Mann and Nature - Softcover

Perry Mann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0578094193 ISBN 13: 9780578094199

Publisher: Kettle Moraine Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

Mann and Nature is a collection of essays by Perry Mann about growing up during the Depression on a subsistence farm with his grandparents in southern West Virginia, his life-long relationship with gardening, and his reverence for nature. They celebrate local agriculture and hard work and the benefits from both in language that is beautiful and poetic: Suddenly the woods were filled with rays and sparkles and pings of drips, all of which had different pitches and produced a xylophone effect. It was a fairyland of sun and sounds and sights. If I could be frozen in time by some sculptor, like the figures on the Grecian Urn in the poem written by Keats, I would choose to be standing with buckets in hand in those sun-drenched woods transfixed by the glory of sights and sounds of dripping sugar maples.

In the company of Thoreau, Rachel Carson, and Aldo Leopold, Mann reminds the reader of the consequences of plundering the resources of nature for profit. However, at 91 Perry Mann remains optimistic about the human condition: No lobbyist can bribe nature. In the end, all politicians and everyone else must accept the mandates of nature and the consequences of violating them. In that is my optimism.

Through the seasons Mann celebrates the beauty and mystery of nature and encourages the reader to go outside, to plant a garden, to take a walk, to observe the hummingbird, a shrew, an ancient oak, or an ear of corn, and after such observations reflect on the lessons of Mother Nature.

Included in his essays are recipes for his prized bread and butter pickles, his homemade bread, and a vegetarian delight of a cabbage nest filled with zucchini, squash, eggplant, sweet and hot peppers, broccoli, onions, garlic, and tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and topped with two ears of corn steamed and garnished with Parmesan cheese. This meal is a testament to his definition of happiness: It may be happiness is producing by hand and mind what is essential to live and the use and enjoyment of it to sustain life with enough surplus to give time for rest and reflection.

About this title

About the Author

Perry Mann is a World War II veteran, a teacher, a philosopher, a writer, a voracious reader, a naturalist, and a lawyer. At 91 he tends his two gardens, writes articles, and practices law in Hinton, West Virginia.

Because he has written thousands of articles for various publications, his work is well known by many, but this book is the first to present some of his work in one volume.

His words, descriptions, and ideas remind readers of the gift of and the necessity for nature in their lives.

He was chosen as one of the Americans who tell the truth and was featured in a book of the same title by Robert Shetterly, and his connection to nature through his gardens and mountains is the substance of his truth.

Review

These essays celebrate the mystery and beauty of nature, how it sustains the soul, offers happiness, and shapes a sustainable meaning for life.

The essays are about delight, delight in the transitory moment and delight in the memory of ecstatic of perception. There is an ache in them, like the ache of muscles worked hard in honest toil, of a life well lived.

Perry Mann loves gardening and nature primarily because he relishes precise and poignant taste. He says, I gathered green onions, the succulent sizzles of spring.

Let his essays be your green onions. --Source: Robert Shetterly: Author and Artist

Essays by Perry Mann mostly fit two categories: (1) stinging rebukes of unbridled capitalism and hatemonger preachers and (2) hymns to the simple joy of living close to nature, steeped in the eternal rhythms of rural life. Thirty of the latter are assembled in this charming paperback, Mann and Nature. They are poetic tributes to the quiet nobility of working the land, enjoying the forest, and feeling the serenity of it all. --James A. Haught: Editor

I grew up on a Wisconsin farm, and the essays in this book take me back there. Although I love all of them, I am particularly fond of Remembering the Apple Barn because of his description of a well-stocked outbuilding where his grandparents like my grandparents stored their fruits of spring, summer, and fall to sustain them through the winter: Shining through the glass jars was a rainbow of colors reflected from green beans, tomatoes, corn, beets, pickles, and an array of reds, purples, and blues of jams and jellies. Jars of half-runner beans, strung and pieced, packed in the cans helter-skelter sat beside tomatoes, skinned and quartered, with the seeds dotting the scene like islands in a scarlet sea. Also, tomato juice, corn relish, sweet potatoes, beet pickles, sausage cakes, pork loin, applesauce, grape juice, blackberries, and everything else of spring, summer, and fall that could be preserved to tide a body over from November to April lined the shelves.

I have given so many copies of this book to friends and family, and all have loved it like I do. I keep a copy on my nightstand, and when I need some peace, I pick it up and read my favorites.

I, like Perry Mann, am at my best in my garden. --Source: Sharon Knobel: Reader, Gardener, Environmentalist, Community Activist

About this edition

• Publisher: Kettle Moraine Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0578094193
• ISBN 13: 9780578094199
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 156
• Editor: Ann Farrell Bowers