The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature by Sharon Butala
It is a very personal book, and yet the writer is very careful to keep certain things at bay. There is much in her thoughts and experiences that resonate with me.
Writing about her life in nature, she says; "I inhabit another world now ... that is worked out physically in canning and sewing and driving the combine, where sorrow and rage and bewilderment are worked out in sky and hills, grass and wind, in the song of the meadowlark and the nightly cries of the coyotes, in the mystery of the northern lights and the moon and stars." Often one reads such beautiful and heartfelt lines.
However while reading, I was annoyed by certain aspects of the book. For instance, if I adore and value something I do not have to critique something else. I do not have to constantly compare, contrast, and dismiss one lifestyle to uphold another. Although I understand why she does it, at some deeper level I detect a great degree of nostalgia of the past. In the book, she often compares herself with the women who have been living as farmers in the hostile/ beautiful nature for generations, but it seems like for her this desire to belong to such a setting is an experiment that she can afford to luxuriate in whereas for the country women it is their reality.
She writes beautifully about nature, but she hardly says anything about the human pull that she is drawn, that makes her leave her professorship. She goes there to live there with a farmer named Peter. While reading about her dreams and primordial connection with the landscape, I want to know more about her relationship with her husband.
As one goes on reading and appreciating the hardworking farmers and their tremendous resilience, I feel admiration for these people. After a while, even as a superficial student of history, I wonder what kind of place this was where all these people were doing so much work by themselves (where were the slaves? Were there any natives in these places?). Almost half-through the book and there is no mention of the native Indians, and then they appear like an afterthought.
Perhaps, it is difficult to write definitively about a place when the history of the self is torn, when one history comes in the way of the other. Having said this, I would like to add that there is much in the book that is worth reading. Her intensity, passion for nature never flag as one flips through the book.
Writing about her life in nature, she says; "I inhabit another world now ... that is worked out physically in canning and sewing and driving the combine, where sorrow and rage and bewilderment are worked out in sky and hills, grass and wind, in the song of the meadowlark and the nightly cries of the coyotes, in the mystery of the northern lights and the moon and stars." Often one reads such beautiful and heartfelt lines.
However while reading, I was annoyed by certain aspects of the book. For instance, if I adore and value something I do not have to critique something else. I do not have to constantly compare, contrast, and dismiss one lifestyle to uphold another. Although I understand why she does it, at some deeper level I detect a great degree of nostalgia of the past. In the book, she often compares herself with the women who have been living as farmers in the hostile/ beautiful nature for generations, but it seems like for her this desire to belong to such a setting is an experiment that she can afford to luxuriate in whereas for the country women it is their reality.
She writes beautifully about nature, but she hardly says anything about the human pull that she is drawn, that makes her leave her professorship. She goes there to live there with a farmer named Peter. While reading about her dreams and primordial connection with the landscape, I want to know more about her relationship with her husband.
As one goes on reading and appreciating the hardworking farmers and their tremendous resilience, I feel admiration for these people. After a while, even as a superficial student of history, I wonder what kind of place this was where all these people were doing so much work by themselves (where were the slaves? Were there any natives in these places?). Almost half-through the book and there is no mention of the native Indians, and then they appear like an afterthought.
Perhaps, it is difficult to write definitively about a place when the history of the self is torn, when one history comes in the way of the other. Having said this, I would like to add that there is much in the book that is worth reading. Her intensity, passion for nature never flag as one flips through the book.
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