Hannah Coulter

Jan 17, 2009 Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars

Such an insightful book. The sentimental in me really was affected by Hannah's memories and observations of the changing times. It definitely increased my longing to be a part of a community (a "membership", if you will). Anyone want to be a part of my community? We'll all move out to the country and live within walking distance of each other, our kids will grow up together, and we'll experience life's joys and sorrows together. Seriously, when I read books like this, I realize just how old-fash...more

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Mar 21, 2008 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

My grandmother wanted me to read this and I understood immediately why. Though she grew up in Missouri rather than the Kentucky side of the Ohio River where this novel takes place, the elements are similar to her experiences. This is an episodic novel that doesn't spend so much time telling a story per se but rather sets a scene and places the characters within it. Very readable, marvelous imagery, plain speaking in its descriptions and the characters have a subtle depth. This is my first Wendel...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Sean Southard rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most elegant novels I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Hands down, one of the best books I've ever read. It made me laugh, and cry. Tears of joy, tears of sadness. I will have to come back to this book many times, I'm sure. Perhaps if more people knew the story and the love of Hannah Coulter the world might be a better place. It is a chronicle of a woman's love for her husband, but it is more than that. It's their life together. I say singular "life," because their love bound th...more

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Feb 25, 2009 Callie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This book is a gift. I first heard about Wendell Berry in college when we were studying nature writers and I think we read some of his poetry. But I haven't really thought of him since then, yet I am so glad I picked this up. I loved this novel. It's about a small farming community and covers the life of one woman in that community. The way people are in this book and their values feel so familiar to me, and I don't find many books like that. And although there is much about this that feels...more Wow. This book is a gift. I first heard about Wendell Berry in college when we were studying nature writers and I think we read some of his poetry. But I haven't really thought of him since then, yet I am so glad I picked this up. I loved this novel. It's about a small farming community and covers the life of one woman in that community. The way people are in this book and their values feel so familiar to me, and I don't find many books like that. And although there is much about this that feels old fashioned and familiar, there's something revolutionary about it too. Made me feel the way I felt the first time I read Thoreau, reminding me to question my assumptions and to really ask myself who I am, what it is that I want for my life, and not to be afraid to march to the beat of a different drummer. I just don't find books like this everyday, something with so much wisdom. A lot of reviews I read call Wendell Berry a prophet and I can see why, having read this, he's almost in a class of his own. And, after reading a lot of post modern stuff, which sometimes seems empty, he makes me feel like there is still hope. Now more than ever I need to read books that give me hope. I have to put in some quotes from the book about married love that made me weep (literally) for their profound beauty and truth.

"Watching him and watching myself in my memory now, I know again what I knew before, but now I know more than that. Now I know what we were trying to stand for, and what I believe we did stand for: the possibility that among the world's wars and sufferings two people could love each other for a long time, until death and beyond, and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love, as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place. This love would be one of the acts of the greater love that holds and cherishes all the world."

"We were looking at each other, though we could barely see. It was almost dark. But to know you love somebody, and to feel his desire falling over you like a warm rain, touching you everywhere, is to have a kind of light. When a woman and a man give themselves to each other, they have a light between them that nobody but them can see. It doesn't shine outward into time. They see only each other and what is between them."

"What I was always reaching toward in him was his gentleness that had been made in him by loss and grief and suffering, a gentleness opposite to the war that he wasn't going to talk about, and never did, but that I know at least something about, having learned it since he died.
The gentleness I knew in him seemed to be calling out, and it was a gentleness in me that answered. That gentleness, calling and answering, giving and taking, brought us together. It brought us into the room of love. It made our place clear around us."

"The rhymes came. But you may have a long journey to travel to meet somebody in the innermost inwardness and sweetness of that room. You can't get there just by wanting to, or just because the night falls. The meeting is prepared in the long day, in the work of years, in the keeping of faith, in kindness.
The room of love is another world. You go there wearing no watch, watching no clock. It is the world without end, so small that two people can hold it in their arms, and yet it is bigger than worlds on worlds, for it contains the longing of all things to be together, and to be at rest together. You come together to the day's end, weary and sore, troubled and afraid. You take it all into your arms, it goes away, and there you are where giving and taking are the same, and you live a little while entirely in a gift. The words have all been said, all permissions given, and you are free in the place that is the two of you together. What could be more heavenly than to have desire and satisfaction in the same room?"

ON MEDITATION:

"I sit and let the quiet come to me. It doesn't come right away. I have to quiet myself before I can hear the quiet of the place, and a car passing along the road up on the hillside or an airplane flying over makes it harder. But I listen and wait, and at last it comes. It is an old quiet, only deepened by the sound of the creek, a bird singing, or a barking squirrel. It goes back to the beginning..."
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Dec 25, 2008 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I think that this calls to mind a word to describe Mr. Berry's writing. That word is reverence. This is the story of a woman born in Shagbark who then moves to Port William and becomes part of the "membership". It tells the story of her love for a man who died too young and of her subsequent life with a second husband who "went right on". The reverence is for the land and what it can produce when tended with loving hands. It is for the people who through the love they have for each other and the...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Holli rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

What can I say? It’s Wendell Berry. I especially liked his image of the room of love, as quoted below and as described in the chapter. Maybe her life didn’t turn out quite as she would have wanted, with her children all so far away and her way of life passing out of existence, but that image of the room of love speaks of hope, reconciliation, and shalom.--HR

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. "This is the story of my life, that while I lived it weighed upon me and pressed against me and fill...more What can I say? It’s Wendell Berry. I especially liked his image of the room of love, as quoted below and as described in the chapter. Maybe her life didn’t turn out quite as she would have wanted, with her children all so far away and her way of life passing out of existence, but that image of the room of love speaks of hope, reconciliation, and shalom.--HR

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. "This is the story of my life, that while I lived it weighed upon me and pressed against me and filled all my senses to overflowing and now is like a dream dreamed.... This is my story, my giving of thanks." So begin the reflections of Hannah Coulter, the twice-widowed protagonist of this slim, incandescent novel in Berry's Port William series. In 1940, the precocious, innocent Hannah leaves her small Kentucky farming town to work as a secretary in nearby Hargrave, where she meets Virgil Feltner, seven years her senior, who gently courts her. They marry and have a daughter, but Virgil, "called to the army in 1942," dies in the Battle of the Bulge. Love follows mourning, as a kind but driven farmer, Nathan Coulter, returns from combat and woos Hannah. In delicate, shimmering prose, Berry tracks Hannah's loves and losses through the novel's first half; the narrative sharpens as Hannah recounts her children's lives—Margaret becomes a schoolteacher with a troubled son; Mattie ("a little too eager to climb Fool's Hill") flees rural life to become a globe-trotting communication executive; Caleb, Nathan's hope to run the family farm, becomes a professor of agriculture instead. Beneath the story of ordinary lives lies the work of an extraordinarily wise novelist: as Hannah relates her children's fate to her own deeply rooted rural background, she weaves landscape and family and history together ("My mind... is close to being the room of love where the absent are present, the dead are alive, time is eternal and all creatures prosperous"). Her compassion enlivens every page of this small, graceful novel.

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Mar 29, 2010 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really loved this book. It made me think and it made me feel, which is the mark of a good book. Two things that kept it from getting a five-star rating:

Mr. Berry seemed to go on and on about their property...over and over again, until I grew a little bored in the middle part of the book.

Also I really, REALLY wished he had gone into more detail about Hannah and Nathan's newly married life, but instead, once they were married, he seemed to skip forward too far into the future in random and order...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Poiema rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rich life story of a woman who belongs to a tight-knit family farm community. From childhood to old age, the voice of Hannah Coulter reflects on the significant and the minute moments of her life. She draws a haunting portrait of the rural life that was once so typical but was drawing to an end after WWII. Have we as a culture progressed? Or have we lost the wonderful sense of purpose and community that Hannah recounts in her memoir?

quote: "Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: sloths

Shelves: male, novel, year-2000s

Normally I would not be drawn to a book like this. But from reading the back cover (the blurbs were actually surprisingly substantive in this case) and the first few pages, it seemed to share many similarities with a book I read earlier this year and loved, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. So I started reading this as if it were The Book of Hannah Coulter. And my initial suspicion was correct, there were many similarities. Both are told from the perspective of an older person who has lived off the...more Normally I would not be drawn to a book like this. But from reading the back cover (the blurbs were actually surprisingly substantive in this case) and the first few pages, it seemed to share many similarities with a book I read earlier this year and loved, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. So I started reading this as if it were The Book of Hannah Coulter. And my initial suspicion was correct, there were many similarities. Both are told from the perspective of an older person who has lived off the same land all their lives. Both were addressed to someone whom we find out only towards the tail end of the book. Both concerned themselves with tradition and the plight of tradition in the modern world. Both talked about what it felt like to be left behind. Both recounted war's effects on the community. Both had me teary eyed.

You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. p. 148

What really worked in this book was how simple it was. How simply told. And how little it concerned itself with the details. As opposed to Ebenezer's endless tall tales, where story after story built up into a mosaic of life with a rich fiber to it, here we are given only generalities. Always Hannah's old voice, her wisdom which spoke to all things, came around to comment on things in broad strokes. That's hard to pull off. But Wendell Berry pulls it off here--mostly. It's not supposed to work, but it does because the prose itself seems honest. He doesn't have any literary tricks up his sleeve, and his protagonist speaks plainly, though beautifully also. There's an open quality here, and no feeling that we are reading a novel--

For example: it manages to go 190 pages without any conflict or tension, save very minor ones, and maybe "modern life" towards the middle. But it's all done with this peaceful meditative rhythm to the sentences, so that it never seems to oppose anything, just accept accept accept. And though I feel the book did have an agenda, it was a well-earned one that grew out of the lives of its characters (that agenda being the idea that we must know intimately the people and place we came from, and tend to that place).

The big idea of education, from first to last, is the idea of a better place. Not a better place where you are, because you want it to be better and have been to school and learned to make it better, but a better place somewhere else. In order to move up, you have got to move on. I didn't see this at first. And for a while after I knew it, I pretended I didn't. I didn't want it to be true. p. 112

Well, there is one exception, and that is my complaint with the book. The Okinawa chapter didn't sit well with me, I couldn't hear Hannah's voice saying those things. It seemed too much like the author trying to insert his anti-war message in there, and it muddled up the simplicity of the story. But even in that chapter there were good parts. If I were his editor I would suggest changing the "you" 2nd person voice in those passages to be less direct... maybe a series of "I read about..."s from Hannah. And definitely cut that section a little shorter, without so much imagery. Then, maybe, just maybe it will work.

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, "hopeth all things." But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation. p 146

Two more things. One: this book had very little humor in it, though there is a light-heartedness to some sections.

Two: show don't tell is a bit of writing advice that it ignores completely... and for good reason, it's a stupid bit of advice that only works for business majors taking creative writing classes. Great writers often tell, but the key is to tell well, which is difficult to teach (which is why they avoid it by saying don't tell). About 90% of this book is telling, and reflecting, and it works.

OK, three: Out of the 163 books I've read by male authors -- granted not all are novels -- only two were written completely in the voice of a female narrator: this one and Wittgenstein’s Mistress (which itself wasn't that convincing as a particularly female voice). Others dip in and out of it like As I Lay Dying and the last chapter of Ulysses, but don't stick with that voice throughout. And there are those where it is not clear whether the speaker is male or female like How I Became a Nun. But it got me thinking about how rare this is. And for female writers writing in the voice of a male? 0 out of the 98 in my bookshelves, unless I mis-remembered some.(less)

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Feb 13, 2013 Flatfoot Vertigo rated it 4 of 5 stars

I generally love reading Wendell Berry (see my review of Andy Catlett, Early Travels).

My mom's family were Kansas farmers and viewed the world much as Berry's characters do, with the same turns of phrase and the same love of the land and their families. When I sit down with Hannah Coulter, I return to the safety, peace, and earthly delights as I did visiting my grandparent's farm as a girl.

I had a revelation in the reading of this book, and that surprised me, but it reminded me how very much w...more I generally love reading Wendell Berry (see my review of Andy Catlett, Early Travels).

My mom's family were Kansas farmers and viewed the world much as Berry's characters do, with the same turns of phrase and the same love of the land and their families. When I sit down with Hannah Coulter, I return to the safety, peace, and earthly delights as I did visiting my grandparent's farm as a girl.

I had a revelation in the reading of this book, and that surprised me, but it reminded me how very much we take from fiction beyond the pure pleasure of reading. Hannah discusses an epiphany she has, rather in a great rush of realization and feeling, about someone she has resented all her life. She runs into this person many years later when they are in their dotage and she realizes things she had not been able to see in the past - not that these things lessened her valid resentments and hurts, but her view was expanded in a way. And a few minutes after briefly talking with this person she realizes that her resentment has been lifted, and that she is now free.

We hold resentments or repress them, sometimes for a lifetime. I resented the man who abused and molested me for most of my life - and after writing about it, a few weeks after publishing it, I find myself not only free of my resentment, I feel that I have forgiven him without trying, without praying for him. I knew that writing the memoir would be helpful for others, and for my own perspective and healing, but I had no idea that it would cause a sea change in my view of him. I was told by a therapist that I did not have to ever forgive him, and I was relieved by that. I never tried to forgive him - but I did everything I could to be healed. When I read the line about Hannah being free, I realized I was, too.

It's a truism that we are the victims of our resentments - the objects of our resentments suffer much less from it than we do. I've heard it referred to as drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. I just figured I'd always feel a certain way about this man, and I was wrong. Forgiveness has come over me rather by accident, the way it did with Hannah.

I do love reading Berry, but this particular book suffers in my eyes for the fact that much of the narration involves Hannah musing over her life, her relationships with her family and friends, in a sort of philosophical and abstract way that I found prosaic. There wasn't much recounting or description in large sections of the book and Berry's characters' vocabularies are simple - which usually I find evocative but in these long sections I find repetitive and dull.

What I love about this book is what I love about all the Berry books I've read so far, and it's the same thing I love about Willa Cather's My Antonia. The characters rest in their relationship with the land. They care for their farms and work hard. There is a beauty in hard physical work, especially with animals and with gardening. The characters also love the woods, to be there, to know the flora and fauna. There is a wonderful passage where Hannah describes the effect on her of the sound of running water that I share and loved reading:

"One of the happiest moments of my walks is when I get to where I can hear the branch. The water comes down in a hurry, tossing itself this way and that as it tumbles among the broken pieces of old sea bottom. The stream seems to be talking, saying any number of things as it goes along. Sometimes, at a certain distance, it can sound like several people talking and laughing. But you listen and you realize it is talking absolutely to itself."

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Dec 09, 2012 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Loved this book. Several quotes jumped out at me.

p. 51 "Grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery."

p. 52 "Another of the golden threads is gratitude. Sometimes I was grateful because I knew I ought to be, sometimes because I wanted to be, and sometimes a sweet thankfulness came to me on its own, like a singing from so...more Loved this book. Several quotes jumped out at me.

p. 51 "Grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery."

p. 52 "Another of the golden threads is gratitude. Sometimes I was grateful because I knew I ought to be, sometimes because I wanted to be, and sometimes a sweet thankfulness came to me on its own, like a singing from somewhere out in the dark."

p. 65 "A woman doesn't learn she's beautiful by looking in a mirror, which about any woman is apt to do from time to time, but that is only wishing. She learns it so that she actually knows it from men. The way they look at her makes a sort of glimmer she walks in. That tells her."

p. 67-68 "I know what we were trying to stand for, the possibility that among the world's sufferings two people could love each other for a long time, until death and beyond, and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love, as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place. Their love would be one of the acts of the greater love that holds and cherishes all the world."

p. 71-72 "To know you love each somebody, and to feel his desire falling over you like a warm rain, touching you everywhere, is to have a kind of light. When a woman and a man give themselves to each other, they have a light between them that nobody but them can see. They see only each other and what is between them."

p. 110 "The room of love is another world. You go there wearing no watch, watching no clock. It is the world without end, so small that two people can hold it in their arms, and yet it is bigger than worlds on worlds, for it contains the longing of all things to be together, and to be at rest together. You come together to the day's end, weary and sore, troubled and afraid. You take it all into your arms, it goes away, and there you are where giving and taking are the same, and you live a little while entirely in a gift. The words have all been said, all permissions given, and you are free in the place that is the two of you together. What could be more heavenly that to have desire and satisfaction in the same room?"

p. 113 "you mustn't wish for another life. YOu mustn't want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks." I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions."(less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Melody rated it 5 of 5 stars

The plot of Hannah Coulter is not particularly important. In fact I am not sure I could tell you the plot. Instead the narrator, Hannah Coulter, is remembering her life in Port William, her childhood, her marriage, her children and her old age.

The beauty of this book for me was in three ideas that Wendell Berry weaves into Hannah's life. First even though this book is written from the perspective of someone who is old and dying, who has lost so much throughout her life, it is a book filled with...more The plot of Hannah Coulter is not particularly important. In fact I am not sure I could tell you the plot. Instead the narrator, Hannah Coulter, is remembering her life in Port William, her childhood, her marriage, her children and her old age.

The beauty of this book for me was in three ideas that Wendell Berry weaves into Hannah's life. First even though this book is written from the perspective of someone who is old and dying, who has lost so much throughout her life, it is a book filled with thanksgiving over the gift of life. In a world were we are taught to feel entitled and upset by what we have not been given, WB shows the reader contentment and joy in a life where one does not demand but where one receives life as a gift and loves what he has been given. Happiness is not found by constantly striving for something you do not have nor is happiness simply putting up with circumstances. It is embracing the gift of life and giving yourself fully to what is before you.

Secondly, WB paints a picture of the humane life. His characters treat each other with a deep kindness and sensitivity. They are not demanding, they are not loud. They serve each other quietly but with abandonment. How many relationships can you see in your own life that are like this? The mirror WB holds up to our souls is convicting and inspiring.

Thirdly, WB reminds the reader in a way few authors can without being cheesy, that love is the most profound thing we can ever experience. Love is not easy, it is not trite, it is not passion and it never comes without suffering and without loss. It is "prepared in the long day, in the work of years, in the keeping of faith, in kindness." Love is when you are wholly given to another person.

Life for WB is filled with loss and having. The two accentuate each other. But WB does not leave us caught between the two. He allows us to look at the loss in life without fear but to ultimately turn to "the having" with satisfaction and joy. (less)

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Oct 12, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This lovely novel is my first experience with Berry and in it I found an unexpected gem. I was surprised by the quiet wisdom and truth in his writing.

Hannah Coulter tells us the story of her life in Kentucky. From her early days with her father and step-mother in a small home, to her courting days, to the pain caused by World War II and the eventual life she settles into. It’s a beautiful look at Midwestern life, both realistic and idealistic if that’s possible.

At the beginning of the story Ha...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Paula rated it 4 of 5 stars

My friend Marie English recommended this novel to me, and I suggested it (successfully) to my high school friends' reading group. We loved discussing the life of Hannah, an elderly woman thinking back on her life pretty stoically: her first love was killed in WW2 in the Battle of the Bulge, and she recognized that that was not a fully-experienced love relationship, and that memory's tendency is to romanticize those who have died young. She eventually marries Nathan Coulter, who never shared his...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Another wonderful character in Berry's description of the people of Port William.

“I took her into bed with me and propped myself up with pillows against the headboard to let her nurse. As she nursed and the milk came, she...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Kim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-favorite

I loved this book. I have heard Wendell Berry's name over and over since I have started reading about farming and finally ordered a book at random from the libary. It was a feast of wisdom and goodness. It was how the world is and how it should be. Dripping with hidden gems of truth and nuggets of wisdom to savor. What a gifted man. I can't wait to read more of his works.

My favorite quotes from this book:

" She was an old-fashioned housewife: determined and skillful and saving and sparing. She w...more I loved this book. I have heard Wendell Berry's name over and over since I have started reading about farming and finally ordered a book at random from the libary. It was a feast of wisdom and goodness. It was how the world is and how it should be. Dripping with hidden gems of truth and nuggets of wisdom to savor. What a gifted man. I can't wait to read more of his works.

My favorite quotes from this book:

" She was an old-fashioned housewife: determined and skillful and saving and sparing. She worked hard, provided much, bought little, and saved everything that might be of use, buttons and buckles and rags and string and paper sacks from the store. She mended leaky pans, patched clothes, and darned socks. She used the end of a turley's wing as a broom to sweep around the stove."

"...though he treated me with the strictest honor, according to the old rules. Since by then maybe I couldn't have told him no, it moves me now to remember how careful he was of me. I think it was because he was so much older that he could take responsibility for my youth and greenness and shelter me even from himself,"

" But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shinning out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery."

"Sometimes too I could see that love is a great room with a lot of doors, where we are invited to knock and come in. Though it contains all the world, the sun, moon, and stars, it is so small as to be also in our hearts. It is in the hearts of those who choose to come in. Some do not come in. Some may stay out forever, Some come in together and leave seperately. Some come in and stay, until they die, and after."

"There is no better place in this,not in this world. And it is by the place we've got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven."

There is so much more, and many I left out because they were too beautiful and deep, and almost painful, besides I found might as well be coping the whole book. (less)

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May 24, 2012 John Gardner rated it 5 of 5 stars

Originally posted at Honey and Locusts.

Wendell Berry is one of the few authors who is worth reading simply for the pure joy of hearing the words. Something about his writing style makes the words seem to wash right over me. Whether poetry or prose (a distinction not always easily made in Berry's writing), fiction or non, the effect is the same.

Hannah Coulteris certainly not my typical pleasure-reading material. There is not much of a plot, and no real "action" scenes. There is no prototypical vi...more Originally posted at Honey and Locusts.

Wendell Berry is one of the few authors who is worth reading simply for the pure joy of hearing the words. Something about his writing style makes the words seem to wash right over me. Whether poetry or prose (a distinction not always easily made in Berry's writing), fiction or non, the effect is the same.

Hannah Coulter is certainly not my typical pleasure-reading material. There is not much of a plot, and no real "action" scenes. There is no prototypical villain, though life in the fictional town of Port William seems always to be warring against the twin enemies of Time and Death. Instead, this is a poignant account of the simple heroism of a life well-lived.

The novel is told from the perspective of a 70's-something woman in the twilight of her life, as she reflects on her past, present, and future. Through Hannah's eyes, we catch a glimpse of rural life as experienced by "the greatest generation". We benefit from the prudence and wisdom gained over a lifetime that had experienced so much joy and pain, as she loved and lost two husbands (one of whom went missing in the European theater of the second World War), and became an integral part of a tight-knit community.

Most of all, this is a story of love; a true romance novel. The love of which Hannah Coulter speaks is not the "romance" that is so typical of the stories of our day, but a real, true, and lasting love in the fullest sense of the word. It is a lifetime of love, shared most intimately with a spouse, but encompassing the shared experiences of a multitude of people, and pouring over into every aspect of life. It is a love for which I believe all people long, but few truly find in this life.

The tempo of the book is that of the life it portrays: slow, but with a purpose and a definite direction. I was riveted from beginning to end.

This novel was of particular interest to me because Hannah was born within a few years of both of my grandmothers, and in the same part of the state of Kentucky. Her story could easily have been their story, or the story of so many others from their generation. It is a reminder of the importance of learning and passing on the stories of those who have come before us. In this way, they (and the wisdom they possess) are always with us, just as the people in Port William remain with Hannah Coulter. I was struck by this thought even more deeply this week at my grandmother's funeral. I am so thankful to have had the chance to get to know her, and to have many of her stories to pass on to my children and grandchildren. I read this book before she died, but she (and my other grandmother) were both on my mind the entire time. Hearing Hannah's story somehow made their stories seem more real. For perhaps the first time, I was able to imagine them as young women, as the world in which they lived came alive through Berry's beautiful writing.

I sincerely hope that many others will read this book, along with Jayber Crow and others from Berry's stories of life in Port William. We could all use a break from the breakneck pace of modern life, and there are few ways better to do so than this book. Buy it here.(less)

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Jan 30, 2012 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was the first book that I read by Wendell Berry, but it started me on the rest of his books. I love not only the characters but also the sense of place and of history that Berry invokes. Hannah, the protagonist, grows up in and around the town of Port William, Kentucky, the scene of many other of Berry's books. The books are not a straight series, but each book acquaints you with a few of the characters, who then appear, usally as secondary characters, in the other books. The sense of conti...more

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Nov 23, 2010 Timothy Butler rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's beautiful. Berry reminds us that we are constituted by our loves, and that we find peace as we love, and that to love is to be altogether given--to another, to a place, to a people. But more important, he reminds us that we are to love what is before us: "Nathan said, 'Don't complain about the chance you had,' in the same way exactly that he used to tell the boys, 'Don't cuss the weather.' . . . you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else."

Against this is the ca...more It's beautiful. Berry reminds us that we are constituted by our loves, and that we find peace as we love, and that to love is to be altogether given--to another, to a place, to a people. But more important, he reminds us that we are to love what is before us: "Nathan said, 'Don't complain about the chance you had,' in the same way exactly that he used to tell the boys, 'Don't cuss the weather.' . . . you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else."

Against this is the call to a "better life" and the promise of "fulfillment" and "freedom" in a "better place." But there is no better life and no better place. Fulfillment and freedom are right here, available within the possibility that one can love another. And there is no better place: We are what is before us. We are our loves. And so, if we are wise and live wisely, this will be said of us: "They aren't going any place, they aren't getting ready to become anything but what they are, and so their lives are not fretful and hankering. And they are all still here."

I love it.

To entice you:
"Now I know what we were trying to stand for, and what I believe we did stand for: the possibility that among the world's wars and sufferings two people could love each other for a long time, until death and beyond, and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love, as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place. This love would be one of the acts of the greater love that holds and cherishes all the world." (67-68.)

"And he was a rock to me, but now I knew that he had been shaken. . . . and he was shaken for life, and deep in the night he needed to touch me. I didn't know the reason then, but now I know that some old nightmare of the war had come back to him and frightened him awake. And ever so quietly, ever so gently, so as not to wake me, he would touch me. I would pretend to sleep on, so as not to disturb him wiht the thought that he had wakened me. It was not a lover's touch. As I knew partly then but know completely now, he needed to know that he was here and I was here with him, that he had come from the world of war, again, to this. Reassured, he would sleep again, and I too would sleep." (173.)

"I am watching him, but he has not yet seen me. And now he sees me. The expression on his face does not change, but now his intention has changed, he is walking toward me and nothing else. As he comes closer he smiles a little, still whistling. I know that when he comes to where I am he will give me a hug, and I want him to. I know how it is going to feel, the entire touch of him. He looks at me with a look I know. The shiver of the altogether given passes over me from head to foot." (186.)(less)

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Oct 10, 2010 Trudy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was the first of Berry's Port Williams books for me and I enjoyed it. I think it will appeal to people who also like The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency and the Mitford series. Sweet and mellow, a life story told by the subject, with some nuggets of wisdom interjected on the way. It makes WW II out to be the turning point of American society's attitude toward the land on which we live; how we've ceased to be one with it by working it and gleaning from it the way people used to do before th...more This was the first of Berry's Port Williams books for me and I enjoyed it. I think it will appeal to people who also like The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency and the Mitford series. Sweet and mellow, a life story told by the subject, with some nuggets of wisdom interjected on the way. It makes WW II out to be the turning point of American society's attitude toward the land on which we live; how we've ceased to be one with it by working it and gleaning from it the way people used to do before the invention of machines and large corporations and stock markets.

Some good quotes: "He loved the old free work-swapping with our kinfolks and friends, who needed no bossing but out of their regard and respect for one another did what they were supposed to do. When we would have to hire somebody, as we sometimes did, and he proved unsatisfactory, as he usually did, Nathan would say, 'Another damned employee.' And that was the harshest criticism he ever made of the children: 'You are acting like a damned employee.' "

"One of the attractions of moving away into the life of employment [as opposed to a life of subsistence farming], I think, is being disconnected and free, unbothered by membership [in a community that knows and looks after each other for generations]. It is a life of beginnings without memories, but is is a life too that ends without being remembered. The life of membership with all its cumbers is traded away for the life of employment that makes itself free by forgetting you clean as a whistle when you are not of any more use. When they get to retirement age [people] will be cast out of place and out of mind like worn-out replaceable parts, to be alone at the last maybe and soon forgotten. 'But the membership,' Andy said, 'keeps the memories even of horses and mules and milk cows and dogs.' "

"Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope and you mustn't shirk it."

"The old harvest crews and their talk and laughter at kitchen tables loaded with food have been replaced by machines, and by migrant laborers who eat at the store. The old thrift that once kept us alive has been replaced by extravagance and waste. People are living as if they think they are in a movie. They are all looking in one direction, toward 'a better place,' and what they see is no thicker than a screen."

There is also a haunting chapter on the battle of Okinawa, in which one of the main characters is reported to have participated. I think every politician who promotes war should have to memorize this chapter. (less)

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Jan 06, 2010 Carole rated it 4 of 5 stars

This author belies the claim that men and women are too different to really understand each other. Writing as a woman, in first person, Berry wonderfully expresses a feminine response to war, loss, and, most of all, love. I'm anxious to read his other writings, including those from a male perspective.

Some favorite quotes:

"As I have told it over, the past visible again in the present, the dead living still in their absence, this dream of time seems to come to rest in eternity. My mind, I think, h...more This author belies the claim that men and women are too different to really understand each other. Writing as a woman, in first person, Berry wonderfully expresses a feminine response to war, loss, and, most of all, love. I'm anxious to read his other writings, including those from a male perspective.

Some favorite quotes:

"As I have told it over, the past visible again in the present, the dead living still in their absence, this dream of time seems to come to rest in eternity. My mind, I think, has started to become, it is close to being, the room of love where the absent are present, the dead are alive, time is eternal, and all the creatures prosperous. The room of love is the love that holds us all, and it is not ours. It goes back before we were born. It goes all the way back. It is Heaven's. Or it is Heaven, and we are in it only by willingness. By whose love...do we love this world and ourselves and one another? Do you think we invented it ourselves? I ask with confidence, for I know you know we didn't."

"Compared to nearly everybody else, the Branches have led a sort of futureless life. They have planned and provided as much as they needed to, but they take little thought for the morrow. They aren't going any place, they aren't getting ready to become anything but what they are, and so their lives are not fretful and hankering. And they are all still here, still farming. They are here, and if the world lasts they are going to be here for quite a while. If I had "venture capital" to invest, I think I would invest it in the Branches."

"And so Nathan required me to think a thought that has stayed with me a long time and has traveled a long way. It passed through everything I know and changed it all. The chance you had is the life you've got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people's lives...but you mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: "Rejoice everymore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks." I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions."(less)

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Oct 03, 2011 Corinne rated it 3 of 5 stars

I became interested in this book after hearing a glowing review of it on the Diane Rehm radio show.

A book that contains the reminiscences of a twice widowed woman named Hannah Coulter. Berry has a beautiful writing style, full of imagery, yet as simple as his main character and her life.

A valuable look into life as it was for a farming family from the Depression on. This is not a gripping page turner, but rather a gem to savor and think about.

Really made me think about life and how it must feel...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Jacob McGill rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this to be an interesting tale of changing cultures from the early 1900s to the 2000s. There are several times in the story where the narrator reflects back on decisions made or cultural shifts and asks provocative questions. I thought the idea that "giving children the education they deserved (college)," was bound to push them away from home was very insightful. Why should we expect the educated to come back and live humble lives as farmers? (I am by no means saying that farmers are not...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Joy rated it 5 of 5 stars

A beautiful, soft, touching novel of a woman's life on a Kentucky farm from around the Depression right up until modern day. Not only a story of her life, though, but also the history of the farm and how the war, education, government, and machines changed farming's future.
Some beautiful quotes from Hannah herself:

"And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this p...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

This gorgeous book is a soothing, feminine voice for a simple life in rural America. Wendell Berry perfectly captures the intuitive, loving, modest and womanly voice of Hannah in this book. It was like sitting down with one of my great aunts to listen to the story of her life and getting gently swept up in the loving and living of her life during an era that is all but gone today. Hannah's voice reminded me so much of the country life in a small town that I grew up with, that I found myself long...more

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May 17, 2011 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Berry captures yet another Port William life in "Hannah Coulter." And he also captures something of an old Americana that is quickly fading, fading, gone. Some quintessential Berry themes show up - the fight of the old way against the new myth-of-progress; life that was once lived in cooperation with the land rather than co-opted against it; and faith, hope, and love that cover over a multitude of clamoring sins. But the book is different - and endearing - in that it tells the story from a femal...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Paula rated it 4 of 5 stars

Written by Kentucky environmental philosopher, poet, essayist, and novelist Wendell Berry, this fictional memoir tells the story of life in rural Kentucky from the 1920's through the early 2000's. Hannah Coulter is one of the series of stories of people from Port William, a fictional town on the the Ohio River, somewhere between Louisville and Cincinnati. Through Hannah's story we learn about family farm life in Kentucky and the details of close relationships developed through the interdependenc...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Robert Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Modern Faulkner. In sentence structure, tone, scene, and subject matter,it is reminiscent of Yoknapatawpha County (Faulkner's fictional county in Mississippi). The story held little suspense, marginal character development, and no discernible plot. However, the narration of an old woman reminiscing about her life held me in sway. It was like listening to an elderly grandmother weaving tales while crocheting and swinging on the front porch. I could almost hear the squeaking of the chains on the s...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Bob Stocker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wendell Berry's novel Hannah Coulter tells the life story of a farmer's wife who was born in 1922 and lived into the 21st century. There are few surprises. Many of the events in her life typify the changes in rural America during the last century. Even events that might otherwise be surprising are foreshadowed. Nevertheless, I found the book enthralling. The prose is simple, at times beautiful, and frequently seasoned with wisdom.

This is a book with a message. Berry loves nature and people who l...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Michael O'Neill rated it 5 of 5 stars

The memoir of an elderly Kentucky woman written by one of America's most overlooked authors is not something that would normally jump off the shelf at me. But what a gift this book is. Honest, beautifully written, and extremely moving in its depiction of love, jealously, war and the simple pains and pleasures of every day life.

"Sometimes I sit still in my chair late into the night, telling over this story to myself... I tell it with patience, going over it again and again in order to get it ri...more

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