Written by Wendel Berry
Reviewed by Caterina Lindman
Published December 2001
If the mark of a good book is how long one spends thinking about it, then Jayber Crow must be an excellent book. The novel is written as an autobiography of Jayber Crow. Port William is a small town in Kentucky and Jayber Crow is its barber from 1937 to 1969. The twentieth century sees a lot of changes, and we live through them as we follow Jayber’s life stow.
Jayber notes the transition from the farming community, which is an interdependent local system to The Economy. The Economy has wars, and machinery, and a logic of its own.
Jayber thinks deeply about the meaning of life. He has questions about Christianity that haunt him, such as why Christians fight in wars when Jesus commanded them to love one another. He also wondered why they pray in public when they are told to pray in secret. He also wondered why the body was portrayed as sinful, and the soul spotless. When he asks one of the teachers at the Christina College, he is told, “You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You have to live them out — perhaps a little at a time.”
And so he does.
When the Second World War arrives, he is faced with the prospect of going to war. He hates the thought of enlisting, but also feels hypocritical about declaring himself a conscientious objector. His neighbours are making the great sacrifice to fight, and he doesn’t feel justified in opting out, despite his moral objections. As it turns out a heart murmur spares him from serving in the army.
Jayber’s barbershop is in some ways an ideal livelihood. His shop is a gathering place for the men in his community. His place of work and his home are all in one building. He has a vegetable garden in his backyard. He lives what we would call a simple lifestyle, long before people invented the term.
After the war, the younger generation changes the way it farms and the way it lives. Tractors replace horses. Rotating crops and letting fields lie fallow is replaced by specializing in one crop and using chemical fertilizers. Living within One’s income and being as self-sufficient as possible are replaced with borrowing against one’s equity, and expanding one’s acreage. Families with their own milking cow and flock of hens now find it easier to buy milk and eggs in town.. People can get jobs rather than relying on subsistence farming.
Jayber Crow reflects on how the new instate highway has affected Port William. The highway defies the topography of a place and changes the sense of place. The highway makes close what was once far away. Although this may seem an advantage, there is a corollary: it also makes what was once close far away. Neighbours that were bound into interdependent community now become more distant; the highway becomes a barrier to pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.
This book shows how people lived in an intimate relationship with the world around them before the advent of modem technology made it difficult to have a close relationship with nature and community. For people who have read some of Wendel Berry’s essays, these themes will be familiar. But if you have not read any of his novels, you will find that having these themes explored in the context of a story, with true-to-life characters, has a more lasting impact. I think it’s because good stories engage our emotions as well as our intellect.
The book has left me with a lot of questions, the main one being, to what extent should I be resisting modem technology and the War Economy in order to enter into a more authentic relationship with nature and with my neighbours? Also, how should I be engaging my family and neighbours in these questions, so that we can face these questions and live out the answers a little at a time — together?
