Buckler and Berry

This week , I needed to find some ‘light reading’. I packed up a box of books to take to the Endless Shores bookstore in Bridgetown. They will give me credit towards any book that I might purchase.

In Buckler’s words, “Nova Scotia is nearly an island, nearly the last place left where place and people are not thinned or adulterated with graftings that grow across the grain.” p.12 or

“It’s mountains take on no Cabot lordliness. They chat like uncles with their nephew valleys.”p.12.

“Nova Scotia is the face from Genesis and the face from Ruth. The face from Greco and the face from Rubens. The life of Faulkner and the life from Hardy…..It is a dictionary where the seasons look up their own meanings and test them. It is a sea-son where men can man their own helms.” p.16

“The local community must understand itself finally as a community of interest — a common dependence on a common life and a common ground. And because, a community is, by definition, placed, its success cannot be divided from the success of its place, its natural setting and surroundings : its soils, forests, grasslands, plants and animals, water, light and air. The two economies, the natural and the human, support each other; each is the other’s hope of a durable and a livable life.” p.192.

I think the same is true for Nova Scotia.

Acknowledgements

Jennifer Crouse, owner of the Endless Shores Books and other Treasures. Edward added the graphics. Heather shared our weekend reading of Voice of the People, Chronicle Herald March 27 D4. Are we ‘tree-huggers’ or’sub-hillbillies’ ?

References

Ernest Buckler and Hans Weber, 1973, Nova Scotia: Window on the Sea, McClelland and Stewart Ltd.

Wendell Berry, 1987, Home Economics: Fourteen essays by Wendell Berry, North point Press.

Postscript

I wanted to title the blog ‘Buckler and Blair’ to correspond with the Ernest Blair Experiment but had to settle for Buckler and Berry.