Customer Reviews

Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese

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I picked this book up at a local bookstore because of the title. Novelist Brad Kessler lives in Manhattan, but has never felt really big city and longs for a Walden Pond of his own--fewer people and more of nature's abundance. He and his wife Dona have a weekend retreat in West Virginia, but as they are in the process of buying it burns down.

After years of searching they find their own Walden Pond in Vermont. A dilapidated old farm house with beautiful views, 75 acres of land, an orchard, a pond and and a brook!

Although neither Brad nor Dona know much about farming, they learn by helping neighbors and photographing farms. This book chronicles their first years there with the dairy goats they fall in love with. Mr. Kessler writes about the goats and their quirks, but also the return to nature and getting your food from the animals. The freshness of milk, the almost mystical qualities of your own home made cheese.

You'll find journal entries about the goats routine (Hannah, Nisa, Pie and Lizzie). Information on the intertwining of goats and human history. Lyrical writing on pastoral living. Kessler writes of the poetry of making cheese. And in a chapter entitled "Service" you may learn far more than you ever wanted to about goat sex. There are also some great scenes of trying to figure out whether or not a goat is in heat and of course the memorable birthing scenes!

The story does indeed provide a lyrical poetic mixture of science, history, and goat care through birthing, living, and death as the Kesslers nourish and protect their goats from predators (coyotes, meningeal worms), nourish them with both love and care, and of course the Kesslers love affair with cheese!

A great read about the simple life which turns out to not be so simple after all, but regardless, turns out to be incredibly rewarding.

This is one of the many questions asked by Brad Kessler in this surprisingly poetic book.

He provides the answer: "It starts out raw and unformed and tries to reform itself over time. It is constantly corrected and rebuffed, purged of blemishes and taints and sins".

If you think Goat Song is just about goats, think again. Yes the goats are present and yes we learn much about them, but they are but a path, one that leads to a deep and romantic contemplation of life itself.

The book is dedicated to Annie Dillard and something of her spirit seems to hover in its pages. Kessler revels in the use of esoteric vocabulary, as does Dillard, though not to the degree that he would invoke the word "thigmotropic" as she unfortunately has.

Here are some examples of his wordsmith's art...

"Thunder growled outside, the sky turned suddenly tenebrous".

"The days were lovely then, cool and sere".

"The rocks are green schist and round, both about ten pounds".

"They gazed Talmudically across the mountains while they chewed their cud".

"Our milk is local and autochthonous".

"I didn't recognize the dip or swale or glade mantled in its mattress of snow".

The first two are beautiful; the third appropriately scientific; the fourth sketchy (how does a goat gaze "Talmudically" and what does this look like?); the fifth and sixth perhaps tautologies (local, autochthonous, dip, swale).

But it doesn't really matter. As with Dillard (who also likes the word "swale" - "The swale drained the dunes like a vein" - The Maytrees) it all flows together in a poetic prose that engages even as it challenges.

And so we live the rhythms of the land, the pastoral life, the seasons, times of day, scents, and tastes, and sounds.

Somehow it's not surprising that it all seems to lead to matters of the spirit and soul. The following quotation is taken from near the end of the book:

"Down here in the valley I think often of the Carthusian brothers up on our mountain - especially when I make cheese. We live so close to each other, only altitude separates us, but their lives remain a mystery, a rumor, the sound of bells in the late afternoon. Still, I wonder what a day is like up there versus down here. The raven who's been rowing between our houses for weeks - a thin black line - do they see him too? The owl hooting at night - do they hear his inflection? Do we share the same faith if not belief - the same lasting silence?"

Highly recommended.

I came upon this book via NPR; a few minutes in a traffic jam, listening to Brad Kessler (whose other work I sadly don't know - yet) doing the requisite promo interview, and I knew that I had to read it. The interviewer seemed to find the idea of a former New York resident, a successful man, giving "all that" up to embrace a pastoral life in Vermont - well, let's just say that the interviewer's voice betrayed his possibly amused disbelief, even if his careful words didn't. They talked about keeping goats, and about cheese making, about how the author's wife felt about all that. Kessler was polite and articulate, but even in those few minutes of conversation, I got the impression that the questions being asked were about all the wrong things. Turns out, I was right.

On the surface, "Goat Song" is a book about learning a new way of life and some new skills. A writer and his artist wife move to Vermont, decide to keep goats, and learn how to make cheese. It isn't an uncommon story. A great many similar stories have been written up in one form or another. But Kessler is not a common writer or thinker, and his story is ultimately not only a story but a meditation - a readable, fascinating, honest, often lyrically written (no, let me take that back - "lyrical" makes it sound self-conscious and precious. Kessler's prose is anything but!), often moving, and always deeply mature meditation about, you know --- meaning. About not only things-as-they-are, but also about context. About the value of work and the joy of just being...

OK, OK, I'm not helping. I see that. There's a lot of fascinating information about goats and and about cheese making and about the history of the pastoral tradition, too. Let's just say I couldn't put the book down, and when I passed it along to friends, they couldn't put it down either, and then they started buying copies for their friends....

In short, I loved "Goat Song." I still have to pass on a few more copies.

This is a lovely and poetically written book about lanuage, the longing for meaning through nature, food and pastoralism. Packed with fascinating observations about life and learned snippets about the impact of animals on human life. A real pleasure. The scene depicting the mating of goats is also as graphic as anything you are likely to read... if you are into that sort of thing.

This is a wonderful book. Brad Kessler, my neighbor down the road, is a farmer/herder/homeboy. I'm a hunter/gatherer/adventurer. The human world can be divided up into these two groups. Thanks to Brad's beautifully written chronicle of his life with his wife Dona and the goats, I now have an inkling of how the other half thinks and feels. Brad Kessler is one of our truly great writers on the current American scene. This is a worthy non-fiction followup to his award-winning novel, Birds in Fall. Read them both. You won't be disappointed. His goat cheese is outstanding as well.

Many books of this genre are sentimental, inaccurate, and superficial fluff. GOAT SONG is none of those. Mr. Kessler's descriptions of goats, their personalities, their care demands, and their contribution to the world's health are documented, concisely written, and readable. The literary level of what might seem a pedantic book is elevated by his numerous references to folk literature, world literature, etymology, ecology, and philosophy. His rational take on small farms, return to nature lifestyles, and living in harmony with nature results in a realistic, charming, and highly recommended book.

I agree with the other reviewer that the NPR interview did not capture the heart of this book. Yes, Kessler's transition from city dweller to farmer is fascinating, but the book goes far deeper. From a vivid description of a randy buck to a meditation on goats' literary connection to tragedy to an evocative account of cutting hay with his brother to the threat of murderous coyotes, every chapter in this book is a treasure, and every sentence is a jewel. Kessler's lyrical erudition makes this book hard to put down.

The title and description of this book didn't prepare me for reading about a spiritual journey as well as being led through the age-old pastoral love story between man and goats. Kessler presents, with beautiful language, his satisfying life of raising milking goats while capturing both the beauty of his rural Vermont setting and this hard work this endeavor requires. This love story starts as Kessler and his wife buy two Nubian goats, breed them and watch their small goat herd grow into a strong-minded family of delightful characters. Amusing, beautifully written, with goat herding language as old as the earth, Kessler invites us to join his journey that centers on his new found relationship with animals, the earth and the spirituality of making cheese. His broad readings, intelligent mind, sensitive nature and delightful humor provide a beautiful observant, story that is bound to create a connection to the feelings of joy that he, his wife and lovely goats share on the top of a Vermont mountain.

I read Kessler's book in the weeks leading up to and following my becoming an amateur dairy goat farmer. I had left NYC to take my recording studio to the country and ended up adding dairy to my list of things I wanted to produce myself. Kessler's writing is lively and humorous but his knowledge is also very deep. I believe cheese is man's greatest culinary feat--from the point of view of deliciousness, variety between cultures and its fascinating interplay of living organisms, enzymes, heat, salts and aging--and it is such a treat to read an author who can be rapturous in the experience of a bite of cheese, the pasture that went into the making of the milk, and also relay the 14 stages of making hard cheese as if they were paragraphs from an epic poem. Kessler weaves the history of cheesemaking, goatherding and the goat into his memoir with fluidity and finesse. One of my goats ripped out 10 or so pages while I was reading it because I was so absorbed in the story I didn't see her sneak up on me. Luckily, I chased her down and got the pages back without her eating any. This book should be read by anyone interested in the history of animal domestication, history of food, goats, cheese or the flight from city to country in the pursuit of something earthy and real.

This book offered a more laid back and contemplative view of goat farming and cheese making. It doesn't dwell on the nitty gritty muck of farm life. This is not an instructive book on raising goats, but a calm, peaceful reflection on becoming one with your herd.