I wasn’t intellectually persuaded by Mr.Berry. Rather my heart was reordered. He helped me to love that which I had previously found unloveable. And I knew, on some deep level, that all of the trappings of modernity, that which I had held to be superior, were really the cause of all my feelings of isolation and alienation and fragmentation. At last I had discovered what my soul was missing. And I was faced with the great irony that my whole life I had been celebrating the death of the very things that were, in fact, life.
It’s true too… if you read Berry, you will be changed. What’s more, read any good fiction and it will shape your heart. Well, any fiction will shape your heart; that’s why you should read good fiction. The first time I read Wendell Berry was the winter of 2009/10 when I innocently picked up a copy of Jayber Crow from downtown Lincoln’s Bennet Martin Library. To call the book’s effect on my thought “seismic” would be to understate the point, but it’s the best approximation I can offer. He will reorder your heart, mind, and imagination. Read him.
What you’ve said about JAYBER CROW is what I’d say about ANGLE OF REPOSE: “To call the book’s effect on my thought ‘seismic’ would be to understand the point, but it’s the best approximation I can offer. [Wallace Stegner] will reorder your heart, mind, and imagination. Read him.”
That’s how I felt about Hannah Coulter. Now just seeing the cover makes me remember.
[...] It’s true too… if you read Berry, you will be changed. What’s more, read any good fiction and it will shape your heart. Well, any fiction will shape your heart; that’s why you should read good fiction. The first time I read Wendell Berry was the winter of 2009/10 when I innocently picked up a copy of Jayber Crow from downtown Lincoln’s Bennet Martin Library. To call the book’s effect on my thought “seismic” would be to understate the point, but it’s the best approximation I can offer. He will reorder your heart, mind, and imagination. Read him. Jake Meador [...]