North of Now: A Celebration of Country and the Soon to Be Gone

Somewhere Steve Martin says, "Some people have a way with words, and some - no have way." W. D. Wetherell is one of those with a way. His newest book follows three novels, three books of short stories, and three previous collections of nonfiction essays, including [itals] Upland Stream and Vermont River. Wetherell's talent may accurately be called prodigious. For a young writer to have written so many remarkable books in a couple of decades begs the question of what kind of life fosters a literary sensibility in this age of the multi-media multinational mayhem.North of Now aims to explain the place of writing in this man's life, and to place the man himself in a world he sees as assiduously hostile to that contemplative practice which yields works of art. The book is praised on its jacket by Edward Hoagland as [ital] sui generis - one of a kind. There's no better way to acknowledge Wetherell's form and vantage point. Assembling the volume from a carefully sequenced set of meditations upon subjects such as "Remembrance," "Play," "Village Life," "Old-Timers," "Wild Trout," and "Genteel Poverty," Wetherell has written an anticipatory requiem for an existence many people in places such as northern New England still experience, day in and day out. None of these topics is pondered by Wetherell as though it were of merely private importance. He is able to take the preoccupations of an self-avowed eccentric and turn them like lenses upon changes that press upon all of us. The chapter "Heavens," for example, is concerned with the diminishing darkness of our night sky - very few places on earth remain unbleached by glare from high-intensity lamps. This essay pivots upon the narrator's decision, at the birth of his child, to learn the names and shapes of constellations. Another essay, "Gravity," muses on the insight that bodily actions as well as aging are forms of [ital] falling. Wetherell's narrator has a voracious passion for physical exertion, and in the process of describing such exploits as hiking, biking, back-country skiing, and canoeing, he meditates in prose upon the tactile, irresistible pull of the earth. No athlete, even in the flush of pounding pulse, can break free of gravity's grasp. Yet our society is obsessed with speed, as though it were possible to efface the weight of the actual burdens we bear. "Reading" and "Quiet" consider the possibility that - because the civilization around us, a civilization we've supposedly made, has devoted so much its efforts to consumption and destruction - we may be losing the capacity to concentrate, and therefore might be raising the last generation of readers and storytellers. Meanwhile Wetherell's detailed evocations of humans and animals, granite-veined landscapes and celestial expanses, are gorgeous reminders of those pleasures that reading makes intimate as no other medium can.Wetherell is staunchly circumspect, invulnerable to simplistic faith. Certain passages are downright morose, and the vehemen

The reviewer McConnaughey has it right on the money in describing Wetherell's boyish enthusiasm in nearly all things, even when expressing his frustrated regret. This, folks, is a top-10 book and if I were the benevolent God of the universe, I would deem it required annual reading for all my followers. The essay on reading should be burned onto the back of every school administrator's eye lids until the ridiculously-obvious point that kids should be in required reading classes from 1st grade until they graduate from college (with not one break in between) hits home. It is an absolute masterpiece and it comes with a pretty reasonable reading list too! It is a masterpiece among masterpieces; there is not one essay that does not snap your head back and pull from somewhere in your depths a resounding, "YES!"As if to punctuate that gap (chasm?) between Wetherell's teachings and the world at large, he will have no access to this praise by way of this medium! There is more than irony there.Good God Wetherell, keep writing. I'd snap my favorite flies into oblivion all day long for the privilege of spending it on the river with you! We'd have a lot to talk about, that preacher and this choir!

As one who shares many of Mr. Wetherell's Luddite curmudgeony tendencies, I found these essays to be a brilliant verbalization of many of my own thoughts. His powers of description are exceptional and his arguments against the excesses of "progress" are a much-needed tonic against the trampling of decency which seems to be the unfortunately accepted byproduct of economic advancement. What allows this work to transcend many other works of the genre is the author's ability to rant against the destruction of much of what he holds dear while maintaining a sense of wonder and joy in all the joys the world still offers despite its flaws. Bravo, sir.