Wendell Berry: where have you been all my life?

I just finished reading Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow.  I don't normally give a Goodreads rating of five, because, my thinking is as follows: I give really really good books -- ones that I think, now there's an outstanding book/great writer -- four stars out of a possible five. Why not five? Because if I give out fives willy-nilly, then where do I go from there? How do I differentiate when a book comes along that's truly outstanding and I've already given out dozens of fives? So, I'm glad I've reserved fives for novels that don't come along often. Novels like Jayber Crow. 

This thinking is furthered the older I get because it's harder to be surprised by a book -- or anything, really -- by virtue of the volume of books I've read and life that I've experienced.  I have a distinct memory of going to see an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet at Niagara University with my grade twelve class. It was a gorgeous Autumn day in 1978. I remember picking up a classmate and heading over the Queeston-Lewiston Bridge in my dad's '68 Chevy Impala. I'd never been to live theatre. It was the best artistic experience I'd had in my brief seventeen year old life. 

As a retired English teacher who took many classes to Stratford and Shaw during my career, I've had the honour of seeing this experience replicated many times over. There's nothing quite like the look on students' faces after they've been to their first live theatre performance.

Anyhow, to my point: I'm sure that if I'd seen that version of Romeo and Juliet today, I wouldn't have been exalted on a cloud of awe; instead, I'd notice the amateurishness of the production and the acting. I'd comment on the questionable directorial decisions. And so, I find it remarkable to be so transported and transfixed by a novel at this stage in my life. Or, as Jayber says, "My life lengthens. History grows shorter."

What to say about the novel? Well, first of all, thank you to my nephew, who has been so taken by Wendell Berry that, after having discovered him a short while ago, has read all his novels. Thank you for thinking, Uncle Rocco would love Wendell Berry. Thank you for sending me a copy of Jayber Crow in the mail.

One immediate thought that strikes me is that many writers who have been writing for decades perhaps start to mail it in at the end of their career. If this 2000 publication is Wendell Berry mailing it in at sixty-six years old, how good could his older books be? And from what I understand, he hasn't slowed down in volume or quality at eighty-seven years of age. 

The novel, when summarized, sounds underwhelming: it's about a boy who's orphaned very young and then taken in by a very loving aunt and uncle (only to be left orphaned once again by them). At eleven years of age, Jonah Crow lands at the Good Shepherd Orphanage.  As a church affiiliated institution, it becomes evident to J. Crow -- later named Jayber -- that he's destined for the ministry. 

The problem is, he either doesn't believe -- or at least seriously doubts -- some of the things he's supposed to believe in order to become a minister in an evangelical, protestant denomination. 

He decides to (literally) leave school and walk days to his place of origin where as "happenstance" would have it, he becomes a barber. I put "happenstance" in quotations because, although he doesn't use the word "predestination," a recurring theme in the novel is that there really is no choice in the choices he makes. They are meant to happen. 

Another thing that struck me about this novel is how altogether modern and western it is... but isn't. Jayber just sort of falls into his life in a place and time that spans decades rooted in one place, Port William, Kentucky. Reminiscent in some ways of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches, Port Williams becomes a character in Berry's novel. 

To my point of this novel not being modern or western: in some ways, Jayber Crow is an antithesis to the American Dream in which one is deemed successful if one finds one's passion/calling and pursues it with sacrificial abandon. Jayber discovers, on the contrary, that what's supposed to find him will find him; he doesn't have to go looking for it very hard. He just has to give it a gentle nod when it crosses his path. And these are the underwhelming yet beautiful plot points of the novel. It happens time and time again in Jayber's life with opportunities that come his way and the people he meets. 

As I was describing this novel to a friend, I said the power and beauty of this novel is that it shows you the holiness of being rooted in a specific place and time and being fully alive in it.  Many people, if they're at all honest with themselves, will look back on their lives and think -- decades later -- where did the years go? What have I done with myself? After several decades in Port William, Jayber Crow ostensibly has only his barber shop, his apartment above it and nothing much else to show: no family, no children, no real retirement plans, no bucket list. By many standards, he might've been deemed a failure. However, by spiritual standards -- which are much more difficult to articulate or quantify -- Jayber Crow was content. I'm reminded of a quote by the late W. P. Kinsella: "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." 

As stated above, it's difficult to describe the intangibles of what Jayber does have. And that is -- in my words -- the ability to see a kind of sacredness in people, whether it's someone who gives him a five dollar bill in secret (a not insignificant sum during the Great Depression) or someone he loves -- but can never tell her -- or someone he hates and spends his lifetime trying to forgive.  

A final proof to myself that I loved this book: in the absence of post-its, I've creased many of the pages with significant passages. Passages that "...[scrape] at the heart and never go away" (a description on the back of the 2000 paperback  edition). The last book I found worthy of creasing pages was Marilynne Robinson's Lila. 

And this second photo? As I was reading this book one day on my back deck, my four-year-old granddaughter brought me this leaf. This act reminds me of the many small gestures carried out by characters in the novel -- acts which are altogether subtle and painful and beautiful. Acts which will one day be forgotten with the dead.

"When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive. . ."