Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership [Hardcover]

Wendell Berry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1986

Now in paperback for the first time, Berry's popular collection of six interconnected stories traces his Port William characters through the Depression up to the 1950s.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of six interrelated stories, set in the 1930s through the '70s, portrays life in back-country Kentucky and its county seat, "a dying town in the midst of a wasting country." Wheeler Catlett, the central, unifying figure, is a lawyer whose roots and sensibilities exfoliate from the soil of the surrounding farmland. He is its voice and consciousnessits collective memory; his "clients," who are also his friends, neighbors and kinfolk, provide his cast of characters. In one story, a quiet, strong, dignified farmer copes with the "great weariness" of the end of his life. In another, Catlett makes sure that a farm willed to a coldly indifferent heir remains in the hands of the tenant couple whose lifeblood has nurtured it. In a third, a youth comes quietly of age by observing other lives and sensing kindred feelings within himself. The stories are fashioned in a stately, somewhat archaic, prose quite lacking in dramatic force, partly redeemed by a deep feeling for the land and an affectionate respect for the obscure "little" people of their purview.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In these stories, Berry traces the history of a loosely affiliated, unofficial, fictional group of dead and living men and women, "the membership of the fields" in Port William, a community in Kentucky's tobacco country. We enter the hearts and souls of these folktheir hardships and their triumphsthrough the witnessing of Wheeler Catlett, an attorney who is a "seer of visions, not the heavenly visions of saints and mystics, but the earthly ones of a mainly practical man. . . ." Told with the same intelligence, craft, and reverence that characterize Berry's novels, essays on agriculture, and poems ( Collected Poems , LJ 4/15/85), these stories have at their core the necessity of human friendship, "the good that has been possible in the world . . . the good that is desirable in it." Highly recommended. Thom Tammaro, Multidisciplinary Studies, Moorhead, Minn.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 146 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; First Edition edition (December 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865472165
• ISBN-13: 978-0865472167
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,598,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories that lift your soul to rejoicing., August 12, 1997

By 

Westerly Readerly (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership (Paperback)

My first encounter with Berry's fiction rekindled my appreciation for this genre of writing. These stories are filled with love and emotion while conveying Berry's ideals of community and cohesiveness. They decry materialism and champion mankind. I was inspired to be a better person during this walk through the Port William Membership

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Berry creates an empathy for his characters,..., January 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership (Paperback)

...and their sense of place, that runs through his readers like an umbilical spirit to the Earth. Making those connections in ways that move us emotionally and profoundly, from complacency to caring, about how we relate to each other, our communities, and the land that nourishes, sustains, and gives rise to this, and all life. In six finely crafted stories of character, conscience, and enduring values, the author inspires and challenges the reader to think of responsibility beyond their own mortality and how that caring strengthens and enriches their existence and gives it meaning.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wendell Berry's best collection, April 29, 2000

By 

Eric Antonow (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership (Paperback)

He has many great fiction writings but I would start with this one. Solid, clear, continuously beautiful. 'Fidelity' comes in second place but this by far is leads. Should replace lots of other nonsense in the American lit canon.