Capturing the past, humor ensures the Port William tradition of telling
stories over and over. In one of the funniest, Big Ellis, hoping to
marry, with trouble keeping his pants up, gets suddenly exposed riding
by his girlfriend to show off his new team of horses. For another, just
watch the basketball game in “A New Day (1949),” or the man about to
slide on a barn roof in “Burley Coulter’s Fortunate Fall (1934).”
You
don’t have to live on a farm to appreciate how profoundly Berry’s
stories invite us to re-examine the past in one place in America. Like
Huck of Tom Sawyer, it hits us where we live. The psyches of Berry’s
characters are deeper than they know, and we are invited to plumb their
depths.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Comments