their marriage...
...Naturally, there are ESSAYS "larger responsibilities...
...making then he decides it is perfectly all right to much of a jeremiad...
...which Lady Elizabeth has signed much to the distress of her husband who not only opposes its substance but sees her name A LESS AMBIGUOUS reception than the one given Principia on the list as a repudiation of his career and the England that he came to another idea play of sorts, Brian Clark's The has served...
...I miss, for example, an essay, "A Northpoint, $20, 213 pp...
...tion of the Odyssey, in Recollected Es- been accused of tilting at windmills...
...Or each can be balanced Wendell Berry loaded words such as "gin," "pride," neatly in the palm...
...cipline, balance, and responsible re- for the modern "specialization of Why isn't he better known...
...He works omissions which any given reader might Wendell Berry from and embodies a concept of order (by regret...
...He didn't...
...Always we sense sed of an eschatological imagination...
...gued, original, and passionate essays in ing...
...An ecological truth...
...writing the glamorous and the frivolous...
...And it is clear that poems distinguished for their scope and tilt at windmills "that draw the lifeblood some of his roots are deep in a specific detail - or on any other subjects, in out of our veins," for they represent acts Southernness, in, for example, the anti- whatever form, Wendell Berry is ex- of a uselessly applied destructive sciindustrial critique of the Agrarians (the traordinary...
...He has little time our most versatile and prolific writers...
...Which is as it should Northpoint, $13.95, 146 pp...
...which he means "the possibility of reSecular Pilgrimage," from the 1975 col- RECOLLECTED ESSAYS 1965-1980 sponsible action"), and an "ecological lection A Continuous Harmony: Essays intelligence" of temperance and obligaCultural and Agricultural on the upsurge Wendell Berry tion superior to himself...
...And he is accessible...
...we are apparently near tors...
...These four are hand- SIX STORIES OF THE PORT WILLIAMS uncurrent words...
...Standing by Words, Berry castigates the Berry is well-known in environmental Brian Swann egotism of the Romantics, particularly circles as an untiring and eloquent advo- Wordsworth and Shelley, while asserting cate of "sustainable" farming methods...
...least some of our own needs, by learning means of a return to the land might seem telling stories of his childhood...
...Berry takes his title of Standing by Words recalls I'll that "to live in the place that is one's stand for an old humanism...
...The political differences of these two people and the for the two actors, although I have often admired their work on social, sex-role implications of their marriage are somehow other occasions...
...citation of an ancient knowledge...
...Her an acting couple, as though the play were designed to illustrate one major act of nonconformity - before the petition - was a the Tandy-Cronyn marriage rather than that of the Milnes, the long-ago affair which the general, bending his rigidities, put retired English general and his wife, who are Clark's char- up with because he wanted her more than he did the correct acters...
...Which is just still "a long way from any large-scale he advocates using horses instead of trac- about everything...
...Every- and more adequate understanding of sciousness and practice...
...out with approval the two Jeffersonian principles "indispensable to democracy": education, and the crucial impor- Guises of the confounding Spirit tance to the state of the small landowner I - of which Berry is one himself, work- CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY, what the various Christian communions ing his Kentucky farm, healing the land ORIGINS TO THE have seen as the inner meaning of Chrisdepleted by centuries of neglect and TWELFTH CENTURY tianity - and therefore `spirituality' in abuse...
...In his essays on poetry some, and all the same size so they sit MEMBERSHP in Standing by Words, as in his essays on companionably and harmoniously in the the land in Recollected Essays, Berry has bookshelf...
...Perhaps in a straint might seem old-fashioned and poetry," and the "religion of art...
...Some- Twelfth Century, Volume 16 of experience of Christian belief in thing can be done about our destructive World Spirituality: AnEncyclopedicHis- both its general and more spehistory, even if it is only understanding tory of the Religious Quest, is a very cialized forms...
...that "we have been for some time in a "an eagerness that is felt only by those The great truths of Christianity are re- state of general cultural disorder and that who are doing what they want passionworked into an environmental ethic in the this disorder has now become critical...
...I never for a moment believed Cronyn's rigid old play were a mystery story instead of the kind of semi-serious general...
...It is scheduled for fall produc- .The titular petition is one favoring nuclear disarmament tion by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London...
...But this is a rich gather- Northpoint, $18, 340 pp...
...To others, Berry might subject is to pass through the surface...
...And seem too austere, too relentless, too about form in poetry and culture...
...I prefer Principia Scripbound by rules, informed by love...
...COLLECTED POEMS 1957-1982 with a new/old meaning, and uses these Two of these books are selections, the Wendell Berry words naturally and unself-consciously...
...I cannot share the reviewers' sentimental enthusiasm thing...
...our largely urban society, we cannot eas- Crossroad, $49.50, 502 pp...
...In closely arof nature poetry...
...Nothing is wasted...
...For even though we are when, in an era of massive agribusiness, erything he cares about...
...His response is to note broken connections" through love, right on the Kentucky River or hiking the Red that, first, regeneration can begin now, at work, and community...
...regeneration...
...buying or repairing a home...
...visible part of a career's output which Northpoint, $16.50, 268 pp...
...country that admires excess and con- that our richest and most responsible traBut he is not as well-known as he should sumption, rapidly changing excitement, dition is to be found in such writers as be to the rest of us for what he is: one of and the quick fix, Berry's virtues of dis- Milton, Dante, Pope...
...solute truth: the truth of the nature of our the Earth," with its moving interpreta- At one point, Berry notes that he has existence on earth...
...However we react to Berry, his Edited by Bernard McGinn the root sense - will emerge from a informed and intelligent analysis of our and John Meyendorff, broad intra-Christian ecumenical enteraffluent society is worth heeding...
...There is . . Christian spirituality as a disci- faith itself, but on the reaction that an interweaving and a kind of spiritual pline...
...audience outside of New York...
...6 June 1986: 345 It is no accident that Berry admires thing gets recycled and renewed...
...The editors' "hope that a clearer faith arouses in religious conmanuring...
...is a hard world, hostile to the values that story to: essay to poem, is to "restore the Whether he is writing about canoeing you stand for...
...The true poet has Place on Earth...
...forced me to concentrate on the actor, not because of the GERALD WEALES Books: THE RESTORATION OF VISION N ORTHPOINT Press books are always THE WILD BIRDS "irrelevant...
...Much has been made of the performers as whom she loves, but of the system which he represents...
...It is possible to it...
...Tn one essay, he points and balanced, always passionate...
...He seem something of an anachronism Berry passes through the surface of ev- holds out hope...
...It Berry's aim in everything he writes, from says...
...It evolutionary process...
...Certainly, there is something Jeffer- The style of his writing is always elegant the end of a degenerative phase of an sonian about him...
...River Gorge...
...home, by our becoming answerable to at To some, his method of restoration by writing stories about Wheeler Catlett...
...Irascible he can be (The Gin Game), meticulous he work that one would expect from the author of Whose Life Is It can be (Krapp's Last Tape), but these elements, evident in Anyway...
...Principia Scriptoriae, hardly a name for a marquee, was rightness of the gesture for General Milne, but because I effectively produced for a limited run by the Manhattan Thea- expected the fey old rascal from Cocoon to come bursting out ter Club and, as with most of Nelson's plays, is likely to find its of the general's shell and dance across the stage...
...There is no need to make order (two of Berry's most impressive at home in the world...
...for the resusTake My Stand...
Vol. 113 • June 1986 • No. 11
