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Imagine a large family gathering. There are a couple of cousins who have never met before, a teacher from New York and a lifetime Vermonter. Over yonder are four bearded brothers talking to Uncle Philip, who sells life insurance. Sitting in the corner is Aunt Sarah who, raises hens.This book is a bit like such a gathering. The essays in it, all concerned with countryish things, range from intensely practical to mildly literary. Transplanted from New York fifteen years ago and now a real life Vermont farmer, Noel Perrin candidly admits to hilarious early mistakes ('In Search of the Perfect Fence Post') while presenting down-to-earth advice on such rural necessities as 'Sugaring on $15 a Year,' 'Raising Sheep,' and 'Making Butter in the Kitchen.'But as everyone who has read his essay in The New Yorker, Country Journal, and Vermont Life will confirm, not everything Perrin writes is strictly about the exigencies of country life. While one essay seems to discuss the use of wooden sap buckets, it really addresses the nature of illusion and reality as they co-exist in rural places. Another forewarns those who consider the country of idyllic retreat. This is a delightful book, and twelve marvelous vignettes by Stephen Harvard accompany the text.… (more)
User reviews
According the Post, "Mr. Perrin taught American literature at Dartmouth for nearly 40 years and was an authority on modern poetry, particularly that of his fellow New England farmer, Robert Frost," and it shows in the polished paragraphs of his prose.
One of the marks of a good book, in my opinion, is that when you finish reading it you keep thinking about it. That's true of First Person Rural.
Another mark of a good book is that when you finish it you have added other books to your reading list, and that is also true of First Person Rural. My list is considerably longer, and you can get a glimpse of what it might look like and why over at Loganberry books, where they say that Perrin's
First Person Rural series contain some of the best gentleman farmer anecdotes ever.
If you like the writing of a Fadiman or E.B. White, you'll like the prose of Perrin. If you enjoy the countryside, including the inconveniences and paradoxes of a countryside where covered bridges rest on steel struts and country store owners spend an hour unwrapping packages of crackers to put them in a country barrel, you'll enjoy Perrin.
He only died about three years ago. I wish I had discovered him while he was still living. I would have liked to have written him a thank-you note.