Pet peeves:

1.) Cars with dealer license plate frames. You bought the car, is it necessary to advertise where you bought it from? For free? This is America, you dumbass. Have some self-respect.

2.) Company vehicles that have an overhead dome light that has some sort of short in it that causes it to light-up whenever I go over railroad tracks, potholes, or spare change in the road at a speed of greater than 3 MPH and consequently makes me feel like the centerpiece in some hackneyed corporate motiva More...

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately." Henry David Thoreau

Jayber Crow moves to Port William because he wishes to live deliberately. Abandoning his life of superiority and solitude, he crosses floodwaters to settle along the banks of the Kentucky River, where he discovers community and home. The river summons Crow to a mystical appreciation of time, community, and humanity. Upon these mysteries, Crow ponders as he barbers hair, digs graves, cleans his church, plants his gar More...

Read through #3.
Perhaps it's reading with someone's fresh eyes and perspective (thank you, Steve, for your profound thoughts, illuminations, and keen observations)...
Perhaps it's just one of those stories which only intensifies and becomes greater with each reading...

All I know is that with every reading, the end of this book makes me feel like I need to take a step back from everything-- and really assess the world around me with clearer eyes.
And work toward mercy.

______________________________ More...

Other reviews have commented on the fictional part of this book, i.e. the life story of Jayber Crow so I will not mention it. Instead I will focus on how this book works for me.
When I had finished it, I wondered about where I would shelve it (not something I often think of, and a tribute to how much I had valued reading it) and I immediately realised it belonged with a group of authors that I have come to love, a group who share a theme, the theme of 'place', with such as MacLeod, McGahern, Laxn More...

A moving and uplifting portrait of heaven. That’s how Jayber Crow sees it as he reflects on his life as an ordinary man living his life as a barber in close connection to his community in rural Kentucky, Port William. Or maybe I should say an extraordinary man in an ordinary community. What makes Crow special is that he believes in love, even to the point of trying his best to love his enemies. On my part, I found it easy to love him and hated for my time harvesting his wisdom and sensibilities More...

An easy five star rating for this one- half way through I already knew it had become one of my favorite books.

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 reading experience such as this one that takes you deep into the heart of what it means to live, to be alive. Despite its fiction narrative, "Jayber Crow" feels far closer to a guided mediation on youth and age, Progress vs. n More...

This is my review for Amazon.com

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 affects all who venture to its pages. In addition, Mr. Berry is a master writer.

It appears that the Jaber story is written on two levels, but when I asked Mr. Berry about it, he did not seem to agree. Perhaps this is the kin More...

I was recommended this book by my cousin. He said it was a great story about the south. Which is very true! Really this story is a love song for the American small town in early to middle 20th century. Written as a fictional autobiography by Jayber himself; he is an old man looking back at his life and all the changes he went through and all the changes America went through. Jayber is a pretty quiet fellow, always was and always will be, so he spends a great deal of time in his own head. He has More...

This is the second Wendell Berry book I've read, the first being "That Distant Land." I enjoy the change of pace from theological and cultural blogs or books to "going home" to a place called Port William.

In this installment, Jonah Crow, an orphan who leaves the sleepy riverside village at an early age, answers the call to return and let Port William define him. He self-consciously rejects making something of himself, allowing instead the community into his living room-slash-barber shop. The fol More...

David Byrne once wrote that "heaven in a place where nothing ever happens." This idea didn't come from nowhere; the idea of lying prostrate before the face of God to "gaze and gaze on Thee" is actually a pretty traditional view of heaven.

Jayber Crow, the narrator of this novel, says it's a book about heaven. And not very much happens.

But, oh, my god. I could gaze and gaze on Jayber Crow for eternity. It's a gorgeous account of the life of a simple man in a tiny town in Kentucky--the kind of that More...

Wendell Berry has produced a wonderful little town composed mostly of farmers, most of whom have loved the land, both farmland and woodland, and tried to treat it well. Many of the farmers still farmed with mules as late as the 60's or maybe later. Berry expresses that love of the land (not a proud or selfish pride of ownership, in fact, Jayber Crow didn't own most of the land he loved so much but still felt a close tie) in each of the novels and short stories he writes about the small community More...

Wonderful writer - love his characters and the little Kentucky town named Port William and surrounding farms.

“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out - perhaps a little at a time.'
And how long is that going to take?'
I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps.'
That could be a long time.'
I will tell you a further mystery,' he said. 'It may take longer.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow: A Novel

“After a while, though the grief did not go away More...

I’ve had Wendell Berry on the radar for years. In college I frequently babysat for the children of a Berry scholar (as in, wrote a real book about it), and sometimes I thumbed through the books on their shelf. But I didn’t get anything read start-to-finish until now, and I am kicking myself for taking half a decade to get around to it. This author is gently profound, and his prose beautifully marries an understanding of God’s dual revelation (in scripture and nature) with an uncanny knack for de More...

This is the second time I have read this book. I liked it just as much as the first time, maybe even more. I keep track of quotes I like in the front of my book. I added at least as many on the second read as I did the first time through. More and more thoughts, phrases, ideas stood out to me. Here are a few examples:
"They would be going or coming from Frankfort, Hargrave, Cincinnati or Louisville, or places farther away--places, all of them, that were only names to me, but names that seemed pal More...

At first, I thought it was simply Berry’s languid prose that made Jayber Crow seen familiar, but when the narrator (Crow himself) spotted Maggie on page nine, I knew I’d read the book before. I hadn’t recalled the title, but I had recalled this story of perhaps the most unrequited love in the annals of literature and I just kept on reading.
Jayber Crow is not a novel in the normal sense. I subscribe to E.M. Forster’s vague definition of a novel as (paraphrasing) “a prose work of some length” a More...

This is a book to savor. WB is intimately familiar with the landscape and people of small town Kentucky. The details and descriptions make them come alive, and through their peculiarities they become universal. Jayber, orphaned young and sent to an orphanage at 10, tries to study theology, but finds he can't be a preacher because he can't accept the pat answers of his professors and can't keep himself from asking deep questions. He finds his true calling as a barber returning to his home territo More...

I Read this last year and I must have forgotten to add it to my goodreads. I probably would have given this book five stars at the time I finished it, however, my opinion of the book has since waned. I think a lot of it has to do with reading some of his essays and excerpts. Am I the only one who gets the impression that this is one grumpy dude who lives in KY? Every time I read something by him I hear this recurring subtext that says: "If you are not a pure zero-emissions farmer living off the More...

Port Wiliam -- I've been there -- now, after reading this book -- and I am so eager to return when I read the rest of Berry's books. I understand Jayber's feeling when he says "I don't remember when I did not know Port William, the town and the neighborhood."

I love how each character comes to life like those ordinary folks in a Rockwell painting -- only better. When Jayber starts out on his journey, I wasn't sure I liked him (and I worried about the whole 'Dickensish orphan' idea). But Jayber w More...

What are the intentions of this novel about a small town barber? What can we learn from a man named Jayber? Much. Wendell Berry's deceptively simple story follows Jayber Crow through his decades of service lowering the ears, cleaning the church, and digging the graves in Port William Kentucky. In all this we find he is living out the "questions to which you cannot be given answers."

How does one learn contentment in the face of longing? What is the source of faith and faithfulness? 'You will have More...

I have read Berry's poems and essays before this, but this was my first time delving into his fiction. After reading this lovely novel, I suspect that I will be back for more. Berry writes in such a simple, elegant way about the people and life of the small town of Port William, Kentucky, that one almost wishes it were not a fictional place.

It took me a while to read this book, but I realized that this was due not simply to a lack of time on my part, but also to the fact that I wanted to stop an More...

This is just probably the best book I've ever read. It's written about the kind of people I grew up with, the kind of places I've loved, and the kind of best hopes I have about the way the world really is. I see my grandfather in this book, the woods I played in when I was little, and the kind of community and life I wish still existed in this world. This book moved me in a way I haven't been moved by words in a very long time.

Wendell Berry's writing is so vivid it makes me feel nostalgic for something I have never experienced, small town community America. It is obvious that he is romanticizing the small farm, small town life and because I never experienced it personally I found myself easily falling in love with it. The descriptions in the book describe an all but forgotten America, probably the best America and best values this country has ever had. This old-America was gradually crushed by the "economic-America", More...

Had to wait awhile before I reviewed this simply because I wanted to be sure I wasn't just super excited with the book I'd just read. While planning on have read this years ago, I finally sat down to about 2 weeks ago, and was blown away. This is Garrison Keillor with the soul of the good earth and the heart of people that don't simply love it but rather nurture their lives within it as the crops they raise. Within this he builds a community(in my mind, since this was the first WB book I had rea More...

A wonderful book - maybe a new "all time favorite" addition! Jayber's life story spans approximately the years my grandpa lived (1914-1986 vs. 1912-1994), and so the entire time I was reading it I was also imagining Grandpa's life and what he would have said about it; the wars, economic challenges, and modernization he also experienced over that time. In other ways as well, I felt that if my grandpa had written his life story it would be very similar to Jayber's: rural small town life, stories a More...

I feel like I'm not qualified to give this book a rating because I did not really understand it. It was hard to get through and I did not really grasp the significance of what I was reading. I should have read it with a guide or with a bookclub. It had to be more than a boy who spent his whole life by the river in Kentucky, ran a barbershop for a living and and who declared his love for one woman who could never reciprocate it. My mother said that someone in her book club suggested that Jayber C More...

Wendell Berry writes beautifully, not surprising since he is a poet as well as an essayist and a novelist. In fact, all three abilities abound in this novel. It is a very long book which is an 'autobiography" of the protagoist, a young boy orphaned twice in childhood. He grows up in an orphanage and eventually returns to his small hometown as a barber.
His story is the story of life in mid-America from World War I to mid century. He manages to incorporate many themes that are dear to Berry's phi More...

The first novel from Wendell Berry I've read, though I've long been a fan of his essays.

Essentially, it was an outworking of his ideas (community, "place-ness", conservation, good farming practices, etc.) through a network of characters. He's written several novels and short stories centered on the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.

Beyond the typical "Berryian Agro-Community Synthesis", Jayber Crow centers around the somewhat aimless track of life of a young man who grows up to be the to More...

I found the last chapter and scene disappointing, and the god talk at the beginning of section three had me squirming in a hard, wood pew, but aside from these discomforts, Jayber Crow has all the marks of a classic. This is the Appalachian version of Halldor Laxness' "Independent People," and it's full of wit, fun, and life/death while also focusing on major conflicts in 20th century Appalachia and the greater world---most notably, the loss of Main St. and small-scale farming as the world turns More...

Berry tackles a heavy subjet-life in a small rural Kentucky town. Although he eschews organized religion, several tracts sound for all the world like organized religion to me. In my opinion, his time would have been better spent explaining in detail what he means by the word "Love" which he so frequently uses.

He accurately speaks about our misuse of the land, and how we seek to maximize profits from it, at our own expense. Berry is well known for this; he is right. Old farming techniques are no More...

I read this one for a book club. Why they decided to start with the 11th book in a series, I'll never know. I had a hard time getting into it, partially because I kept feeling like I was missing something. I didn't really enjoy it, but I am going to reserve my final opinion until I've read the rest of the series - which I may do at some point.