<![CDATA[Jayber Crow]]>

false <![CDATA[Jayber Crow]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170462803m/57460.jpg 57460 6 The questions who and what and how and why are no doubt useful and occasionally even noble in their place. But for Wendell Berry, whose spare and elegant prose has long testified to the rural American values of thrift and frugality, four interrogatives must seem a waste, when one will do. Where is the ultimate qualifier, the sine qua non, for both the author and his characters. Place shapes them and defines them; the winding Kentucky River and the gentle curves of the Kentucky hills find an echo in their lilting speech and brusque affections. Jayber Crow is another story of the Port William membership, the community whose life--and lives--Berry has unfurled over the course of a half dozen novels. Jayber himself is an orphan, lately returned to the town. And his status as barber and bachelor places him simultaneously at its center and on its margins. A born observer, he hears much, watches carefully, and spends 50 years learning its citizens by heart. <blockquote> They were rememberers, carrying in their living thoughts all the history that such places as Port William ever have. I listened to them with all my ears, and have tried to remember what they said, though from remembering what I remember I know that much is lost. Things went to the grave with them that will never be known again. </blockquote> Jayber tells the town's stories tenderly. Gently elegiac, the novel charts the tension between an urge to isolation and an impulse to connectivity, writ both small and large. As the 20th century moves inexorably forward, swallowing in great mechanized gulps rural towns governed by agricultural rhythms, Port William turns in upon itself. And as Jayber admits quietly, "Once a fabric is torn, it is apt to keep tearing. It was coming apart. The old integrity had been broken." Integrity, both whole and shattered, is key to the stories of Burley Coulter, Cecelia Overhold, Troy Chatham, and above all, Athey Keith and his daughter Mattie, to whom Jayber pledges his undying and unrequited love. Berry's prose, so carefully tuned that you never know it is there, carries us into the very heart of the land itself; his exquisitely constructed sentences suggesting the cyclic rhythms of his agrarian world. Jayber Crow resonates with variations played on themes of change, looping transitions from war into peace, winter into spring, browning flood destruction into greening fields, absence into presence, lost into found. --Kelly Flynn 55980 2000 Jayber Crow total:754|5:382|4:251|3:92|2:20|1:9| 754 3239 1127 158 5 1 false false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 14:13:04 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 23:33:48 -0800 2009
Not driven by plot, in fact not "driven" in any sense, this is a story that walks you gently and honestly through many parts of a life. It's hard to put words to a read...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Mon Apr 02 22:22:26 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 02 22:25:26 -0700 2007
Will the Real Jaber Crow Please Stand?

Jayber Crow may have sat on the back seat of his church, but there is no way the reader of Wendell Berry's book can be so detached from its characters and story. It is a warm, rich tale of human lives that...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 16 22:29:58 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 22:30:29 -0700 2009
I love how each ch...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 24 08:16:11 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 08:20:25 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Fri Sep 07 14:54:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 07 14:55:34 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Mar 21 17:39:36 -0700 2009 Sat Feb 28 14:00:01 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 21 17:39:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed May 06 11:51:29 -0700 2009 Wed May 06 12:03:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Apr 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 09:25:02 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 13:56:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Dec 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 22:27:08 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 23:31:03 -0800 2008
The story was...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun May 24 15:51:47 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 15:58:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 12 08:22:44 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 08:29:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Dec 06 08:39:33 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 18:04:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 14:46:35 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 18:28:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Dec 07 11:40:04 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 07 11:40:32 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jan 09 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 09:25:26 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 16:44:15 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Thu Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 15:38:05 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 24 07:22:00 -0700 2008
Part 1: Ostensibly, _Jayber Crow_ meditates on love, faith, and all the big weighty stuff. Beyond that, it's a novel take on presence and absence, maybe even a syncretic take as the Christian influence emits a whiff of ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Oct 14 21:44:25 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 21:44:38 -0700 2008 "The life story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William membership, as Written by Himself."

One would not imagine a simple barber from a tiny, rural hamlet in Kentucky to be literate, contemplative, or spiritually complex. Jayber C...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 01 06:43:59 -0800 2008 Wed Oct 28 13:57:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Apr 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 09:26:28 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 09:33:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Nov 07 15:24:02 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 15:34:53 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=57460