Review #1: “A World Lost”

Title: A World Lost, 1996

Author: Wendell Berry, b. 1934

Genre: Fiction, American

Themes: family, childhood-boyhood, death, sorrow, agriculture, and land

Review: I’m hooked up to Wifi, typing this review at our local Wegman’s supermarket/eatery/lounge… Jeremy is sitting beside me reading A World Lost and he’s laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” I keep asking him. Wendell Berry’s A World Lost begins with a death, a murder.

But Jeremy is right, Berry’s 104 page novella about the death of Andrew Catlett—beloved uncle, brother, husband, drifter, drinker, dancer, and farmer—in Port William, Kentucky, 1944 is as funny as it is sad and mournful.

A World Lost is narrated by 9 year-old Andy Catlett—Andrew Catlett’s nephew and #1 admirer. Andy recounts the way his Uncle Andrew talked (“Gimme one mo’ cup of that java, Miss Judy-pooty”), what he wore (“an old felt hat, corduroys, the tan canvas hunting coat”), how he smelled (“the mingled smell of sweat and pipe tobacco”), and how he behaved (like “some large male animal who might behave as expected one moment and the next do something completely unforeseen and astonishing”).

A World Lost is one of 8 novels and 32 short stories written by Wendell Berry about the Catlett family, their neighbors, and their hometown of Port William. I’ve read three of the eight novels so far, including A World Lost, and each gives me the distinct feeling of entering a material, living, flesh and blood world that is occurring right now and to which the reader is a distinctly privileged and welcomed visitor.

In A World Lost, we are Andy’s particular guest. He tells us everything he thinks, learns and remembers about his Uncle Andrew. He lets us see intimate moments, like his father breaking down in tears after Uncle Andrew’s funeral, and his grandmother mourning, years and years later, as she:

“came slowly up the stairs, the banister creaking under her hand as though now, alone with her thoughts, she bore the whole acculumated weight of time and loss. As she came up, she would be saying to herself always the same thing: ‘Oh, my poor boy! Oh, my poor boy!'”

But Wendell Berry and his characters are never without hope. As a Christian author, Berry tethers despair with love. My favorite part of A World Lost is Andy’s conclusion, now as an adult, about the nature of suffering:

“That light (the light of heaven) can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering.”

Love entered by suffering. Christ entered by suffering. Through Christ’s suffering, we can understand and grasp His infinite love—and likewise, in our own despair, we can experience His love again and again.

Read & Review – a new 2011 project

Over the past few months, a little idea has been forming in my mind… perhaps I can become like Tim Challies, the Christian blogger who reviews Reformed literature on http://www.challies.com/, and start my own project to review other forms of literature, specifically fiction, for Christians who seek to be discerning about what they read.

The idea came to me last August when Erica (my sister-in-law) asked if I could recommend a work of fiction for her to read…

Our one bedroom apartment is full of books. The ones belonging to me are mostly mysteries and historical fiction novels. Some I purchased and read during college, at a time when I was less discerning in my choices. Others are classic pieces of literature, and others  are more recent novels that I would consider “good picks”— but when Erica asked for a recommendation, I couldn’t think of what to suggest. I didn’t have a rubric or system to organize my thoughts about each book, or to categorize them appropriately.

Still wanting to be helpful, I did a google search for ‘fiction recommended by Christians’ and ‘Christian reviews of fiction’—but all I could find were lists and reviews of fiction in the Christian genre. I wanted what media websites like Christianity Today and Movieguide provide: intelligent reviews of all kinds of movies from a Christian perspective. But I could not find a comparable service for books.

To me, book reviews by Christians, for Christians are a much needed service. Personally, my eyes glaze over and the “little gray cells” slow almost to a halt when I cross the carpeted thresholds of Barnes & Noble or Borders, or log into Amazon’s mega store. There is an incredible amount of literature available. How can a Christian possibly know which book jacket contains ideas, characters and plots that will edify the mind and spirit, and which are contrary to The Spirit?

We need the measuring stick of Christ, and someone with wisdom and experience, to help us decide what is good for us. I am assuredly not the best person for this job. I am 26 years old and need God to teach/grant me more wisdom. But I’m interested in the task, and my goal for 2011 is to establish a rubric for book reviews and to begin reading and reviewing in my own rudimentary way. First up:

• Wendell Berry
• Dorothy Sayers