First Person Rural

Fülszöveg

0902
FIRST PFRSON RURAL
Essays of a Sometime Farmer
by Noel Perrin illustrated by Stephen Harvard
Imagine a large family gathering. There nrc a couple of cousins who have never met before, a teacher from New York and a lifetime Vcrmonrer. Over yonder are four bearded brothers talking to Uncle Philip, who sells life insurance. Sitting in the corner is Aunt Sarah, who raises hens.
This book is a bit like such a gathering. The essays in it, all concerned with country-ish things, range from intensely practical to mildly literary. Transplanted from New York fifteen years ago and now a Real Life Vermont Farmer, Noel Perrin candidly admits to hilarious early mistakes ('In Search of the Perfect Fence Post') while presenting down-to-earth advice on such rural necessities as 'Sugaring on $15 a Year,' 'Raising Sheep,' and 'Making Butter in the Kitchen.'
But as everyone who has read his essays in The New Yorker, Country Journal, and Ver-mont Life will confirm, not everything Perrin... Tovább

Fülszöveg

0902
FIRST PFRSON RURAL
Essays of a Sometime Farmer
by Noel Perrin illustrated by Stephen Harvard
Imagine a large family gathering. There nrc a couple of cousins who have never met before, a teacher from New York and a lifetime Vcrmonrer. Over yonder are four bearded brothers talking to Uncle Philip, who sells life insurance. Sitting in the corner is Aunt Sarah, who raises hens.
This book is a bit like such a gathering. The essays in it, all concerned with country-ish things, range from intensely practical to mildly literary. Transplanted from New York fifteen years ago and now a Real Life Vermont Farmer, Noel Perrin candidly admits to hilarious early mistakes ('In Search of the Perfect Fence Post') while presenting down-to-earth advice on such rural necessities as 'Sugaring on $15 a Year,' 'Raising Sheep,' and 'Making Butter in the Kitchen.'
But as everyone who has read his essays in The New Yorker, Country Journal, and Ver-mont Life will confirm, not everything Perrin writes is strictly about the exigencies of country life. While one essay seems to discuss the use of wooden sap buckets, it really addresses the nature of illusion and reality as they coexist in rustic places. Another forewarns those who consider the country a place of idyllic retreat.
This is a delightful book, and twelve marvelous vignettes by Stephen Harvard accompany the text.
Noel Perrin is a teacher, a writer, and a farmer. Hc was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Professor at Warsaw University, Poland, in 1970, and is currently Professor of English at Dartmouth College. Among the books he has written are Dr. Bowdler's Legacy, Ainateur Sugar Maker, and Vermont in All Weathers, and he edited The Adventures of Jonatha7i Corncob, For the past fifteen years he has subsisted handily on a Vermont farm.
ISBN 0-87923-232-3 Vissza