By I read this some weeks ago and am just getting around to posting. This essay with comments from readers of the original publication many years ago is worth the hour or so it takes to get through. Reading this essay from 1988 feels timeless. I value his perspective and while I write this on a computer and post it to the internet, I agree with his moral view overall. The comments from readers and his response to them are totally worth the price of entry — very revealing, reaffirming and interesting to think about.
For example, Berry’s wife is mentioned– she is his first editor and critic — and he says that he wants to write such that she continues to fall in love with him. Several commenters address the role of his wife, assuming that Berry has somehow forced her into this role and that she is missing out on a “career of her own” and so on. Berry addresses this criticisms head on and identifies many presumptions that are made to draw the conclusions in these reviews– he discusses how capitalism has broken up the family, forcing everyone out of the house for the whole day without any interaction– how this is not an ideal approach to long lasting relationships, and that independence is seen as a positive in modern America, never questioned as a potential negative with regards to how it impacts our family.
I love Wendell Berry and was glad to stumble upon this little book at the local bookstore — it led me to read more about his wife in this article as well: The Woman Beside Wendell Berry: The Most Important Fiction Editor Almost No One Has Heard Of
Seasonal Reading 