Attain The Country Of The Pointed Firs Authored By Sarah Orne Jewett Conveyed As Booklet

loved this beautifully written, yet downtoearth work by Sarah Orne Jewett, This is my first experience with her, I knew that I should read her, and now I'm so glad I did!! Beautifully written, Captures a point in time and place like the camera of Alfred Stieglitz, Novelita corta, bucólica, sencilla y bien narrada sobre una época y lugar ya desaparecidos, Nostálgica, bonita, habla de la soledad y los cambios generacionales de una forma que me llegó, Si bien es cierto que es una novela pausada en la que no ocurre gran cosa, los personajes y sus recuerdos y, precisamente, su narración, es de lo que más me gustó.
Me resultó muy agradable gracias a ese entorno de pueblo pesquero y a las vivencias que van contando los mayores del lugar, sobre tiempos pasados y personas que dejaron este mundo hace mucho tiempo.
Es un libro tranquilo y con gran presencia femenina,

Do you need a lazy extended vacation Then this is the book for you, You'll see landscapes breathtaking yet familiar, meet people who will welcome you into their homes and tell you stories of their youth.
You'll learn to gather herbs and forage for supplies in the coasts of Maine, You'll take daylong or weekendlong trips to a nearby island while folklore swims in your head, You'll never feel hurried or stressed out, But if all this socializing is too much for you, don't worry, You'll find time alone too, in an abandoned schoolhouse, where you can sit at the desk and write, doodle, or read a book.


If you came for conflict or excitement, leave now, This is not the book for you, But even considering the complete lack of conflict or any semblance of a conventional plot, you'll want to continue reading because the people will be such good company.
And the prose itself is so full of character and insights, A delightful book.

Similar to:
sitelinkThe Summer Book by Tove Jansson
sitelinkA Month in the Country by JL Carr
sitelinkOld Joy movie The prose of this book is wonderful.
You will surely feel as I do if the beauty of wild rugged coastlines, remote islands and undisturbed nature speak to you.
One short example follows:

“The month was August, and I had seen the colors of the islands change from the fresh green of June to sunburnt brown that made them look like stone, except where the dark green of the spruces and fir balsam kept the tint that even winter storms might deepen but not fade.
”

The author describes in stunning prose not only the features of coastal areas but also the individuals living theresolitary men and women living by and off the sea and land.
Sailors, fishing folk, recluses, innkeepers, craftspeople, herbalists and others, These people are what the book is about, They are spoken of intimately, They are drawn with loving care, The peoples lives tie together, Chapters flow fluidly, one to the next, Each person comes alive they live and breathe, Their sorrows and woes, their moments of joy and happiness are felt as ones own,

I am describing how I react to this book, I easily relate to and instinctively feel a bond with the individuals and the choices they make, We learn of an elderly mother and sonshes in her eighties, hes in his sixties, They live alone on an island, Her daughter and his sister, also elderly and in her sixties, is a widow, a herbalist and one who occasionally takes in boarders.
She lives in the town of Dunnet Landing on the coast of Maine, The woman who narrates the tale is a writer, a visitor to the town,

Cindy Harden Killavey narrates the audiobook, The recording is faulty, more so in the beginning than at the end, One hears the murmuring of voices in the background, The volume rises and falls, Nevertheless, the words are spoken clearly, often in patois, I grew to like the narration very much, although I did struggle with it at the start, Three for the narration,

The women and the men of this story have an inner peace and serenity, They are resolute, and they are strong, I was soothed in spending time with them, There is a haunting beauty to this tale, I highly recommend it, particularly to those of us drawn to the sea and coastal areas, Dont miss this wonderful classic,

This novel is in my view very much better than the authors first, her semiautobiographical novel, sitelinkA Country Doctor.
Since I do not repeat the information provided in that books review here, a link follows: sitelink goodreads. com/review/show



sitelinkThe Country of the Pointed Firsstars
sitelinkA Country DoctorSarah Orne Jewett was born into a well to do New England family.
Her family split their time in Boston while summering in south Bostwick, Maine, Jewett exhibited that she wanted to be a writer early on, and, after striking up a friendship with editor William Dean Howells, her stories began to appear in the Atlantic.
Her most famous collection of stories, which can also be known as a novella and has gained inclusion in sitelinkGreat Books By Women by sitelinkErica Bauermeister, is sitelinkThe Country of the Pointed Firs, detailing a summer that Jewett spent in fictional Dunnett's Landing, Maine.
Although the narrator is not Jewett by name, the story details time she

enjoyed in a similar setting, sitelinkWilla Cather calls The Country of Pointed Firs one of the top three American books that she read, and Cather even edited a later edition of the book.
Dunnett's Landing and her inhabitants, even without Cather's editing skills, are worthy of their place as quality women's literature,

The quaint village of Dunnett's Landing is a lovely way to pass a summer afternoon, A narrator who may or may not be Jewett has chosen to pass her summer as a lodger at the home of Almira Todd, a sixty seven year old widow.
Todd chose never to remarry and is by definition a strong female protagonist, She is a medicine woman and knows everything about all the flora and fauna in the area, assisting the town doctor in most cases.
She is also related to most people in the are as her mother's people, the Bowdens, have called northern Maine home for five generations, preceding the revolution.
Through Mrs Todd, we hear many yarns of oral history, Whether it is a story about sailing or whaling, foraging for plant life, or the many relatives Mrs Todd has in the area, we see that she is both a walking history book and charming older woman who our narrator is happy to call a friend.
As there are few books featuring strong older female characters, I was easily enamored with Mrs Todd's character,

Almira Todd is hardly the only dynamic woman featured in this novella, Todd's close friend Susan Bostwick is the only survivor out of nine siblings, Bostwick comes from a sea faring family that spent as much time at sea as on land, and she and Todd have known each other since they began school.
Together, they regale the narrator with wonderful stories and it is apparent that they enjoy an enriching friendship, Yet, no woman in this novella charmed me as much as Todd's mother, eighty six year old Mrs Blackett, An independent woman if there ever was one, Mrs Blackett has chosen to live in a cottage on Green Island with her confirmed bachelor son William.
Content with her station in life, Mrs Blackett shows the exuberance of youth and hardly seems older than her daughter Mrs Todd.
The two women appear as siblings rather than a mother and daughter, giving credence to the adage that age is but a number.
In the case of Mrs Blackett, it appears as though her best days could still be ahead of her,

In addition the strong female protagonists, I fell in love with Dunnett's Landing, Maine, I spent many vacations in Door County, Wisconsin, and the heavy foliage along with lakeside air and diet heavy on fish boils and cherry pie are similar in character to Dunnett's Landing.
The villages are based on fishing and summer homes, and the fir and other trees create a setting that evokes late nights on a porch, reminiscing about time gone by.
Jewett enjoyed quality female friendships, and got the idea for Dunnett's Landing after spending a month with a friend in a Maine seaside village.
Even though she wintered in the Boston area, Maine held a special place for Jewett as she revisited the characters and setting in later stories.
Some editions of the book include these stories including a short story entitled William's Wedding, In all of the yarns, the sea is calm, the foliage is luscious, and Jewett's character descriptions are as though the reader has been acquainted with them for their entire lives.


The Country of Pointed Firs is a quality way to spend a summer afternoon, It evokes time spent on vacation in the country with dear family and friends, Because Jewett's writing is full of strong female characters, it can also be considered early feminist literature, Yet, this writing contains no conflict, as not one character can be considered an antagonist, Perhaps, this can also be true of Jewett's life full of female friendship and little hardship until she fell ill right before her passing.
As such, I would be interested in reading Jewett's other stories, especially her previous work appearing in the Atlantic, The Country of Pointed Firs has been a lovely way to spend a summer day, as this enriching novella ratessolid.
What a sweet, lovely book, Composed of a series of vignettes that are bound together by an overstory of a young lady spending the summer in Dunnet Landing, Maine.
Jewett does a spectacular job of portraying the people who populate this seafarer's town and its neighboring islands, She captures both their relationships and sense of community and their naturally reticent and independent natures,

Every occupant of this town has his own unique tale, and while there is no driving plotline, but more a kind of folklore that is being passed, reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales but even less plotdriven than that.
I felt amazingly attached and involved with these people, even though they might only make an appearance in one chapter and then fade from view in the next.


The descriptions Jewett offers of both the land and its people are astoundingly visual:

"A long time before we landed at Green Island we could see the small white house, standing high like a beacon, where Mrs.
Todd was born and where her mother lived, on a green slope above the water, with dark spruce woods still higher.
"

"I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line of ministers, he had the refinement of look and air of command which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New England.
But as Darwin says in his autobiography, 'there is no such king as a seacaptain, '"

And, she sprinkles some astute observations among her flowing descriptions of the land and its people:

"Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out.
" If you have a friend who has been with you since childhood, or a sibling with which you are very close, you will understand this perfectly.
No new friend can fill that same purpose because with the old friend or sibling no explanation is necessary and with the new friend no amount of explanation could be enough.


"There, you never get over bein' a child long's you have a mother to go to, " Again, if you have lost a mother you know the truth of this statement, While your mother lives there is always "home",

I have long wanted to read this book, having come across an excerpt from it years ago in a Victorian magazine.
I was not disappointed. It roused a kind of nostalgia in me for a time and place I have never known but would love to be a part of.
It suggests a kind of serenity, camaraderie, industry and love of life that is often sorely missing from our modern existence.
The closest modernera book I have found to this is sitelinkAt Home in Mitford,


First published in, this small jewel of a classic has survived largely unnoticed for well over a hundred years.
Jewett presents us a series of character studies in a small Maine town that had once been a prosperous if not wealthy seaport and whaling village, recounting stories of or from a few of its inhabitants.
Most of the stories are those of the towns women, left widowed or single by the dangers that befell sailors in particular but lateth century life in general.
The main idea is similar to Sherwood Andersons “Winesburg, Ohio, ”

The unnamed narrator, presumably a middleaged woman like the author, rents a room for the Summer from a widowed Mrs Almira Todd, “Almiry,” with whom she rapidly becomes friends.
Mrs. Todd introduces the narrator to the neighborhood, her relatives and friends who divulge their stories of good and hard times, of life and death.


There is much fodder for hardened cynics, The book is largely about women, so is this Victorian ChickLit The stories describe the lives of poorlyeducated but occasionally welltraveled by ship small town folk.
So is this about boring rubes No to both questions, Luckily, a recently adopted Scandinavian term rescues us from the jaws of hypocrisy “Hygge, ” This is cultivation of simple pleasures living with less, walks in Nature, an evening spent before a fireplace, conversing or reading, conversing with real people, not a voice in an electronic device.
and so forth. The main idea is simple comfort for us in the US seen in midcentury modern Scandinavian teak furniture and other designs.


Does the book describe life in “simpler times” Again, no, They were simpler times primarily because we have not lived them and have no idea how complicated “simpler times” really were.

Jewett describes a small part of the complexity and uncertainty of those times, And the times were hard to live and die, For just one instance from ChapterThe Bowden Reunion:

“And presently Mrs, Blackett showed me the stonewalled burying ground that stood like a little fort on a knoll overlooking the bay, but, as she said, there were plenty of scattered Bowdens who were not laid there, some lost at sea, and some out West, and some who died in the war most of the home graves were those of women.
”

One last point the book is wellwritten and reads rapidly but the language is slightly stilted lateth century construction.
And much of the dialogue describes contemporary parlance full of lost letters and occasional words lost to our earlyst century vocabularies.
Both are easily digested after a few pages,

All told, the book is a charming and intimate introduction to a time long gone, Most important, introduction to a group of people we would not know if Jewett had not written the book, The book was praised by Henry James and Ursula Le Guin Willa Cather thought it was one of the best American novels of theth century.
I largely agree and Im very glad I ran into it, .