Wendell Berry and the Given Life

By: Ragan Sutterfield, Bill Mckibben - foreword

Narrated by: Ragan Sutterfield

Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

For the past 50 years, Wendell Berry has been helping seekers chart a return to the practice of being creatures. Through his essays, poetry, and fiction, Berry has repeatedly drawn our attention to the ways in which our lives are gifts in a whole economy of gifts. Berry presents us with the sort of coherent vision for the lived moral and spiritual life that we need now. His work helps us remember our givenness and embrace our life as creatures. His insights flow from a life and practices, and so it is a vision that can be practiced and lived - it is a vision that is grounded in the art of being a creature. In Wendell Berry and the Given Life, Ragan Sutterfield articulates Berry's vision for the creaturely life and the Christian understandings of humility and creation that underpin it.

©2017 Ragan Sutterfield (P)2017 Franciscan Media

Lovely book...

But it's a shame that the narrator (also the author) is so wooden and robotic and takes WAY too many pauses between words that it is VERY difficult to listen to. Speeding it up didn't help much; it still sounded odd. Why didn't someone give him some advice to improve his reading-out-loud-voice? This book is about being human but his reading is not human-like. Sad.

Can't say if this was good or not due to narration

This may have been a good book, but the author narrated it and spoke slowly and choppily. Plus, his pronunciation of some everyday words caused me to wonder what he was saying, resulting in my brain wandering off to work on the word spoken. For example, "heals" he pronounced as "hills." Also in a discussion of power tools to do yard work, the narrator seemed to be discussing the use of a sai to cut grass instead of a weed whacker. I still don't know what he wanted to say there, perhaps "scythe?" I suppose it's an accent, but there were a number of words that just off threw me off track. I tried to think kind thoughts; perhaps the author has a disability? But kind thoughts did not make the listening any easier.

The second problem was totally my fault. For some time I had wanted to read something by Berry. I don't really know why, it must have been because of hearing about him somewhere along the line. I should have read something, or maybe many things, by Berry before reading about his writings and philosophy. However, the book made me hunger to read a work or two by him, so that's a plus.

Berry might be called a Luddite by someone like me who embraces technology, but in learning more about him, I understand his reasoning. Our distance from the growing of food, the use of giant supermarkets, the lack of meal preparation, and our reliance on fast food, distances us from the Earth and causes a separation from our position of stewards. As well, it encourages factory farms, and entire industries created in the packaging, shipping, marketing, and selling of products. Berry sees this as unsustainable. And when I look at the process, it is.

There are many topics explored here, and now I have to pick just one book by Berry to get a clearer idea of his philosophy. I wish the author/narrator had not caused me to rate the book as average. It might actually be good, but Sutterfield was a distraction to the topic.

The Narrator is extremely ........ frustrating

I was unable to... finish listening to this... book. The content was... really great. But... the narrator paused... a lot ... for ... no reason. it finally just... got too annoying... to listen to.

Wonderful book. I will need to listen again and again.

Wonderful book. I will need to listen again and again. Definately a different way of viewing. The world.

Ugh

I bought this thinking it was by WB, not realizing it was another author. I have dozens of WB’s books and he is a revered fav. This book was largely disappointing because:
1. Heavily religious overtones by a member of organized religion (which WB rightly holds suspect);
2. The self narration is annoyingly plodding as mentioned by another reviewer, I finally put it on 1.5x speed to get through it;
3. The author/narrator tellingly misstates the title of Wallace Stegner’s influential novel ANGLE of Repose as ANGEL of Repose; and finally
4. Nothing new or particularly insightful is presented—it reads like an undergraduate term paper.