Book Review: Third Person Rural by Noel Perrin

 

Third Person Rural: Further Essays of a Sometime Farmer

By Noel Perrin

Our book club is reading books with a number in the title this month. What we read, beyond that, is completely up to us. I decided, rather arbitrarily, to search our library catalog for a book with “third” in the title. No reason at all. Out of the books that popped up, I chose this one, published in 1983.

I knew absolutely nothing about the author, Noel Perrin. I don’t know how much of a well-known author he was or how many books he sold. But one, at least, made it into our library and has survived weeding rounds all this time. He was a professor of English and wrote for the Washington Post, as well as putting together many books of essays.

Third Person Rural, of course, centers on his time working a hobby farm in Vermont. Living on part of the original land grant to my ancestor, with the somewhat newer barn, a few fields, and lots of chickens, it interested me.

The topics took me back to my time as a teen spent on my grandmother’s farm in the eighties. Heavy snow, maple sugaring, spring thaws, and floods – all the things that people have to think about when they live close to the land.

The style of writing is also reminiscent of what I often read back then. Stories set in the country, often having to do with horses. I was quite enamored with farm life. But the style of writing was different. I don’t know if people are still writing this way now, but it isn’t something I tend to pick up anymore, I suppose. It’s quiet, ruminating, using the full breadth of the language with a command of it often not seen anymore. Oh, I think there are still people who understand the language as well, but we are taught to simplify so much that the character can sometimes be lost. Don’t use this word, or that word, too much. It can be good advice but often leans into obliteration of voice.

The section titled A Country Calendar provides a deep observation of the countryside and contemplation of how nature tends to work in this place. “An evening flurry will come down in huge wet flakes, so thick and fast that you think in an hour the village will be buried like Pompeii.”

The author is a master of pulling you in and taking you right into any season he is talking about. At one point, reading about winter, I looked up and was quite surprised to find it was late summer outside my window.

This is a wonderful book for a contemplative read, a bit of rumination to take you out of the rat race we live in day-to-day. I highly recommend it.