Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 6.09 Literature and Poetry
Presentation #1 Title
From Berry to Pancake: Machine Junk and Membership
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
In a letter to the author, Wendell Berry calls Ann Pancake's Strange as this Weather Has Been “one of the bravest novels,” adding that “Its completeness is made possible by its full acceptance of the heartbreak of its subject.” A novel about mountaintop renewal, Strange as this Weather Has Been also dramatizes the dissolution of what Berry has often called “membership,” a term which refers to the affectionate interdependence of people working towards mutually beneficial ends within a natural place. In Pancake’s book, the rending apart of a family and community mirrors the dismemberment of mountains and living bodies, with the overall effect of Pancake’s work amounting to a frank and unsettling treatment of the tearing apart of membership. My papers uses Berry’s concept of “membership” and some of Berry’s own fiction of dismemberment as an entrance point into Pancake’s novel, revealing that by complimenting the “full acceptance of […] heartbreak” in Pancake’s book, Berry may also be conceding the difficulty of reaffirming membership in the face of such devastation as Pancake’s book describes, a sad and powerful admission considering that part of the necessary didacticism of Berry’s own narratives of dismemberment typically lies in their showing the reader the way back to wholeness with oneself, one’s place, and one’s community.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Matt Wanat is an Assistant Professor of English at the Lancaster regional campus of Ohio University. Wanat’s scholarship examines intersections of narrative, genre, and culture in the areas of twentieth-century American literature and cinema studies, and his scholarly interests range from western American literature and film to Appalachian studies to localism and sustainability.
From Berry to Pancake: Machine Junk and Membership
Harris Hall 402
In a letter to the author, Wendell Berry calls Ann Pancake's Strange as this Weather Has Been “one of the bravest novels,” adding that “Its completeness is made possible by its full acceptance of the heartbreak of its subject.” A novel about mountaintop renewal, Strange as this Weather Has Been also dramatizes the dissolution of what Berry has often called “membership,” a term which refers to the affectionate interdependence of people working towards mutually beneficial ends within a natural place. In Pancake’s book, the rending apart of a family and community mirrors the dismemberment of mountains and living bodies, with the overall effect of Pancake’s work amounting to a frank and unsettling treatment of the tearing apart of membership. My papers uses Berry’s concept of “membership” and some of Berry’s own fiction of dismemberment as an entrance point into Pancake’s novel, revealing that by complimenting the “full acceptance of […] heartbreak” in Pancake’s book, Berry may also be conceding the difficulty of reaffirming membership in the face of such devastation as Pancake’s book describes, a sad and powerful admission considering that part of the necessary didacticism of Berry’s own narratives of dismemberment typically lies in their showing the reader the way back to wholeness with oneself, one’s place, and one’s community.
