Remembering

Port William

by Wendell Berry

Remembering takes place in a single day in 1976. Andy Catlett, at the bottom of a deep dark depression since losing his hand in a farming accident, is alone in San Francisco, and takes a long walk through the walking street ofthe city. By the end of the day, when he has flown home to Port William, Kentucky, Andy is on his way to becoming whole again.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Literature, Classics, Literary Fiction

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[Laysee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over the years, Port William, a close-knit farming community in Kentucky, has become my favorite place to revisit in literary fiction. Remembering is the story of Andy Catlett, who was just a youth when I last met him in The Memory of Old Jack. In 1952, Andy was leaving for college, torn between his devotion to the farm and the lure of city life that promised a future denied his forbears who tilled the land. I wanted to know what became of Andy and the story I read made me ache for him as I would a kin.

Instead of Port William, Remembering is set in San Francisco where Andy, now an agricultural journalist, is attending a farming conference. I grieved when I learned that Andy has lost his right hand in a farming accident and along with it, his self-worth. The trauma of losing a hand has left him angry and bitter, and estranged him from his wife, children, and himself. It was heartbreaking to step into the dark abyss of his depression. The loss of a body part understandably violates the physical and psychological integrity of a person and threatens his or her sense of identity.

The story unfolds in the realms of Andy’s thought life and the introspection is emotionally draining on the reader. In Andy’s disdain for the professors of agriculture at the conference who extolled the wonders of monstrous machinery but had never farmed a day in their lives, one sensed Berry’s indignation at the encroachment of modern technology and its threat to the sustainability of small family farms.

Remembering takes place over a day in 1976 as Andy wrestles with his distant self. He remembers with gratitude the families in Port William (e.g., the Feltners, Coulters, Rowanberrys) that have significantly shaped his values and beliefs. ‘On the verge of his journey, he is thinking about choice and chance, about the disappearance of chance into choice, though the choice be as blind as chance. That he is who he is and no one else is the result of a long choosing, chosen and chosen again.’ For Andy, it is a gift to claim and reclaim membership in the fellowship of Port William stalwarts. He slowly finds his way home to Port William and to himself.

As always, Berry’s poetic prose shines. There is no plot and not much of a story. However, into the darkness of Andy’s agony, Berry’s ineffable writing brings light and healing, the comfort that readers have come to expect from having been at Port William.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andy Catlett is struggling--he's a farmer who lost his right hand in a farm machine. He's full of anger and frustration that it takes so much time to do simple tasks. Andy is edgy with his wife who tells him he needs to forgive himself.

He travels to California to give a speech at an agricultural conference. Some of the other speeches turn farming into economic graphs, buying expensive equipment, using huge quantities of chemicals, and acquiring staggering amounts of debt. So Andy throws his prepared speech away, and talks about what the small farmer has lost in recent years. He longs for the way of life of his ancestors and a strong supportive community. Much of the rest of the book is spent remembering significant events in his life, and deciding what is important in his future.

Author Wendell Berry is a poet, an essayist, a novelist, an educator, and a farmer. He really used all of these skills in writing this short novel. His prose is very lyrical, especially in the sections when Andy is remembering his younger days. Andy acts as a mouthpiece for Berry's opinions about farming and the loss of community in the modern world.

"Remembering" is one in a series about the farming community of Port William in Kentucky. Since most of the book involves remembering people and events of the past, the reader should start with other books in the series and read this later. All of the other Port William books that I read have been lighter, but it's understandable that Andy is in a dark place after his devastating injury.
3.5 stars.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad I saved this for my last "new" book by Wendell Berry. Andy Catlett has lost his hand in a farming accident, and is filled with grief and rage. How can he be anything but a cripple without his right hand? He flies to San Francisco to deliver a speech on small farmers and realizes he's only there because he's considered an anarchist to the big mega farms, they need him to make them look good. He gives his speech, then spends the night roaming the city to escape his depression and black moods. During the course of the night, he remembers his land and where he came from in memories of his ancestors and conversations. He goes home knowing that he can weather whatever comes.

This book started out in a dark place in Andy's mind. I found it hard to read his depressive thoughts, until he turned to his memories of Port William. That's when it came alive for me. It's pretty much an accepted fact by Berry fans that Andy Catlett is his alter ego, so you have to wonder if Berry himself went through a dark night of the soul at some point, and used Andy's story to work through that. Whatever, in reading this after his other Port William books and stories, I found that Andy's memories were mine too.

An excellent way to end my Port William journey, but I'll be back.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent the past few days with my friend, Andy Catlett. It’s such a pleasure to visit old friends from Port William and learn more about the close-knit membership. This time though, Andy was away from home and in San Francisco of all places. He was in a bad place and not really joyful or pleased with his life. You see, he had recently been the victim of a farming accident that took his right hand. Now, Andy is reeling from the fact that he is not the person he used to be and therefore, he must be worthless. He has been in a state of self-pity and has begun to alienate his wife, Flora and their kids. But, Andy will have to deal with this new way of life, move past the anger, and realize that he can move through and on with his life. But first, he must forgive himself.

His anger revealed his love, and yet removed him from it. He seemed to himself far away from all that he loved, too far away to help or to be helped.

Andy’s introspection quietly demonstrates how one can relive memories in order to heal. He is able to start the process the only way he knows how, by bringing up the past through his thoughts and dreams remembering the happy ways of life when the membership was all together, coming together for each other, helping and preserving what they know best – working the land and providing camaraderie.

He thinks of the song and dance of men and women behind him, most of whom he never knew, some he knew, two he yet knows, who, choosing one another, chose him. He thinks of the choices, too, by which he chose himself as he now is. How many choices, how much chance, how much error, how much hope have made that place and people that, in turn, made him?

It wouldn’t be a Wendell Berry novel without a lament over the ways farming life has changed on the land and in the lives of the farmers. He so eloquently makes his claims that the farming life is fading and has been for some time.

Andy began to foresee a time when everything in the country would be marketable and everything marketable would be sold, when not one freestanding tree or household or man or woman would remain.

I am nearing the end of my visits to Port William, sadly, as I only have one or two books left to read. But I look forward to the days when I can reopen the pages and dive back in to the lives of these friends who feel so much like family.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was back in Port William, Kentucky to visit with Andy Catlett today, and sadly found him not doing well. At the outset of this novel, we find that Andy has lost his right hand and is having a great deal of difficulty dealing with the loss.

...much of his thought now had to do with the comparison of times, as if he were condemned forever to measure the difference between his life when he was whole and his life now.

Our lives do so often divide between today and yesterday, before and after. In Andy’s case there is a physical manifestation of this divide, but sometimes it is just a psychological or emotional one. For me, it was the loss of my mother that left me in much this same frame of mind, always comparing my life that was whole with her in it and never quite whole without her.

As he struggles, we are taken, through his memory, back to earlier days and happier times, and we watch him gather strength from the core of who he is and all the people who have contributed over time to who he is. I have grown to love Andy Catlett over the years, so his tragedy felt very real and very sad to me.

Amidst his contemplation of life, Andy, via Berry, also considers the changes that have come to the land and to farming and farmers in particular. It is a recurring and important theme with Berry, the destruction of the land and the loss of a way of life that diminishes us all.

Andy began to foresee a time when everything in the country would be marketable and everything marketable would be sold, when not one freestanding tree or household or man or woman would remain.

What Andy grapples with is his faith: his faith in himself, his life and his ability to find something precious still existing in what seems now like a half-life.

His life has never rested on anything he has known beforehand--none of it. He chose it before he knew it, and again afterwards. And then he failed his trust and his choice, and now has chosen again, again on trust.

If you have never read Wendell Berry before, don’t start with this one. Start with Hannah Coulter or Jayber Crow. Get to know these people, so that the emotions you will feel for Andy will be developed over time and so that the references to other characters will feel like mentions of old friends. This book is copyright 2008; the first book, Nathan Coulter was copyrighted in 1960, and there is some of the best writing on the planet in between. Take a trip to Port William; I promise you that you will want to revisit time and time again.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wendell Berry is a terrific writer. In this book, there is a wonderful defense of the small family farm. Other than that, I found the book somewhat depressing, especially at the start. On the whole, I wouldn’t start reading this author with this book. But if you are already a fan, this could flesh out some Port William backstory.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remembering is not a typical Port William novel. Instead of watching the history of the families who developed the town and surrounding farms, we are initially caught up in the bitter rage of Andy Catlett, taking out his anger and frustration at the loss of his right hand in a farming accident on himself and everyone around him. As this novel begins, Andy is preparing to fly to a conference in San Francisco where he will be a speaker on farming techniques. He is working for a publisher of a farming equipment and technology magazines. But he finds he has been scheduled to speak because of his reputation for favoring “traditional ways,” to add spice to the meeting.

This is a difficult book to read, especially in the first half of the story where Andy is working through his fears, self-loathing, inability to deal with the hook that has replaced his right hand, worries about his marriage. The days in San Francisco become a sort of vision quest, as he walks the streets, existing both in the city and in the past in the farm country of Port William.

I found that this book took a lot of energy to read because of the emotional content and the slippages in time and place. There are, however, frequent examples of Berry’s wonderful prose throughout the novel, which seem to increase in the second half of the story, with more attention on the land. I didn’t read this straight through which may have affected my reactions to the book.

I would not recommend reading this before reading other Port William novels that will introduce you to the characters, landscape and culture of the area over decades.

Rating 3.5 rounded to 4

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

― “It was a pretty place, its prettiness not so much made as allowed. It was a place of work, but a place too of order and rest, where work was done in a condition of acknowledged blessedness and of gratitude.”
― Wendell Berry, Remembering: A Novel

A decade ago, I came across one of Wendell Berry’s novels (Hannah Coulter) in a bookstore. Although I was unfamiliar with Berry, I soon experienced the joy of reading one of his novels. To date, I have finished seven of these marvelous stories. His novels about the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky offer the reader an intimate glimpse into rural life, where agriculture is the primary industry and where people know and help one another. In American literature, few novelists can compare with Berry’s vision of a specific place through time or his insight into human behavior.

In Remembering, we again encounter Andy Catlett, whom readers met as a boy and young man in previous novels. Since the time of those novels, Andy has suffered a terrible loss. While harvesting crops with a neighbor, the farm equipment he is operating becomes entangled with crop material. While trying to clear the entanglement, his right hand is caught in the machinery, resulting in the loss of the hand. Although he has recovered physically since the accident, he now struggles with anger. Not surprisingly, this has put significant strain on his marriage. To make matters worse, he is angry at the loss of rural family farms amid the growth of agribusiness.

― “It was a country . . . that he and his people had known how to use and abuse, but not how to preserve.”
― Wendell Berry, Remembering: A Novel

The novel opens in the years after the accident. It is 1976 and Andy is now a middle-aged man working as a journalist. He has traveled from Port William to San Francisco to speak at a conference on farming. As he listens to the other speakers drone on about modern-day farming practices, he simmers inside. When his turn to speak comes, his twin angers lead him to set aside his prepared remarks and speaks from his heart. It doesn’t go well. His presentation proves unpopular with both the audience and the conference organizers. Waking up in his hotel room the next morning in a cold sweat, he goes for a long early morning long walk around San Francisco. His head is filled with reflections and memories.

Wendell Berry has a style of writing that can best be called contemplative. Perhaps it’s my age; perhaps it’s my introversion; but Berry’s style of writing appeals to me, all the more because I’ve chosen to live the remainder of my days in a very rural community, where your “next-door” neighbor is anyone who lives within three miles of your house.

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ★★★

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Well, you’ll be going away now, I reckon, to make something out of yourself.”

“Nosir, I reckon not.”

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inmates, prepare to be sick of me! Take a shot every time i mention this book, because holy smokestacks, this book was like a lighthouse in the dark. I think i said wow outloud more times reading this than reading les mis, which is quite a feat.

I will say as well that this book answered my frustrations from reading Hannah Coulter, so if you too are left a little frustrated by musings of a time of community and love and rural bliss now long past, and never to be resurrected due to the terrors of technology, this book is for you! :)

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Profound and at the same time flowery effusive. Poetic, lyrical language on a portrayal of depression. There should also be a warning on this one like the one they put on cigarette packs. It's short and that is probably one of the reasons I read every word. Loss and reactions to loss.

Parts of this were faith infused and other parts truly realistic. But warning: smiley faces and humor are basically memories or unknowns within perception scenarios.

People who adore a good cry will appreciate this more.

[Tsung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is diffferent from the usual Port William stories. This follows a brooding Andy Catlett over a series of experiences as he makes a short trip to San Francisco for an agricultural conference. He is a journalist for a agricultural science journal and seems to have left a life behind in Port William. He is still grieving over the loss of his hand in a farming accident. He is bitter about many things, putting even his relationship with his wife Flora in jeopardy. As he attends the conference, stays alone in his hotel room, walks through San Francisco in the wee hours, flies back to Port William, he has the accompanying reflections and rememberings. He laments how farming has changed. The small farmers are dying out. They are giving way to bigger farms, to mechanization and urbanization. Is this good or bad? His view is biased but then again whose isn't? He criticises the agricultural scientists for not having any firsthand experince in farming. He compares two contrasting farmers Meikelberger and Troyer. The former has 2000 acres, mechanisation, no neighbours, few animals, and a stomach ulcer from the stress of running the whole operation. The latter amish farmer has 80 acres, manual labour, neighbours, animals and contentment.

Andy struggles with both physical and existential issues. He is lonely and isolated. He encounters the destitue and poor in SF. He thinks about how impersonal air travel is and how detached everyone is in his or her own air bubble. In contrast, he has fond memories of various Port Williamites. He thinks about death. He has reveries about an alternative life and future.

Berry's writing is top notch. His descriptions are vivid. There is no shortage of metaphors and personifications.

But overall, it was a bit too depressing and sombre. Still part of the world of Port William but not reflective of it.

[Laityfamily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book spoke to my soul. I read it in two days. I wish I had known before reading the book that it is part of a series. I will now be starting at the beginning and I can promise you I will be deeply sucked into this series until I've read every book.

[Carmel Hanes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Wendell Berry books, and I admire much of his writing, but this one just didn't work as well for me as some of his do. Maybe it's the "mood" in it, as I relish time in the sun. Maybe it was being stuck in a head that was mired in negativity when the world gives me too much of that already in recent days.

[sarah smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best novels i have ever read. berry’s writing, the layered implications of the lost hand, the autobiographical element— i will be thinking about this book for a very long time.

[J. Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good.

[Matthew Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

No book has made me appreciate my home in Kentucky more.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berry has packed a lot into this little book. I found the book to be one of the most psychologically challenging books I've encountered. Yet the second half is one of the most rewarding I've read. All in all, this is a great, but very different addition to the Port William Membership novels.

We meet Andy Catlett in the dark night of his soul. He's reeling from the trauma of having lost his hand in a farming accident. His life has spiraled out of control after he betrays his hand and his very existence by being unable to be the person he was. Catlett is in a dark, dark place and has nearly alienated everyone he loves, and in fact has alienated himself from life itself. Existence has no significance for him, and he in fact only seems to be living on anger and self-loathing. I've not read other reviews who have suffered as I have, in reading through this, so perhaps my perspective here is the minority. I had a hard time reading through this--especially all the details about his missing hand which made me squirm.

The book is very appropriately entitled "Remembering" because the novel alternates between the present and the past. Catlett remembers many people of Port William--but especially those from his family. The past haunts him because it seems so present to him. He is the man that these people had a hand in forming. He has run from it after his injury and the anger it brings to the surface, but he cannot escape who he is.

From the depths of despair, he comes back from the dead, to live a new life. He returns home, to his family with the burden of repentance. He is in fact afraid that he may die before he is given the chance to repent to those whom he has wronged, and receive their forgiveness. I won't spoil the end, but it is a glorious picture of true remembrance--by looking with new eyes.

This is a beautiful work that reminds us all what it means to remember. It means to not only remember the past, but to view the world through the eyes of faith.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story written in a melancholic whisper. After the loss of Andy's right hand, his grief leads him to isolation. His dominant hand-- which once connected him to his work, embraced his wife and shook hands with the world-- was cut off. A novel of reflection, forgiveness, and restoration.

[Esta Doutrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Though he does not hold, he is held”

This may in time rival Hannah Coulter as my favorite Berry novel. A shorter and stranger journey, but rooted in the redemptive wholeness that Berry so often points to.

[Penny -Thecatladybooknook · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rounded up to 4. I don't usually give 1/4 ratings but this book was more than a 3.5 but not quite a 4 for me. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but turned out to be a nice, contemplative read featuring one of the characters in Port William.

Andy is older now with a family of his own. He has a farming accident which impacts his whole life. At this time, he is at an agricultural conference where he is a speaker and as an attendee, he sees how the world of farming has changed into big business and is all about dollar signs vs how he was raised with farming being a way of life with horse and mule teams. We see him grieving over his loss and trying to make sense of his life now and how he ends up back on his family farm vs life as an agricultural journalist.

"That was an island in time, between the horse and mule teams and the larger, more expensive machines that came later. They were not going to live again in a time like that."

I always liked Andy's character in the other books in this companion series, but this just felt not as enjoyable to me as most of the other books. While there were some 5* quotes "He remembered with longing the events of his body's wholeness, grieving over them, as Adam remembered Paradise. He remembered how his body dressed itself, while his mind thought of something else; how he had shifted burdens from hand to hand....Now the hand that joined him to her (his wife) had been cast away and he mourned over it as over a priceless map or manual lost forever.", there just wasn't quite enough to pull this over to a solid 4 star for me.

While Andy was grieving for his life changes with much contemplation, there was beautiful character growth to figure out where he is to go from here and why he chose to come back to farming the way it had been done from the beginning of time (and still is by the Amish and others).

[Benjamin Weiniger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will reread this when I lose a hand woodworking

[Roxy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with my every visit to Port William, I am transported to a place similar to my maternal Grandmother's time and home. I feel I know them all.

[Josh Sieders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5 or 3.75 stars. I love everything Berry writes, and this one too. Though this one is a bit different from the usual visit to Port William. Andy Catlett is in San Francisco g0ing through a serious depression and remembering the past and how he got to where he is at the moment.

As usual, Berry slows you down with his lyrical-yet-sparse prose and makes you pause and re-read sentences for their poignancy. The take away in this one is his talk of neighbouring, a membership, a community that exists because of small farms and simpler times.

I hear Berry's cry against technology and how modern farming ruins families and communities - at least as we knew them. I am not and never have been a farmer and so I lap up his words and yet I wonder about it all too. They seem quite romantic and yet if you step past the words, there is a hard world that goes with the beauty he describes. A world of subsistence living that few want.

The world is moving and changing and there's no going back. Even if back seems better through Berry's eyes. The population of the world has grown exponentially and the rewarding but hard lifestyle he describes is undesirable to most. Again, even if the benefits of it are rich, they are hard earned. Nevertheless, his emphasis on place and land and our connection to it always hits me...

[CJ Parmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One the remarkable aspects (among many) of Berry’s writing is his ability to make the reader feel content with their life as it is in all its messy complicated realness while at the same time making the reader zealous for MORE contentment. This book achieves this perhaps more than any other of his that I have read. Highly recommended!

[Lucas Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times gut-wrenching and at times uplifting, this was a very poignant read. I’ll ‘remember’ this one for a long time.

[David Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andy Catlett has lost his right hand in a corn picker along with his purpose. In the months following the accident he makes life hard for himself and everyone around him that cares for him--he just can't let the loss of his hand go and forgive himself for the one moment of thoughtlessness that led from his transformation from being someone who provided for others to that of a person for whom others provide.

His poor wife Flora is nearly at the breaking point. She loves Andy more than ever, but can't bear his inability to shed his poisoning outlook since the accident. Andy has been called to fly from his small horse-powered farm in Port William, Kentucky to that of a major Agriculture conference in San Francisco in 1976. The speakers there applaud the death of the family farm and the rise of the industrial agrarian economy. Andy is a small-fry, a farm journalist and a farmer who actually milks cows and spreads manure. He was invited to speak to this group of businessmen and officials as a novelty--an opponent who can't hope to stand in the way of progress.

Andy must contend with the modern world, the loss of his hand, and see if he can find himself again on the streets of San Francisco on a lonely dark night that seems far removed from all he has ever held dear.

This is an amazing short novel(120 or so pages). I writhed to read the description of Andy's hand being destroyed, cried at his sense of hopelessness, and grieved and rejoiced along with him. Each of Berry's Port William novels argue for a rural life where people are tied to the land and the land to those people and their descendents. I want to go into more detail, but I've already spoiled enough of the story. Go read it and treasure Remembrance's poetic prose, deeply human characters, and sense of elegiac hopefulness.

[Bobby Lehew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Washington Post called this "a beautiful and ennobling book." When all transient fiction has run its course and others are contemplating the real contribution to American letters from our lifetime, Wendell Berry will stand as one of the few enduring authors whose work, like revered authors before him, will be much more appreciated in subsequent generations. If you enjoy Wendell Berry's work or are new to this author, read Remembering. Read Jayber Crow. His works retain a coveted place in my library and are more often than not, found lying around the house, open-faced from wear or face down on an armchair or table, ink-stained and pencil marked.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with Wendell Berry's larger works will know what to expect and this novella doesn't disappoint. Of course, those readers who have limited patience with Berry's nostalgia for a disappeared way of life in America would best give this one a pass. There's very scant story here, just one man's personal struggle, largely against himself; and in the end, we're left without any clear resolution. In other words, the account is all too real; such contests rarely end with any clear-cut victory. Berry's favorite theme, the corporate destruction of farm life shares center stage with his protagonist's personal agonies. Intensely lyrical and personal but certainly not optimistic.