Needing some comfort and a familiar place to wander, I decided it was time to pick up another Wendell Berry and spend a little time among my friends in Port William. Whenever I step into a Berry book, I step into my own past, the past of my childhood and I view again all the small farmers I have known and see again the world they occupied, which was already almost extinct by the time I was a young girl.

The past is as it was. As it was it is forever. It cannot be changed, not by us, not by God. No doubt it is forgettable. We do surely forget some of it, and surely all of it in time will be forgotten.

What gets you is the knowledge, and it sometimes can fall on you in a clap, that the dead are gone absolutely from this world...Whatever was done or said before is done or said for good. Any questions you think of that you ought to’ve asked while you had a chance are never going to be answered. The dead know, and you don’t.

How often did I think just this, that there was so much I wanted to know from my great Uncle Naman, from my Grandpa, even from my own father, but never got around to asking until it was so finally too late.

If all Wendell Berry did was take me back in time, that would be a major gift, but there is so much more to his writing and his wisdom. He understands what it is to be human, to live, to work, to love, to die; to experience great happiness and sorrow; to know justice and injustice, as life surely throws some of each to all of us; and he has no difficulty in instilling all of this into his characters. He can tell you everything you need to know about a person, sometimes in one line.

Her heart is poorly now, maybe, because she’s given it away all her life to anybody that needed it, always doing for somebody.

If you think it is only the agricultural life of the pre-war 1940s that has disappeared, consider how much of what was common in your own life now exists no more. Think of how different the lives of your children are from your own. Think how technology has emerged so rapidly and become so commonplace.

It is hard to remember one world while living in another.

It is hard, but it is worthwhile, and whenever I am in Port William, I find myself wishing it were a place where I could stay.
( )

This book is my introduction to Wendell Berry's Port William world and,
while I also deeply mourn the loss of all that was good,
it's hard to understand why people didn't help each other more,
like taking care of Old Jack in his log cabin...? ( )

Okay, this now makes three novels and forty-three short stories I have read by this author on the fictional "Port William Membership." This short story collection is the most recently published of the five books I have read, and this one more than any of the others seems very absorbed with looking back at a way of life at a "place in time" that applies to a mere subsection of America. The author sees a past life that he tries to capture in these writings and makes it clear he misses it greatly, and I'm not at all sure he really grasps the full reasons it no longer exists. In my mind, skip the Fox News promoted books and the Hillbilly Elegy type volumes, and read about Port William. It's my belief this is what is separating a large chunk of America from the rest. This shows what people think about what they had and why they are so upset they no longer have it. Okay, maybe that's somewhat of a stretch, but I really don't think I'm that far off target. As somber as this analysis may seem, I would not be fair to the author, if I did not mention that I burst out laughing several times while reading these stories. (That's laughter of pure amusement, not ridicule, in case you were wondering.) The man has a real gift. ( )

Wendell Berry has been writing poetry and essays on farming life for more than half a century. But he has also written fiction set in Port William, Ky., which rivals William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in terms of its breadth of imagined historical detail. A Place in Time includes 20 stories that feature familiar characters from earlier novels and stories, but it is not necessary to have read those to get pleasure out of these.

This is a good introduction to many of the families that inhabit Port William. The Catletts and Feltners are prominent in several stories. While individual characters like Burley Coulter, Elton Penn, and Andy Catlett stand out. The stories span more than a century and a half of history from the opening story, set in the Civil War era to the titular tale that ends the book during the first decade of the new millennium.

The stories are not plot driven but focus on character, including the character of Port William itself. The relationships of characters are as important as their actions in these beautiful vignettes of small town life. As someone who was raised in a small town I found moments that resonated with my own experience. "Andy Catlett: Early Education" reminded me of my own schooldays while also bringing my reading of books like Tom Sawyer to mind. One of the most potent stories, for instance, is markedly subtle: “A Desirable Woman” tracks the intersection of a pastor’s wife and a young farmhand shortly before the start of World War II, and the story turns on the young man’s unrequited crush on the woman shortly before he’s sent off to war. “Sold” has a similarly soft-focus, nostalgic cast, narrated by an elderly woman recalling the accumulations that are about to be sold at auction before she enters a nursing home. Some of the stories are suggestive of homespun tales or Twain (again), as in “A New Day,” which climaxes in a competition between two horse teams dragging bricks, or “A Burden,” about the antics of a drunk relation.

Throughout the collection Berry's writing style is poetic as he shares episodes of loss and love, achievement and angst; all set against the backdrop of the evolution of Port William through time. The historic context was omnipresent but not overwhelming. It intruded with tales of soldiers returning or not returning from war and notes of other events, although the focus was continually on the families -- their follies, their foibles, and their faith. Berry is a writer whose beautiful sentences are imbued with an agrarian spirit. That and a concern for both time past and time future make this a fine collection. ( )

I've read jayber Crow,Hannah Coulter and the Andy Catlett books in the Port William series. Each of these abt an indiviudal living in Port William and the townpeople they reside among. This particular book, A PLACE IN TIME is 20 short stories about different people in town.It was nice to fill in the gaps or see a conclusion or continuation of characters. Love Berry's writing.This book is good on its own,but might be a better compliment after reading some of his other Port William series. ( )