Book Review of
Jayber Crow
Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty.
He began his search as a “pre–ministerial student” at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with “Old Grit,” his profound professor of New Testament Greek.
“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.”
“That could be a long time.”
“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”
Wendell Berry’s clear–sighted depiction of humanity’s gifts—love and loss, joy and despair—is seen though his intimate knowledge of the Port William Membership.
Lynn's Review
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry is part of the Port Willliam series. The books in this series have been slow quiet comfort reads for me. Jayber Crow is about a barber in Port William. It follows his life from WWI to the 1960s. In following his life it also follows the lives of those around him. It shares the story of a community and how over the years it changes and yet also stays the same. I have heard people say that this is their favorite Port William book, I really enjoyed it.