"If 'in adversity is hidden opportunity' then lurking around the corner must be the Mother of All Great Chances."
With our environment on its knees, our great myths and cities crumbling, Ferenc Máté argues in this passionate, darkly funny book that now is the time to begin our lives anew, on a more human scale. With our lust for mechanized "progress" we have damaged and endangered not only our planet but also our communities, families, and even friendships. He warns that our environmental movement by itself is as effective as "trying to stop a freight-train with a feather." He argues for fundamental change--by each of us. We must place simple human needs and the human spirit far ahead of material wealth. We must rethink our concepts of career, home life, habits, and what we call security and success. And we must resurrect our foundations: the small town, the family, and a dignified caring self. Only then will our earth become the paradise we once had and mistakenly took for granted.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this scattershot jeremiad, Mate takes on virtually all of modernity, concluding with a romantic paean to country life. A one-time city dweller who now lives in Tuscany, the author criticizes houses ("huge, unused barns"), "the myth of the steady job," corporate ownership, agricultural practices, cities and individualism--all in a shrill and hyperbolic prose style. He does have some worthy recommendations: why we should convert our lawns to gardens; how children should be taught defenses against advertising. But other ideas, like junking the television set ("Open an upstairs window . . . and throw the heinous sonovabitch as far as your arms let you!"), make him sound like a cranky Luddite. "Most of you might dismiss this as the raving of some idealist," acknowledges the author; indeed, he courts that assessment.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
A Reasonable Life is wonderful! This fast-paced book is just what we need to slow us down and think. I hope everyone--especially the young--gets to see a copy. -- Pete Seeger
A masterpiece. Ferenc Mate writes brilliantly with Runyonesque humor and poetic prose. He satirizes our modern society driven by greed and mindlessness, and in its place he recommends the ultimate sanity. I loved it. Highly recommended. -- Dr. Helen Caldicott, author of If You Love This Planet
An anti-materialist Philippic that's fun to read. I feel saner for having read it. -- John R. MacArthur, publisher, Harper's Magazine
Ferenc Mate presents a host of creative ideas in his trumpet call for new lifestyles on the part of each and every one of us. Read it, disagree as much as you like, but you can't help but be struck by his blazing enthusiasm and optimism--then read it again. -- Dr. Norman Myers, winner of the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal and author of Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management and The Primary Source: Tropical Forests and Our Future
Mate's book establishes him as the leader of the new counter-culture movement. A Reasonable Life is more complex, comprehensive and much more funny than anything written in the sixties. -- CJFC Radio
Mate's book strikes straight to the heart with its passionate argument for safe country living, home gardens, family businesses, independence without isolation. A Reasonable Life targets right on the decay which is destroying sound American values and lifestyles. -- Anne LaBastille, author of Woodswoman and Beyond Black Bear Lake
The most powerful, damning, inspiring and hopeful call for a fulfilled life you can imagine. Now if we would only just listen for the sake of our children. -- Country Journal
This book will look insane to a normal American. Which shows how crazy we have become. Read it--you might get a life. -- Charles Bowden, author of Desierto and Juarez : The Laboratory of Our Future
A masterpiece. Ferenc Mate writes brilliantly with Runyonesque humor and poetic prose. He satirizes our modern society driven by greed and mindlessness, and in its place he recommends the ultimate sanity. I loved it. Highly recommended. -- Dr. Helen Caldicott, author of If You Love This Planet
An anti-materialist Philippic that's fun to read. I feel saner for having read it. -- John R. MacArthur, publisher, Harper's Magazine
Ferenc Mate presents a host of creative ideas in his trumpet call for new lifestyles on the part of each and every one of us. Read it, disagree as much as you like, but you can't help but be struck by his blazing enthusiasm and optimism--then read it again. -- Dr. Norman Myers, winner of the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal and author of Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management and The Primary Source: Tropical Forests and Our Future
Mate's book establishes him as the leader of the new counter-culture movement. A Reasonable Life is more complex, comprehensive and much more funny than anything written in the sixties. -- CJFC Radio
Mate's book strikes straight to the heart with its passionate argument for safe country living, home gardens, family businesses, independence without isolation. A Reasonable Life targets right on the decay which is destroying sound American values and lifestyles. -- Anne LaBastille, author of Woodswoman and Beyond Black Bear Lake
The most powerful, damning, inspiring and hopeful call for a fulfilled life you can imagine. Now if we would only just listen for the sake of our children. -- Country Journal
This book will look insane to a normal American. Which shows how crazy we have become. Read it--you might get a life. -- Charles Bowden, author of Desierto and Juarez : The Laboratory of Our Future
Product Details
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More About the Author
Ferenc Máté was born in Hungary and escaped after the revolution at the age of eleven. He grew up in Vancouver, and has lived in California, Paris, the Bahamas and New York. He had worked on a railroad extra-gang and as a boatbuilder, photographer, deckhand and book editor. His many books include the nautical bestsellers "From a Bare Hull," "Shipshape," and "The World's Best Sailboats," as well as the acclaimed "Autumn," "A New England Autumn," "A Reasonable Life," "The Hills of Tuscany," "The Wisdom of Tuscany," and the Dugger/Nello series of high seas adventures. He and his family run their vineyards and winery in Montalcino, Tuscany.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Yes, Mate rants in this book. A lot. Some readers will hate this. I agree with some of the criticisms of his critics (not particulary practical, hysterical, preaching to the choir, etc.). However, I am often perplexed by cranky reviews when people seem to be judging a book outside of its purpose. This is not a manual on self-reliance. (Read Scott & Helen Nearing's "The Good Life" for a fascinating, practical memoir/manual.) Mate is a gadfly. His role, as I see it, is to smack us upside the head. Even the choir can get lured into the insanity of this increasingly flakey, consumerist culture, and need a regular wakeup call.
My one criticism and genuine disagreement with the author is his abandonment of city living as a lost cause. At one time I felt like moving out to his idealic small-town countryside too. I stayed because of the vitality of relationships, my compassionate vibrant neighborhood church, my family in the nearby suburbs. I live within a short biking/walking distance of the beautiful Chicago lakefront, with its miles-long public park system. My tiny backyard (25 x 30')--loaded with veggies, flowers, fruit, etc.-- I call my very very small organic 'farm'. My wife and I only have one car, we walk, bike, bus, and train often. We walk to the corner for milk. We consider the incredible racial diversity of the local parks, schools, and neighborhood a gift to our children, something we never had in white small towns and suburbia. Despite their many charms, diversity is not a hallmark of most small towns, either in the US or, I suspect, in Mate's Tuscany.
Instead of bailing on the city, I am committed to making it a little bit better. This can be done through a million small things --community gardens, a church homeless shelter, block parties, consciously knowing and caring for neighbors. Is this easy? No, but it is possible and it is happening.
All of this said, I am rereading the book now, and in general I find it to be a great challenge to not cave in to to the culture of consumption and advertising. I need the smack upside the head as much as the next guy. Highly recommended.
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There are a lot of things I like about this book and a few that I do not.
We have lived a voluntary simplicity lifestyle for decades and like most thoughtful people into the lifestyle we pick and choose what works best for us. The author sadly assumes that everyone mis-uses the television, credit cards, or doesn't need prescriptions or can't choose wisely what subscription they will actually use, or at least pass on to kindred spirits.
We have lived a voluntary simplicity lifestyle for decades and like most thoughtful people into the lifestyle we pick and choose what works best for us. The author sadly assumes that everyone mis-uses the television, credit cards, or doesn't need prescriptions or can't choose wisely what subscription they will actually use, or at least pass on to kindred spirits.
Some of the suggestions the author makes are much easier to make when one has money as a fall back in times of emergency. I and disagree with the author on whether one should throw the television out, since I think a major part of a simple lifestyle is self discipline and careful planning. We have DishTV since we like watching European news, as well as CSPAN and a few do it yourself shows. Driving fifty miles to take a class that I can take via television wouldn't be cost effective.
Chapter 5 The Home Garden is good. I agree that fresh is best, and know both city dwellers who have organic gardens that fill their front and back yards as well as myself and most of my neighbors here in a rural area who do the same.
I also disagree with the author that big cities (Chapter 10) are "unlivable" since I know New York, San Francisco, Seattle as examples offer ethnic diversity, free activities for families and mass transit, which living in the mountains as we do, doesn't. I agree with Chapter 12 Humane Small Towns, that if you can find a humane small town that you have found a gold mine. The key word in the chapters title is "humane." We live in the Sierras which we love because we love skiing, hiking and other out of doors activities. What we miss is the ethnic and political diversity. On page 133 as an example he says "...we abandoned our small towns for the mythical steady jobs, the excitement, fun people..." when in fact here in small town America people are abandoning the city for a more "white...republican...non-diverse" way of life.
I agree almost in total with Chapter 12 The Self Helpless Society. Because I think that there is something about living in a rural area where you really do have to develop some major self sufficiency that will be a survival tool when the power is out because of snow for a week, that makes a person stronger. But if everyone from the cities moves to the country, you get the central valley of California which was 70% agriculture 20 years ago, and now is one long suburban-city area from Sacramento to Fresno.
One thing I wish the author had addressed more, is a major solution issue, namely overpopulation. Fewer people means cleaner air, water, and few new houses needing to be built. But I am glad I bought the book on Amazon.com
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I find it amusing that certain reviewers found this book to be unhelpful or negative. This is a life-affirming work -- 'tho maybe it doesn't affirm the life you are currently living!
Mate is a man who really has a knack for making sense of things. He boils the human race right down to its bare-boned inconsistencies. We are imperfect creatures -- frequently irrational, often nonsensical. Some of the things Mate has to say will make you angry. Some of it will make you laugh out loud (really!). All of it will open your eyes.
And no, Mate does not tell you how to build your own house or gut your own chicken (he recommends that every American be able to do both by the age of 12). But this book is not about little practicalities like that. Rather it is about changing the way we look at -- really look at -- all the everyday stuff we tend to take for granted. It causes us to rethink how we are living our lives. What is important to us. And who, as a nation and a world, we want to become.
All in all, this is a terrific book. I don't have one bad thing to say about it. It should be required reading for the entire Republican party.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A NEW WAY to LIve with OLD Concepts.
This is a great book giving people the ability to simplify their lifestyle.So well written: don't we all dream of this freedom.? All of Mate's books are enriching and fulfilling.
Published 6 months ago by Virginia H. Bliss
A Reasonable Life ...
It is amazing how a book written over 20 years ago can still be relevant today. I kept looking at the copyright (ok, so it wasn't twenty years ago, but close) to make sure it... Read more
Published on June 12, 2009 by Busy Mom
An unrealistically romantic view of the past.
Ferenc Mate is a romantic. He offers, without proof or reason, a romantic view of a past which was just beautiful. Read more
Published on September 16, 2008 by Lee J. Pelletier
Helped me in my quest to be a better human being....
If you are a spoiled rotten, overfed, overspent American like I was, you have to read this book! It is truly life-changing. Read more
Published on April 18, 2007 by K. Parnell
A reasonable argument
I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the writing is excellent and the author has some good ideas. On the other hand, he has a lot of complaints about the U.S. Read more
Published on February 20, 2007 by Don't cry for me, Argentina
Read it, then read it again
I bought this book at a used bookstore - I feel sorry for the person that gave this gem up. This book is one that will have you questioning everything material that is in your... Read more
Published on December 12, 2005 by Patricia Mcnally
WE NEED THIS BOOK MORE NOW THAN EVER
Today, the day after the election, I took this book off the shelf to read again. This country might be on fast slide down to disaster and I want to be reminded about what I can do... Read more
Published on November 3, 2004 by homebody
my future existence
Recently read this book, and I look forward to early retirement (as soon as my last child is educated). Read more
Published on September 21, 2004 by DY
Changed My Way Of Thinking
This book changed my way of thinking about how I was or wasn't living my life. It's one of those "gems of a book" which I'll need to reread over and over (enjoyingly so,)... Read more
Published on June 27, 2004 by John F. Whalen Jr.
A wonderful slap upside the head
I have read several complainy reviews here, and I believe they are caused by two things: a failure to appreciate certain writing techniques, such as the "rhetorical... Read more
Published on February 19, 2004 by Steven A. Slaughter
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