August
17, 2004: Verlyn Klinkenborg transforms everything
he considers in The Rural Life, generating a type
of poetry of ordinary life. He is an exceptionally good writer.
The best writers do not automatically write the best books
though, and while Klinkenborg has written a very good one,
the brief essays that make up The Rural Life suffer
when read through as a collection. To be fair, the pieces
were not composed with the intention of being gathered into
one book. An author’s note explains they were written
over several years and published most frequently on the New
York Times editorial page. Accordingly, I most enjoyed
this book in small pieces.
The author’s gentle, soothing voice will be welcomed
by people looking to suspend their busy lifestyle. The appreciation
and vigilance of the book’s subject—essentially
a discontinuous account of a non-urban life—is matched
by the rhythmic, careful prose. His language never excludes
or panders, and the quality of his thoughts never seems to
falter. Consider his remark about owning an old house. He
says, “You solve small problems as they come to your
attention in hopes that the big problems will solve themselves.”
Such assertions have universal appeal. It is the kind of folksy
wisdom you wish you lived by, and perhaps sometimes do. It
is endearing because of its irony.
Rural life—despite innovation—is steeped in ancient
patterns that are often excluded in daily urban life. Perhaps
this is why an amateurish gardener, expert in nothing except
writing, is able to allure readers with his life stories.
His account is often poignant, penetrating his own character.
Fresh, trendy revelations and anecdotes are not found in
this book. Instead, the writer reflects on themes that concern
every person: family, tradition, responsibility, work. Of
course any lifestyle engages with these things, but it is
reassuring to see them from a seemingly time-honored way of
life, even if farmers are rarely honored or even considered
by the general population.
This is why it is worth questioning, if only briefly, the
genuineness of Klinkenborg’s representation of the rural
American experience. He is undoubtedly living in rural New
York, tending to chores and diligently working the land. Perhaps
the experience becomes idyllic and idealized in the act of
writing. Even bee stings seem kind of lovely. “Unless
you’re allergic, it’s much more satisfying to
be stung by a bee than a mosquito. There’s none of that
cautious, reluctant, hovering parasitism….” I’ve
never felt anything quite like satisfaction after being stung,
and hours of garden work never truly helped me savor the experience.
I cannot fault Klinkenborg, though, if the effect is to regard
rural life with something like nostalgia. Even if the toil
and hardship do not translate effectively, The Rural Life
demonstrates that history is a vivid marker when contemplating
the present and the future. In one of the book’s longest
passages, Klinkenborg examines his connection and history
with his father. He says, “Now, so many years later,
I find myself in a new relationship to the old story.”
Intrigued by the turn of events, he declares that he assiduously
labors at the very jobs he hated as a kid—the ones his
father once forced him to do. In the same manner, enthusiasm
towards rural living, or at least some renewed connection
to it, may happen through time after so many generations of
flights to the city and retreat to the suburbs.
Time, not incidentally, is both a binding and liberating
force in the book. It marks and allows growth and decay, delivering
promise and then not a little wistfulness. Time also organizes
the essays, grouped by month in an erratic fashion –
both time and place have little continuity in the book. The
author may be in his New York home in one passage and Idaho
the next. The reader never acquires a familiarity with the
experience of one place as a result. Still, Klinkenborg is
able to record an acknowledgment of a certain lifestyle. He
says, “In a way, that local sense of place can’t
be mapped. It depends too much on experience.” The experience
of the rural – whether fact or fiction in our own minds
– brings many of our other experiences into relief,
and perhaps reminds us of honor or duty, or at least something
that seems familiar, even it’s no longer well-known.
Adam Grybowski is a former farmworker and a lover of
good books.
|
