Hannah Coulter: A Novel (Port William)
Hannah Coulter is Wendell Berry’s seventh novel and his first to employ the voice of a woman character in its telling. Hannah, the now–elderly narrator, recounts the love she has for the land and for her community. She remembers each of her two husbands, and all places and community connections threatened by twentieth–century technologies. At risk is the whole culture of family farming, hope redeemed when her wayward and once lost grandson, Virgil, returns to his rural home place to work the farm.
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Hannah Coulter by Wendell Barry
186 pages
What’s it about?
Hannah Coulter is a twice widowed woman in her later years. She tells the story of her life through the lens of her age. She ruminates on loss, raising a family, and how her rural Kentucky community has changed over the years.
What did it make me think about?
This was a book about being of a particular time and place. How rooted people used to be in the actual land that supported them. It was a story of a time when people lived and died in one community. It also describes some of the reasons we moved away from that way of life, and some of the costs of that move.
Should I read it?
This was such an old fashioned book and quite different than anything I have picked up in awhile. Hannah Coulter's remembrances of rural Kentucky were insightful, if at times slightly moralistic. When looking for a quote I had lots of pages earmarked with interesting thoughts. I enjoyed this book- but can't say I loved it.
Quote-
"I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just sit did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown.
He fits my love, but he no longer fits the place or our life or the knowledge of anything here. Since a long time ago, when he comes back he has come as a stranger."
If you liked this try-
Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Driftless by David Rhodes
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Barry
186 pages
What’s it about?
Hannah Coulter is a twice widowed woman in her later years. She tells the story of her life through the lens of her age. She ruminates on loss, raising a family, and how her rural Kentucky community has changed over the years.
What did it make me think about?
This was a book about being of a particular time and place. How rooted people used to be in the actual land that supported them. It was a story of a time when people lived and died in one community. It also describes some of the reasons we moved away from that way of life, and some of the costs of that move.
Should I read it?
This was such an old fashioned book and quite different than anything I have picked up in awhile. Hannah Coulter's remembrances of rural Kentucky were insightful, if at times slightly moralistic. When looking for a quote I had lots of pages earmarked with interesting thoughts. I enjoyed this book- but can't say I loved it.
Quote-
"I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just sit did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown.
He fits my love, but he no longer fits the place or our life or the knowledge of anything here. Since a long time ago, when he comes back he has come as a stranger."
If you liked this try-
Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Driftless by David Rhodes
What can I say about Wendell?! He is a romantic who somehow captured the female mind as seen beautifully portrayed through Hannah. He genuinely represents the grief and joys found through life. His love for Kentucky is portrayed with the warm descriptive nature of his writing. I am forever changed and a Wendell Berry fan.
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