Turn Back The Bed by Wendell Berry, 1994
The magic trick:
A love story to storytelling
Wendell Berry loves his characters so much, maybe more than any writer I can think of since Charles Dickens. He really, really loves Ptolemy Proudfoot. This is a loving farewell to the gentle giant of Port William,Tol.
The key is the narrative frame. The narrator remembers being a young boy and hearing a funny story that Tol told at a church picnic. The story itself is one that Tol experienced when he was 5 years old. So while the story he tells is the main narrative – and is very entertaining – it’s not the main point here. The main point is the beautiful way people live on, long after death, through the way families and communities tell stories. It’s a love story to storytelling.
And that’s quite a trick on Berry’s part.
The selection:
By the time I came to know him, Tol was well along in years. He had become an elder of the community, and had recognized his memories, the good ones anyhow, as gifts, to himself and to the rest of us. His stories of Old Ant’ny and the high old family times were much in demand, not just because they were good to listen to in their own right, but because certain people enjoyed hearing – and watching – Tol laugh at them. Once he got tickled enough, you could never tell what would happen. He had broken the backs off half a dozen chairs, rearing back in them to laugh. Once, at an ice cream supper, he fell backward onto a table full of cakes.
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