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tiffanyslack's review
4.0
3 1/2 stars. This book is a little more raw than others by Berry. More thoughtful than hopeful. It is largely the story of Uncle Andrew, an irresistible prodigal. It was the right follow-up to Andy Catlett: Early Travels, but it differs greatly in tone. It also tends to ramble a little. It very nicely cued up my next books by Berry though - those focused on the stories of Andy's father, Wheeler.
sonofthunder's review
4.0
I really cannot describe this one. I forget if I've talked about Wendell Berry here, but his books are truly some of my favourites. Harkening back to a simpler time. Describing the beauties of the Kentucky countryside...yet also acknowledging the true hurts and loss that reside in each and every person. Few writers touch my emotions as deeply as Berry does. This book was rather short, but no less beautiful for that.
joshrskinner's review
5.0
This is everything I like about Berry-heartbreaking and hopefilled, characters and community, and a respect for the land expressed most clearly by the amount of time and effort he invests in expressing his respect for the land. Jayber Crow was my first interaction with Berry and remains my favorite, but another trip through with young Andy and Uncle Andrew might change that.
book_beat's review against another edition
5.0
Wendell Berry’s 1996 novel, A WORLD LOST, opens with Andy Catlett looking back at 1944: the summer he turned ten and the summer his uncle was murdered. As a narrator, Andy meanders in and out of memories about that season, his uncle, his father, the murder, and his childhood. A narrative arch doesn’t exist, almost, and yet the reader is fully invested and can follow Andy’s trail of thought. Andy’s hazy sense of memories about his uncle and his recalling of some seemingly random, yet very vivid, details feels accurate of a narrator recalling his childhood. His caution to bring up these broken and gap-filled memories until most of the memory-bearers are passed, also holds truth.
Before reading this novel, I was experiencing a major book slump. Nothing holds my attention and admiration. But what Wendell does with his stories is gather the pieces of me: the myths cultivated by my uncles, the unique speech of my grandpa, the funny way my dad gets ready for the day; he gathers them and binds them in a narrative that breathes hope back into my ordinary moments. When my world feels lost, Wendell says that these immortal souls have beat a rhythm into my everyday life that gives lyric and melody and sound to my days.
The final chapter, at only two-pages, took me nearly fifteen minutes to read as I underlined every other sentence and sobbed into my shirt. When you finish a book with a vision of Heaven, it will linger with me long after I close the cover.
“That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent... my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
Before reading this novel, I was experiencing a major book slump. Nothing holds my attention and admiration. But what Wendell does with his stories is gather the pieces of me: the myths cultivated by my uncles, the unique speech of my grandpa, the funny way my dad gets ready for the day; he gathers them and binds them in a narrative that breathes hope back into my ordinary moments. When my world feels lost, Wendell says that these immortal souls have beat a rhythm into my everyday life that gives lyric and melody and sound to my days.
The final chapter, at only two-pages, took me nearly fifteen minutes to read as I underlined every other sentence and sobbed into my shirt. When you finish a book with a vision of Heaven, it will linger with me long after I close the cover.
“That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent... my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost.”
samuelblakey's review against another edition
5.0
Once again I find myself captivated and drawn in to the goings-on in the surrounding area of Port William, Kentucky. This book tackles the subject of grief and loss, and how our love for someone we have lost can change over the years, but also how it remains the same. Andy Catlett’s love for his Uncle Andrew is expressed through memories about him and the search to discover why he was killed. Another top-notch novel from Wendell Berry!
rivercrow's review against another edition
4.0
Yet another brilliant Wendell Berry novel. I will be reading many more.
I have said this before, but Berry does not employ literary pyrotechnics, he does not need them. His style is graceful, lovely, filled with hope and yet infused with a melancholy that is realistic and sometimes even heartbreaking. His characters are among the richest I have ever read. They are people you wish you knew, but knowing that they exist in his pages is enough to comfort you that they could truly exist in this world.
I began reading this while sitting on a hidden little dock in the middle of a local nature reserve. My son was happily visiting his cousins, my daughter was at the reserve attending a nature class, and I had just finished running the trails for 75 minutes. I was exceedingly happy, but still jacked up from my run (turtles can get runner's high apparently). I sat on the dock looking out at one of the beautiful lakelets and the surrounding marshes. I remember feeling that being on that dock was the perfect metaphor for my love of Berry's writing. I was in this reserve which you would not know was even there from the interstate that passes by it. I was taken from the craziness of the world and let down from my running adrenaline simply by entering A World Lost and allowing Berry to provide me a peaceful spot. The view I had of my world at the moment was of an idyllic scene and yet the wind was blowing cattails across the water in a manner that imbued the setting with just a tinge of sadness--hard to explain. I had the same experience in the book; lovely and graceful writing, but all within the context of a death of a beloved uncle and a world lost to Andy Catlett.
"I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
I have said this before, but Berry does not employ literary pyrotechnics, he does not need them. His style is graceful, lovely, filled with hope and yet infused with a melancholy that is realistic and sometimes even heartbreaking. His characters are among the richest I have ever read. They are people you wish you knew, but knowing that they exist in his pages is enough to comfort you that they could truly exist in this world.
I began reading this while sitting on a hidden little dock in the middle of a local nature reserve. My son was happily visiting his cousins, my daughter was at the reserve attending a nature class, and I had just finished running the trails for 75 minutes. I was exceedingly happy, but still jacked up from my run (turtles can get runner's high apparently). I sat on the dock looking out at one of the beautiful lakelets and the surrounding marshes. I remember feeling that being on that dock was the perfect metaphor for my love of Berry's writing. I was in this reserve which you would not know was even there from the interstate that passes by it. I was taken from the craziness of the world and let down from my running adrenaline simply by entering A World Lost and allowing Berry to provide me a peaceful spot. The view I had of my world at the moment was of an idyllic scene and yet the wind was blowing cattails across the water in a manner that imbued the setting with just a tinge of sadness--hard to explain. I had the same experience in the book; lovely and graceful writing, but all within the context of a death of a beloved uncle and a world lost to Andy Catlett.
"I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
livingpalm1's review against another edition
4.0
Nothing I've read written by this man (poetry, essay, fiction) has disappointed me ever.