I just finished Hannah Coulter, by American agrarian Wendell Berry, and wanted to share some thoughts on it.
Berry tells the life story of a young woman, Hannah, who lived through most of the twentieth century and all the changes that occurred during that time in communities, nations (through war), agriculture, and families. He tells the story in first-person, and though he is a man, his account through the eyes of Hannah is perfectly believable. Berry has a gift as a writer, no two ways about it. He comes up with phrases and turns of speech that break your heart for the characters.
You can read straightforward reviews on Amazon to find out more about the contents, but here I want to reflect on two ideas that the book aroused in me: regaining (or refounding) a lost culture and the power of a novel to persuade in a way that non-fiction usually does not.
The Power of Fiction
Regarding fiction, I’ve read Berry’s non-fiction writings and am already convinced of his arguments. But this novel, the first fictional account I’ve read of his, has sunk his vision deeply into my heart.
Hannah experiences a hard life on her poor family’s subsistence farm growing up, but it is a good life, with her grandmother forming her in the domestic arts in the vacuum left by her mother’s death. She grows up and begins secretarial work in the nearby town when World War II hits and dramatically affects her life and the lives of every person in the Port William area. Already a message is communicated that, whether the war was just or not, it was a terrible, terrible thing. That’s something that all of us already know, on some level, but seeing how it hurts so many people in such a personal way in the town makes the lesson penetrate deeper.
Eventually she starts her own family, with her children coming of age from around 1950 to 1980, and we see the changes in our country’s culture leading her children to abandon the agrarian way of life. None of the children want to stay on the farm with their parents. They all go into the cities and become employees with varying levels of business success. They all start families of their own, suburban ones that only occasionally go back out to the farm. One child’s marriage ends up in divorce and Hannah’s grandchild falls into drugs. Another child becomes a high-powered CEO and he misses his father’s funeral because he was “too busy.”
We are shown that, amazingly, in one person’s lifetime, our country went from an agrarian culture to our modern urban, technological one. I can identify with Hannah’s children because they are my age. They are how I grew up: suburban family, public schools, divorced parents, city job, an employee. Through the story, I come even more clearly to realize how impoverished our current culture is, and that there was once a better way to live.
Refounding the Culture
The most heartbreaking thing about the story is that, by the end, when most of Hannah’s family and friends have died, when the farms around her have all been sold off to city people for their country retreats, we realize that there’s no hope for a recovery of the way of life Hannah knew. The agrarian life is gone. The culture built around community and place and people rooted in a place, knit together in their lives, is gone.
But can we rediscover this way of life?
That’s the question I asked myself after reading the book. Can we, in whatever tiny way, begin to refound, to rebuild, this culture? One in which people are rooted together to a place. Yes, like the old Amish, though without being isolationists.
It seems like our culture is still on its way down, meaning we have not yet reached the bottom, the logical end of our destructive way of life. And to get political for one moment, neither party has the understanding, the principles, or the virtue to reverse this trajectory. They both are continuing downward in different directions, though I will say that the Democrats’ direction will destroy things much more quickly and viciously. There is such a thing as the greatly lesser of two evils.
And because we are still heading downward, one family or even group of families or even thousands of families cannot hope to reverse the trend themselves. Rather they can hope to be a the lifeboats that stay afloat to carry civilization onward when the destruction is complete and people realize a new way needs to be tried. It is then that things can be refounded. We are in the lifeboat building business.
The lifeboat that we feel called to build starts with a homestead out in the country. Even while still an employee and very much in the system, I hope to give our family roots in a place, with an agrarian life, and see how God leads us.
What do you think of my prognosis? And what do you think a new agrarianism would look like, in our modern world? How can true communities form again where people are connected to one another in a deep way?
Your prognosis is correct, but it will take a miracle for this to happen on a large scale. It is just too hard! Being a slave for a paycheck is just so much easier. It scares me to think of doing anything different. Especially with zero experience.
My brother-in-law has these ideals and he became a small farmer in the 90′s. He now has a second job in town just to pay the bills. It is a very hard life for him.
To get a masive movement toward this goal, we need forceful leaders in and out of the Church. Like Chesterton and Beloc were. For people to make such a paradigm change they will need a leg up. Its as simple as that. Because we arent farmers and will fail horibly without serious training, which requires someone elses time and effort.
Sorry i’m so pesimistic this morning. Need that second cup I guess.
I feel a similar anxiety – it alarms me that I am (supposedly) an intelligent and able-bodied person but I couldn’t really take care of myself in an emergency situation (though I can cook over an open fire and know first aid so that’s something.) Primarily for frugality reasons I am attempting to learn domestic skills like canning, gardening, and sewing (by hand, not just machine) but I also joke with my husband that these would be useful in case the zombies show up. And I definitely plan on teaching any skills I do master to my children.
Yes I think training and learning are essential. Some people could procure that on their own and just try things themselves and slowly learn through making errors. But during that time they would need to have another job to provide for their family. Having someone who knows stuff train them, however, would be much better than the trial-and-error method, and as you said that takes someone else’s time and effort.
I’m no authority on building communities, but I am a farmer and a gardener (mostly self taught on both).
And, I know that the first step to learning is to think that you can do it (nobody ever climbed a mountain that didn’t think they could climb that mountain, etc). You can’t afford to think that “you need a leg up”, “you will fail horribly without serious training”, “I couldn’t really take care of myself in an emergency situation”, or you need to have “someone who knows stuff train them”.
Figure out what you need to learn, don’t worry about failing (there is no failing if you learn from your mistakes and keep working towards your goal, failure comes when you give up and quit), and you might eventually get to where you need to be.
That advice sounds like a bunch of new-age gobbilty-gook, but that’s the best way I can do.
So, after all that, what kind of training or knowledge are you looking for or think you need? Just start asking questions, sort through the answers, and you’ll be on your way.
Devin,
Interesting points. Indeed, it’s amazing how poerful fiction can be to get a point across that much non-fiction would labor to.
But this urban culture has been tried many, many times in human history, be it in Babylon, Nineveh, Athens, Rome or Tehotihuacan. In the end, the hubris of man comes crushing down and the old ways come back up.
I think that it’s almost mathematical that it will, because eventually the polis becomes unsustainable, but when it will come down is impossible to say, as oftentimes all that it takes is a tangent issue to trigger the avalanche that brings it down.
You know? I think that we white-collar folks might actually have a role in an agricultural milieu: blacksmiths, coach-builders, artisans, etc. Granted, things have to be rather established by the time these crafts can exist, but the need for their production is there. After all, the bronze age was when thy came about. And if things do collapse, it’s probably not all the way to the stone age, at least not for too long.
God bless.
Devin,
I haven’t been keeping up with your blog as regularly. I just saw this post and wanted to comment.
I have read Hannah Coulter and many other novels written by Berry. My personal favorite is The Memory of Old Jack. “Jayber Crow” is good as well. All of his novels to some degree deal with agrarian issues like the decay of rural life and the loss of community. But they do so without being preachy.
I don’t think that we as Christians (particularly Christians who consider themselves “pro-life” and “pro-family”) can really accomplish our goals until we learn to think smaller, that is on ground level. We want to defend marriage, but what is marriage for? What do we want it to become? To do that we (and I) must think through our cultural assumptions, and yes, this includes examining our attitudes about children and fruitfulness. I say this as a convinced Protestant.
Berry has a way of tying marriage, religion, family life and agriculture all together so that you see that we’re dealing with like things; we’re dealing with the same Chain of Being. In other words, we’re being sacramental. What do sacraments do? They are signs and symbols yes, but they also do real stuff. It looks like bread and wine, but it’s really Christ’s Body and Blood. It looks like a farmer plowing his field, but it’s really an immortal soul doing God’s work, enacting the mystery of God and His care for His people.
If you’re ever up in the Louisville area some time, I would recommend visiting Berry’s hometown (as I have done; it is about 50 miles away from me). You get a good feel for his novels that way. And the local general store has good fish sandwiches.
Ben thanks for swinging over again–it has been a while since we had a blog chat. That’s really cool about Berry, and I am in complete agreement about his approach and its sacramentality. Somewhat interesting, too, since I think he is a Baptist.
I’m frustrated now though, because two years ago we went to Louisville visiting friends, and I didn’t realize his home was so close!