Nick Offerman.
Nick Offerman knows what he is talking about.
There is one author who Offerman continuously referred to in his visit to the Krannert Center late October on his American Ham Tour: Wendell Berry. Offerman praised Berry for his poetic writing that captures the essence of true love.
Offerman made it pretty clear in his act that he is a fan of true love. Seriously, there are few women who praise their wives as much as Offerman does.
This is the man who wrote his wife a charming, amusing song about rainbows when she requested a rainbow as her only gift for her birthday.
Offerman’s romanticism, mixed with his hilarious giggle that does not match his stone-face, mustache-wearing personality, is one of the reasons why I am a big fan of Offerman.
When he recommended that everyone in the audience read Berry, I had no reason to doubt his recommendation.
After a trip to the library and a random selection from Berry’s many works, I returned home with Hannah Coulter.
All I knew to expect was that he would focus on romance and that he came highly recommended from a very funny comedian. That was enough to sell me on Berry.
But only 20 pages in, I was hooked. Really, it was probably fewer pages than that.
Berry writes poetically. That is not surprising since he writes poetry along with his fiction. But even his fiction reads beautifully, as if his pen was made from flowers from a garden that spilled words beautifully onto paper.
What also sets Berry apart is that usually poetry is wordy. Poets tend not to be concise in order to be artful with their analogies. However, Berry finds a way to be poetic in few words. His poems are short and sweet, which keeps readers from getting lost in his art. And that makes his poetic style all the more beautiful.
His words are concise, but his plot for Hannah Coulter is large. The tale follows the life of Hannah Coulter from childhood to old age. He traces her relationship with her grandmother as a young girl, when she first fell in love, her venture into motherhood, and her discovery of home on a run-down farm in Kentucky.
He follows her entire life in only 190 pages, all told from fictional Hannah’s point of view. He includes maps of the towns he wraps into the tale. He even incorporates a family tree of the many characters woven together in Hannah’s life.
Hannah may be fiction, but his attention to detail makes her full of life.
What really makes her lively is the attention Berry directs on Hannah’s exploration of love.
“I went to him then, and he hugged me. We didn’t kiss, not then, not yet. I laid my cheek on him and smelled the smell of his clean shirt, and within it, the smell of him, himself. I put my arms around him then and hugged him as tight as I could. Now that this thing that he had wanted to happen had finally started to happen, maybe he thought I was never going to turn him loose. I wanted to hold and protect and save him forever.”
And he also delves into her heartbreak.
“I was the mother of a helpless baby, and the wife of a dead man who was just as helpless. The living must protect the dead. Their lives made the meaning of their deaths, and that is the meaning their deaths ought to have…My grief was the last meaning of his life in this world. And so I kept my grief. For a long time I couldn’t give it up.”
Berry directs readers through Hannah’s life, through her hardships and celebrations. Such a vivid life is created in such a simple place, on a farm in Kentucky. But the simple stage allows Berry’s character to thrive. The story focuses on Hannah, not on her surroundings, allowing readers to see the true connection Berry created himself with Hannah.
This setting was no random choice for Berry. He has farmed in his native Henry County, Kentucky for over thirty years. In that time, he has written over 40 works. Hannah was his 2004 addition to his work. He had practice before her, and it shines in his tale about a mother, a lover, a woman.
Berry creates a beautiful, poetic, romantic story with Hannah. It is understandable how Offerman became attracted to Berry’s writing. Offerman exhibits the romantic intensity Berry writes about every time Offerman professes his undying devotion to his wife. Offerman is living a reality of Berry’s fiction.
In so little and in such a beautiful way, Berry captures something as big as love.