Tag: Wendell Berry
The Abolition of Troy Chatham
Plough has recently published one of the better versions of a critique of Wendell Berry that is fairly common and fairly tiresome. The author, Tamara Hill Murphy, has a great many kind things to say about Berry but then says...
What Does Cooking Mean for Singles if “Sex Begins in the Kitchen”?
Contrary to the imagination of the average teenage evangelical, a good marriage consists of more than just sex. A husband and wife create a life together and a home economy out of the entirety of their lives. Their sexual natures...
“The Seer” Gets Wendell Berry Exactly Right.
I think most readers of Wendell Berry, “The Seer” director Laura Dunn included, start with Berry’s non-fiction. They pick up The Unsettling of America or The Art of the Commonplace and go from there. That’s not how I came to Berry. I...
An Interview with Laura Dunn, Director of “The Seer”
Tomorrow I hope to publish a brief review of Laura Dunn’s new film “The Seer.” It’s a unique film and a hard one to pin down because while it is a portrait of Wendell Berry, Berry himself is never actually...
Of Jayber Crow and Donald Trump
In his novel Jayber Crow Wendell Berry raises the question of how a person can love and give themselves to something that is dying. Throughout the novel, Crow, the book’s protagonist, reflects on his life in Port William, a small Kentucky...
Detective Fiction and the Fun of Orthodoxy
We’re a little late for Agatha Christie’s 125th birthday, which was last Tuesday, but all the same I’m delighted to share this fun piece from Matthew Mellema, a new guest writer for us at Mere Orthodoxy. Matt is a lawyer specializing...
The Inevitability of Same-Sex Marriage
There can be no meaning apart from roots. –Walter Brueggemann For astute cultural observers, nothing about the recent SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage should be surprising. Though there was widespread popular opposition to redefining marriage as recently as 10 years ago...
Do we Really Need Small Towns?
This bit from my friend Jake Meador’s excellent piece on why we need small towns has lingered with me: No, we don’t all have to move to small towns to find these communities. But small towns make that sort of...
Capitalism Won’t Save the Arts—Vocation Will
In our recent discussion about art and commerce, I made a point of expressing my distaste for one way that some artists have sought to earn a living recently–giving away their art in order to sell merchandise. I concurred with...