A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry p 215 - 328

I am enjoying this book more and more. I have read over 100 pages in the last few days.

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Berry has been concentrating more on Mat Feltner and another character named Old Jack. I like Old Jack more than most of the other characters in the book since he is so crude. He is too old to farm, so he lives in the town's hotel. The woman who runs the hotel is very proper, and Old Jack really gets on her last nerve. In one of the last sections I read, Old Jack missed his life as a farmer, so he plowed up the entire back yard of the hotel. There were nothing but weeds back there, but it still made her "strangling mad" as Berry put it.

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The character, Gideon, who's daughter drowned in the flood has disappeared. As far as anyone knows, he has wandered out into the wilderness, and they do not know when he will return. Mat is also dealing with the loss of his son, who is still listed as "missing" in World War II. The news of president Franklin Roosevelt's death also reaches the citizens of Port William in the last few pages I read. While all this loss is going on, spring is breaking across the region, and everyone is scurrying to get their farms plowed and their tobacco planted. This is especially hard for Mat since his son is gone. Many people in the town are pulling together to help Ida, Gideon's wife, get their farm in working order.

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With the onset of spring, Berry is showing how throughout all the loss the characters are going through, the earth is soothing them by renewing herself each spring. This is not lost on the characters, either. They being farmers are very keen to the earth and her messages.

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I expect the last 175 pages or so of this book to go even faster than the last.