This book is a jewel and for those of you who still believe we'll never make 51 books this year, FPR is a mere 124 pages of 20 short essays on being a "sometime" farmer in Thetford, Vermont. Written in 1978, it presents vignettes that, while nostalgic, seem to foreshadow current trends. Several are on making maple syrup and candy, drinking raw milk from a neighbor's farm and making butter in a blender in the kitchen in nine minutes flat ... and today we are trying to be loco-vores. His essay on how to buy a pick up truck sounds much like a technie ordering his/her personalized Dell computer.
Perrin himself had accolades galore: nominated for the National Book Award, both a Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, two Masters degrees, taught American poetry at Dartmouth while "farming."
It is reminiscent of the book about Vermont living that Mercy Groupie selected last year. Set in Thetford, Perrin never mentions the names of his wife (his third was Charles Lindbergh's daughter) or his children, but the reader gets to know his lumberman, hardware store owner, town welder. His wife, I discovered searching Wiki this morning, wrote children's stories as did Noel. A hint of that comes through in is essay on the different sounds speakers of various languages use to describe how various animals make.
My Wiki search also included the fact that there are "Second," "Third," and "Last Person Rural" books that I am going to track down. (As of January 24, I have all of them from the library, added to the tower of books to read.)
Also got a "six degrees" comment from Hamagrael: "My degrees of separation is that Noel Perrin's third wife, Anne Spencer Lindbergh, used to live two houses around the corner from me. She looked exactly like her mother, and, at the time, was married to a Hungarian pianist/composer."
By the way, I received an email response from Earlene Fowler and have added it to the blog entry for Arkansas Traveler. Hope to finish The Optimist's Daughter tonight or tomorrow.
February 7, 2009: Second Person Rural
As mentioned above, once I discovered there were more "Rurals" I reserved them from the library. Perrin himself acknowledges his dislike for sequels, comparing them to grammar school readers about the serial adventures of small children, but in the introduction, he points out he had a different focus with this second book: being less practical and more interested in the differences between city and country life, especially psychologically.
From the slackers' perspective, Perrin still presents, maybe even more so than in "First," prototypical Vermonters. Here people have a "code" or tacit rules about when to talk, most naturally when engaged in work efforts -- fixing a barn or doing other household, neighborly or charitable community work. His essays on miniature farming in Queeche Lake and on rural immigration laws question why people come to Vermont to escape their urban existence only to decide that it lacks the necessary amenities that their lifestyle became overly dependent on. Perrin, on the other hand, wants to be mistaken for a native and finds that only people who are the same age as his college students can immediately see through him. An elderly shut-in women think his business is cutting down trees and the Mandarin father-in-law of one of his subordinate professors from Dartmouth refuses to shake his hand assuming he is a yokel delivering wood in a filthy truck, speaking derogatorily about him as only self-righteous elitists do in the presence of their "invisible" underlings.
Even though Perrin's Vermont dates from the late 60's and 70's, it, like Twain's 100 year old travelogue of Hawaii, makes the reader want to travel not just to that place, but in that time, accompanied by the author as tour guide.
March 13, 2009: Third Person Rural
Written in 1983, this is Noel Perrin's third collection of essays about being a sometime farmer. It is divided into four sections, the middle two being very similar to his ruminations in the First and Second Person Rural.
His take on the importance of Vermont being Vermont is described through the rhythms of the year, the county calendar, an entry for each month. Because he lives so close to the earth, and his farm chores depend on the weather, Perrin marks off the passage of time by how the land and its vegetation change. Living close to the Vermont border, these descriptions not only seem apt to me, but are also recognizably comforting.
The middle section reprises his encounters with runaway cows, slaughtering spring lambs and his being experienced enough to know that when farm equipment get stuck in the mud in the afternoon, it is easier to extricate it later in the day after the ground freezes over.
Perrin muses with his other non-native Vermonters about what it was that drew them to the State and why they stay there: not masochism, but the need to successfully respond to challenges and the human love of variety and unpredictability. Like Ben Franklin's Almanac, he argues for the simplicity of doing "just enough" and for low technology, in order to produce in balance, as excessive fertilization and cross-breeding too often result in unintended consequences, not the least of which is the loss of sentimental pleasures.
The last few essays tend to get a tad political. The first is clever, being anti-vegetarianism from the point of view of his cow, who ends up arguing for folks instead to protest against the forced feeding of cattle. The second, on land being assessed for "highest possible use," is a very strong argument for tax rates that preserve small farms. The final essay is a look-back on one Perrin first wrote in 1961, about taking action for nuclear disarmament. It sticks out like a glacial rock in one of his pastures; but, reminds readers that Vermonters are proud of their civil disobedience as well as their super-patriotism.
March 15, 2009: Last Person Rural
I finished the final collection of essays in two days, while Perrin waited eight years between volumes. One of his pleasures about farming is being self-sufficient and providing for his family. When he goes through a divorce, his cannot write as joyfully about his rural existence. But a new wife not only brings a second farm and new set of children but also his eagerness to contemplate and compose.
No major new themes in LPR. The following sentences sum up Perrin's place: "But the most important byproduct of old-fashioned farming is happiness. The pursuit of happiness is something the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought all people were entitled to. I think so, too. Only, it is much easier to pursue in some places than in others. One of the best places to pursue it is when you are living a life pretty much under your own control, in harmony with nature, producing tangible things like food and firewood and woolly sheepskins, doing many kinds of interesting work." May his farm and vision of Vermont continue.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have not read this book but my other half has read them all and liked them alot. This is from someone who thinks that reading the annual reports of public bonding authorities is casual reading! So, my guess is that it's going to be a very good read and you've certainly whet my appetite for it. I've read almost nothing on our list. Now, to put intention to practice!
ReplyDelete