Customer Reviews

Loving and Leaving the Good Life

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In today's youth-obsessed contemporary culture, it is a rare treat to be able to find a book so full of loving wisdom written by someone so involved socially, politically, and spiritually in the events of the 20th century. Therefore, I was enthralled in reading Helen Nearing's moving, absorbing and often quite disarming recollections and reflections on her life, both as an individual and as the lifetime partner of one of the most celebrated critics, iconoclasts and individualists of our time, economist, philosopher and social critic Scott Nearing.

The two lived lives singularly devoid of apologies, half-efforts, or excuses, living it largely on their own terms, based on their own labors and ingenuity. Early in the 1930s they struck out from New York City to escape the Depression and social convention by starting a revolutionary experiment in rural Vermont. In many respects the experiment succeeded, yet they were never able to transform it from a personal adventure to one more largely social and community-based in the Vermont setting. With the coming of ski resorts and encroaching exurbia in the early 1950s, the Nearings moved once again to rural Penobscot Bay in Maine to start again.

Of course, in due time they were suddenly "discovered" by the baby boomers and the counterculture in the late 1960s, and became the elder statesmen of the `back-to-the-land' movement of the late sixties and early seventies. In all this, Scott and Helen continued in their commitment to a socially aware, civically responsible, and environmentally sustainable way of living. By the time Scott died at age 100 in the early 1980s, thousands of curious counterculture hopefuls made the pilgrimage to visit with the Nearings at their celebrated farm in rural coastal Maine.

This is a lovely, thoughtful, and wise book, full of the almost endless love and care and compassion Helen Nearing brought to all of her endeavors for her many decades of purposeful and socially responsible living. This book is no small treasure; it looms large and lovely for those who are aware of the incredible journey the Nearings made as fellow citizens, and also of the loving and special relationship these two rugged individualists shared. I have read it several times, and love having it on my bookshelf. I suspect you will too.

I discovered Helen and Scott's books in the early 1970s and they inspired and sustained me as I planned my escape from urban California. Not long before she died, Helen reviewed my book and gave it a wonderful testimonial which I will always cherish. No other two people have had a greater influence on the back-to-the-land movement. Helen and Scott were born to privilege and rejected it to live lives that showed by example their commitment to right living. They were vegetarians, they raised most of their food, and they were remarkable in their physical and intellectual capacities. Their physical bodies are dead but their spirits live on in the lives of those now living the good life because of their example. After Scott died at the age of 100 by purposefully not eating, Helen wrote this candid book that gives insight into their private lives and reveals their deep convictions.

Having encountered the Nearings in Mother Earth News in the 70's I quickly became an avid admirer as well as a sincere follower of their wisdom. Thus I was overjoyed to buy Helens book because it allowed me to see a side of both Scott and Helen I never knew that well. The man whom I had admired as a wise soul but a tad put off by people, comes across as such a loving and yes "romantic" soul which made me like him even more. And Helen sharing how she was raised and the experiences she had and how she was encouraged by Scott to spread her wings and not allow him to fence her in, is a must read for any woman who questions where she belongs in the whole life circle.

We must own a good five hundred books that we love, but this book is amongst a handful that get read and re-read over and over, with something new being learned each time. I also think the book like all their books is a must read, because it reminds us how fascists this country (united states) has been and can be and the price sincere patriots often pay. As well as the value of taking the path less traveled and not relinquishing ones personal integrity or perseverance. And that in the end the good guy can win.

Helen and Scott Nearing represent different things to different people. I knew them through the columns they wrote in The Mother Earth News, back in the 70's. I was unaware of the circumstances that laid the foundation for their move to their farm in Vermont, and consequently to Maine. This book puts their lives into a full perspective. While I do not agree with Scott Nearing's socialist philosophies, I now understand the motivating factors in his life. And though I have read some of Krishnamurti's work, I had no idea that there was a connection back to Helen Nearing. It is fascinating to see the threads of Helen's and Scott's lives woven together in this book. This is not a book of "how-to" information, but a book about the people we have known as true "back-to-the-land" practitioners. It gives a substance to, and a greater understanding of, the books they wrote about their "Good Life". It is also the love story of two people whose streams were destined to cross and join, resulting in a life that was more satisfying than either might have achieved alone. I highly recommend this book to those who know Helen and Scott Nearing only through the books about their lives on the farm.

When your 100-year old husband of 55 years has passed on and you, at 88, can see your own end, and when you have spent most of those years seeking and living the good life, and when you take the time and trouble to record your thoughts for posterity, it is surely worthwhile for us, the readers, to take note and reflect on what might be of value in our own goal of living the good life. This is not a biography of the husband, Scott, nor an autobiography of Helen but it is offered as a tribute to Scott's being as Helen knew it. She wants Scott to be remembered as an unassuming, kindly, wise, husband as well as a principled, uncompromising, intellectual radical; she also wants to share with us his peaceful, intentioned, and premeditated ending.

Born in the upper echelons of society, he worked alongside immigrant laborers in the Pennsylvania mine run by his grandfather. This was a formative experience that resulted in his speaking publicly in his early twenties on liberal reform. '''Even before I began the study of economics,' he said in an early lecture, 'I was impressed by the monstrous inequality which exists between the rich and the poor in modern society. The rich enjoy wealth, leisure, and boundless opportunity. The poor are overwhelmed by misery, overwork, and insanitation. The rich have a heaven of opportunity; the poor a hell of misery, and the heaven of the rich is founded upon the hell of the poor. If I was impressed by these conditions before I had studied them, I was appalled after having given them careful consideration. I had heard of poverty; I believed that misery and vice existed, but I was not aware that they were prevalent in every town and city of the land. Ability and capacity were suppressed; together with the progress which might well be attained, were opportunity more universal ... The poor are ignorant of the fact that by standing together at the ballot box, they might revolutionize conditions in a decade.'"

Very soon he had offended the powers that be with his outspoken views and he would never teach again in the United States. From that point Scott's life can be summed up in these sentences: "The living of an ideal involves payment of a certain price ... the further the ideal is removed from the common practice, the higher the price that must be paid for it ... If your ideal is to live a mentally active, mentally honest life, to seek the truth, then you may have to sacrifice even food, clothing, and shelter to get it." and "The majority will always be for caution, hesitation, and the status quo - always against creation and innovation. The innovator - he who leaves the beaten track - must therefore always be a minoritarian - always be an object of opposition, scorn, hatred. It is part of the price he must pay for the ecstasy that accompanies creative thinking and acting." Scott was aware of the price he would have to pay for his convictions; he regretted enormously the loss of the day-to-day contact with his university students who lost an outstanding educator; but he never regretted standing alone. One of his file cards clearly defined the problem: "If a man is one step ahead of the crowd he is a leader; if two steps ahead, he is a disturber; if three steps, he is a fanatic and not to be trusted." Scott was too many steps ahead of those in authority and he was a danger who had to be removed. At the age of 34 his chosen career was in ruins; his books that had been standard textbooks in public schools were banned and royalty income ceased. He was at the low point of his life and that was when he met Helen.

Helen, born in 1904 into a family of high principles and adequate means was the unconventional child, always reading and addicted to the twelve volumes of the Book of Knowledge at a young age. She had a talent for the violin, preferred the company of trees and rocks, drew and wrote poetry. She did not accept unquestioningly the world in which she lived. As a teenager she felt there was a power and a purpose in the universe and queried what we are here for and what life is all about. At seventeen, she sailed to Rotterdam to study the violin, met up with the Theosophists and the young Krishnamurti who she followed for several years on his mission to be a world teacher. But she saw the vast abyss between the ultra rich and the homeless in Bombay and Calcutta while Krishnamurti surrounded himself with the well to do, the famous and the influential. It was time for her to strike out on her own path. She returned to Ridgewood and there received a phone call from Scott.

The formative years for both of them were over; they were ready for each other; they were ready to build a life together; they were ready to create their version of the good life. We have much to learn from this couple because their life together was built on high principles. We are indeed fortunate that Helen left us this book.

Some months ago, my friends recommend this book and she says many things about their life. So, I began to read this book, and I was content with this book. This book let me think about life "what it means to live?" Their way of life attracts me and I want to follow their life. I read this book in korea edition. Korea edition is translated well, so if you are an korean, you can read this book easily.

bori publication, in 19997.

I am happy to write my thought.

Scott and Helen Nearing spent half a century building stone houses, growing their food, and making a living on primitive homesteads in Vermont and Maine. Scott died at age 100 in the 1980s. Helen lasted another 10 years or so and this is her account of her life before Scott and their life together.

Helen was born into a well-to-do family but had a rebellious streak that led her into music, astrology, the occult, and philosophy. In the 1920s she was the lover -- at least on the mental plane -- of an Indian philospher named Krisnamurti who was apparently famous in his day. Helen assumes that the reader knows who this "world teacher" was. I confess I never heard of him --and more explanation as to who he was and what he taught would have been helpful. Later Helen took up with Scott and they moved to the country and spent the rest of their lives as homesteaders.

Scott was a cantankerous communist and I didn't grow any fonder of him by reading Helen's account. He was rigid and narrow-minded. Helen quotes some of his letters. He wrote her in a tone that would inspire my wife to respond, "Buzz off, you old goat." Although she wouldn't say "buzz." Scott's wrote savage letters to his son by a previous wife. Small wonder the boy dropped the last name of Nearing. In Scott's eyes, his son committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing the Soviet Union -- and Scott refused even to go to his funeral. One wonders whether Helen might be getting a bit of posthumous revenge on the old radical by publishing letters he wrote that show him as less than benign.

However, the bulk of the book is a a highly favorable account of Scott and Helen and their life together. They were the gurus of the back to the land movement in the 1960s and the 1970s and their books about their life in the country are minor classics. Read "Living the Good Life" first and if you are interested in learning more about the Nearings read this book. Whatever you may think of them the Nearings were an interesting couple. Their homestead can be visited near Castine, ME.

Smallchief

I'm a student of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. My major is pol.science. Somehow this book became the textbook of one of my courses, which is 'Politics appeared in Literature'. This book was quite nice and we had discussion after having read this. I guess most of students got impressed by Helan & Scott's whole life.

This was the third book by Helen Nearing that I have read, and it is far and away my favorite. Unlike "The Good Life", it does not go into the technical details of setting up a homestead. Unlike "Wise Words For the Good Life", it is not merely a collection of wise words to ponder. THIS book is personal - autobiographical. She writes of her privileged upbringing; her wandering the globe with Krishnamurti, and her meeting with Scott Nearing. She also gives us insight into the early life of her husband, and his struggles with a society he saw as dehumanizing and destined to fail. Both were pioneers of the "Back to the Earth" movement, although I don't believe they set out to be so. The most touching thing about this book, though, was Helen's account of Scott's final days and his decision to leave the world on his own terms.

There is so much wisdom, so much to digest here. It inspires us to live life fully - every day; and to live with a greater sense of purpose.

Recommended highly.

Over twenty years ago, I read two books by Helen and Scott Nearing that greatly inspired me. These books, Living the Good Life How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World and Continuing the Good Life - Half a Century of Homesteading, described the Nearing's homesteading experiences in Vermont and Maine over many decades beginning in the depths of the Great Depression in 1932. Years later I read another book by Helen Nearing titled Loving and Leaving the Good Life. It was a touching memoir of her life with Scott. Her description of how he lived and, especially how he chose to die, deeply moved me. I urge anyone who is interested in how to live and die well to read this book. Scott Nearing was still able to split and carry firewood at the age of 98. He had authored more than forty books. Two weeks after his 100th birthday, he died peacefully and purposefully after an extended period of fasting.

John Haines, author of In Search of Simplicity: A True Story that Changes Lives