A World Lost

Andy Catlett, a nine year old boy of Port William, Kentucky, grew up in the shadow of his Uncle Andrew. In the wake of his Uncle’s tragic death, Andy began to explore what manner of man his Uncle was. Was he the joy of his family? Or a womanizer shot in a brawl?

At first glance, Uncle Andrew was a charming character who danced through life, occasionally enduring the trials he could not avoid. One such hardship was his wife who “always asked you for affection before you could give it. For that reason she always needed more affection than she got. She would drain the world of affection, and then, fearing that it had been given only because she had asked for it, she would have to ask for more” (33). As Andy matures, so too does his understanding of Uncle Andrew. In a poignant moment, Andy avoids his Uncle Andrew’s widow “For want of compassion- aware that I would inevitably fail to be compassionate enough, but also for want of enough compassion- I denied that I was who I was, and so made myself less than I was. This was my first conscious experience of a shame that was irremediable and hopeless- a shame, as I now suppose, that Uncle Andrew may have met in himself, in her presence, many a time” (54).

In the midst of changing times, Uncle Andrew “treated all machines as if they were recalcitrant and uncommonly stupid draft animals” (23).

In this novel, Berry explores the power of memory. He writes: “slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years” (104). This book is an exploration of how “the dead rise and walk about, the timeless fields of thought.”

A World Lost Wendell Berry Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008