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The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories
A rich collection of classic American literature potraying the beauty of a 19th-century New England town.
A female writer comes one summer to Dunnet Landing, a Maine seacoast town, where she follows the lonely inhabitants of once-prosperous coastal communities. Here, lives are molded by the long Maine winters, rock-filled fields and strong resourceful women.
Throughout Sarah Orne Jewett’s novel and stories, these quiet tales of a simpler American life capture the inspirational in the everyday: the importance of honest friendships, the value of family, and the gift of community.
“Their counterparts are in every village in the world, thank heaven, and the gift to one’s life is only in its discernment.”
A female writer comes one summer to Dunnet Landing, a Maine seacoast town, where she follows the lonely inhabitants of once-prosperous coastal communities. Here, lives are molded by the long Maine winters, rock-filled fields and strong resourceful women.
Throughout Sarah Orne Jewett’s novel and stories, these quiet tales of a simpler American life capture the inspirational in the everyday: the importance of honest friendships, the value of family, and the gift of community.
“Their counterparts are in every village in the world, thank heaven, and the gift to one’s life is only in its discernment.”
272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
About the author
Sarah Orne Jewett
308 books166 followersSarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.
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February 4, 2018
"… the first salt wind from the east, the first sight of a lighthouse set boldly on its outer rock, the flash of a gull, the waiting procession of seaward-bound firs on an island, made me feel solid and definite again, instead of a poor, incoherent being. Life was resumed, and anxious living blew away as if it had not been. I could not breathe deep enough or long enough. It was a return to happiness."
I seem to keep returning to these tranquil, quiet stories of a time gone by, when life was simpler but not necessarily without its own share of hardships. Here Sarah Orne Jewett transports us to a small seaside community in Maine at the end of the nineteenth century. Jewett was born in Maine and often tagged along with her physician father as he made his rounds visiting the people of rural New England. She developed an appreciation and a love for these people and this is clearly reflected in her writing.
The title piece is novel length, but really more of a series of vignettes of the various encounters a young writer makes with the people of Dunnet Landing, Maine, a mixture of widows who have lost their husbands to the clutches of the ocean, farmers, some widowers, and fishermen and seamen who still brave the swells to earn a living. Our narrator learns much about the town and is introduced to many of the people by her hostess, Mrs. Todd, towards whom the inhabitants flock for her herbal remedies and her spruce beer. "It may not have been only the common ails of humanity with which she tried to cope; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd’s garden." Mrs. Todd may have appeared a bit rough around the edges, but her hospitable heart quickly made a friend out of me. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Todd was borne from kin with a heart even more generous than her own. Mrs. Blackett and reticent son William live isolated on a small island a short boat ride away from Dunnet Landing. Mrs. Blackett’s heart of gold is so welcoming that our narrator is instantly charmed – as was I! "Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest’s pleasure,—that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one’s own life that can never be forgotten. Tact is after all a kind of mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift. Sympathy is of the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett’s world and mine were one from the moment we met."
There are more delightful little meetings and persons I could ramble on about (including one who calls herself the ‘Queen’s Twin!’), but I will refrain from doing so in order that you may make these pleasurable acquaintances on your own. Aside from the people of Dunnet Landing, Sarah Orne Jewett also paints the sublime setting through her vivid and impressive prose. We catch a glimpse of the grandeur of the sea, the luxurious fields, the majestic mountains in the distance, and of course the stately firs themselves. "We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water’s edge."
Oh, how I wish I could return to the people of Dunnet Landing and to Mrs. Todd’s hearth with a cup of tea and listen to some more of these wonderfully nostalgic stories. I do so miss them already; they warmed my heart during a brutally cold month here in the northeast.
"One need not always be saying something in this noisy world."
I seem to keep returning to these tranquil, quiet stories of a time gone by, when life was simpler but not necessarily without its own share of hardships. Here Sarah Orne Jewett transports us to a small seaside community in Maine at the end of the nineteenth century. Jewett was born in Maine and often tagged along with her physician father as he made his rounds visiting the people of rural New England. She developed an appreciation and a love for these people and this is clearly reflected in her writing.
The title piece is novel length, but really more of a series of vignettes of the various encounters a young writer makes with the people of Dunnet Landing, Maine, a mixture of widows who have lost their husbands to the clutches of the ocean, farmers, some widowers, and fishermen and seamen who still brave the swells to earn a living. Our narrator learns much about the town and is introduced to many of the people by her hostess, Mrs. Todd, towards whom the inhabitants flock for her herbal remedies and her spruce beer. "It may not have been only the common ails of humanity with which she tried to cope; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd’s garden." Mrs. Todd may have appeared a bit rough around the edges, but her hospitable heart quickly made a friend out of me. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Todd was borne from kin with a heart even more generous than her own. Mrs. Blackett and reticent son William live isolated on a small island a short boat ride away from Dunnet Landing. Mrs. Blackett’s heart of gold is so welcoming that our narrator is instantly charmed – as was I! "Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest’s pleasure,—that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one’s own life that can never be forgotten. Tact is after all a kind of mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift. Sympathy is of the mind as well as the heart, and Mrs. Blackett’s world and mine were one from the moment we met."
There are more delightful little meetings and persons I could ramble on about (including one who calls herself the ‘Queen’s Twin!’), but I will refrain from doing so in order that you may make these pleasurable acquaintances on your own. Aside from the people of Dunnet Landing, Sarah Orne Jewett also paints the sublime setting through her vivid and impressive prose. We catch a glimpse of the grandeur of the sea, the luxurious fields, the majestic mountains in the distance, and of course the stately firs themselves. "We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water’s edge."
Oh, how I wish I could return to the people of Dunnet Landing and to Mrs. Todd’s hearth with a cup of tea and listen to some more of these wonderfully nostalgic stories. I do so miss them already; they warmed my heart during a brutally cold month here in the northeast.
"One need not always be saying something in this noisy world."
August 28, 2024
"Yes'm old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of."
Historically, this novel has both an important place in American literature, and it also has a very loyal fan base.
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett also illustrates two of the obstacles that composite novels must overcome. The first of which is that each individual story must be worthy of the reader's attention. Secondly, if the stories are linked by a common narrator, that narrator must be capable of gaining and maintaining the reader's interest.
For me personally, I never managed to wholeheartedly travel back to the times that Ms. Jewett was discussing (the late 19th century). Therefore, I would rate my personal experience with this book at only around 3.6. However, I did find the stories more appealing as I approached the end. Given the loyalty of Ms. Jewett's fans, I'm quite convinced that any and all fault lies with me alone.
Note1: I've read elsewhere that dialogue is a poor vehicle to move along the plot. I never much believed that until now.
Note2: Reading the Wiki page helped me get back into the narrative when I got distracted by life.
Note3: This particular composite novel does a great job of demonstrating how characters in the stories can be used to provide smooth transitions from one story to the next.
Historically, this novel has both an important place in American literature, and it also has a very loyal fan base.
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett also illustrates two of the obstacles that composite novels must overcome. The first of which is that each individual story must be worthy of the reader's attention. Secondly, if the stories are linked by a common narrator, that narrator must be capable of gaining and maintaining the reader's interest.
For me personally, I never managed to wholeheartedly travel back to the times that Ms. Jewett was discussing (the late 19th century). Therefore, I would rate my personal experience with this book at only around 3.6. However, I did find the stories more appealing as I approached the end. Given the loyalty of Ms. Jewett's fans, I'm quite convinced that any and all fault lies with me alone.
Note1: I've read elsewhere that dialogue is a poor vehicle to move along the plot. I never much believed that until now.
Note2: Reading the Wiki page helped me get back into the narrative when I got distracted by life.
Note3: This particular composite novel does a great job of demonstrating how characters in the stories can be used to provide smooth transitions from one story to the next.
October 14, 2020
This short novel is narrated by a young woman writer who spends a summer in a small coastal town in Maine. The time period is not stated although it has to be before 1896, which is when the book was published (actually the book was published in 4 monthly installments of the Atlantic Monthly before published in book form), so let’s say the late 1800s. The narrator rooms with an older lady, Mrs. Todd, and since school is out, she is allowed to write in the small one-room schoolhouse in the town. She gets along quite well with Mrs. Todd, and they have some nice conversations, and Mrs. Todd occasionally has visitors, such as her mother who lives on a nearby island, and through these connections stories are told via these other people about themselves, and other people that they know. The narrator attends an annual family reunion at another homestead. More stories are told.
This is a gem of a book. The writing is exquisite. There is no plot line—the novel involves a number of stories and reminisces by people as recollected by the young woman writer (from now on referred to as the narrator). The chapters are short, sometimes three pages long. I was interrupted in my reading by particular sentences that resonated with me, so I had to write them down. Stories that I read often brought back personal memories of things that had happened in my life years ago—this novel was able to do that for me.
The characters were not saints. They had their petty concerns. But for the most part they were decent people.
Notes:
This is taken from the introduction (which I read afterwards) by Alison Easton which summarizes the structure of the novel far better than I can describe:
• The sense of recognition and connection is further embodied in the construction of the narrative itself—the frequent use of conversation to tell the stories, the way the stories are folded into other stories, the various voices with their different perspectives, the continual sense of audience and shared discussion, the way the action constantly circles back on itself.
I mentioned this novel was short. It was edited by Alison Easton and she used the original version of the novel when it was first published in 1896. Later editions appended 4 short stories (but they are much longer than the original chapters) to the end of the original novel and so you have to be careful of how you read this novel. Three of the four stories appended to this novel were included in the issue I had (along with 7 other stories) but I did not read all of them. I felt I had no need to—I can read them later if I want. Easton’s reasoning was this, and why I would recommend reading the novel by only reading those chapters in the original editions, and digesting what it means to you, and then read the additional three stories if you want, understanding this is not how Jewett meant for her novel to be read: “I feel that the expanded version spoils the integrity of her text, making it increasingly a more conventional novel in form and thus losing the delicate suggestiveness and web-like effects of the sketch structure.”
I was intrigued by a synopsis summarizing Sarah Orne Jewett’s life. It is stated that she “incurred serious injuries in 1902 after being thrown from a carriage. This prevented any further writing. She died in 1909.” I was mystified as to why being thrown from a carriage would end her writing career... When I dug a little bit deeper, I found this:
• Author Sarah Orne Jewett, of South Berwick, Maine, ended her writing career after a carriage accident in 1902. “The horse stepped on a rolling stone and fell, throwing Miss Jewett, who held the reins, and Miss Rebecca Young, her seat companion, over the horse’s head. Miss Young escaped with a severe shaking up, but Miss Jewett was considerably injured about the head and spine.” She never fully recovered from the accident. (Jim: I found in another link that she had trouble concentrating after the accident.)
Here are a couple of quotes from the book that resonated with me (they are examples among many!):
This is the end of the family reunion:
• “The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these old friends had been. There were enough young persons at the reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their comrades, — the time of separation has not come. To see the joy with which these elder kinfolk and acquaintances had looked in one another’s faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was possible to live in that all thinly settled region. They did not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place, especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without their social advantages and satisfactions. I heard the words ‘next summer’ repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all the leaves were green.
The narrator is leaving Mrs. Todd’s house at the end of the summer to go back to the city…:
• “When I went in again the little house had suddenly looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.
Reviews (just a sampling):
• http://www.makemag.com/review-the-cou...
• https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/b...
• https://johnpistelli.com/2018/09/17/s...
• Willa Cather edited The Best Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett (1925) for publisher Houghton Mifflin, and in her preface classed The Country of the Pointed Firs with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as one of "three American books which have the possibility of a long, long life."
This is a gem of a book. The writing is exquisite. There is no plot line—the novel involves a number of stories and reminisces by people as recollected by the young woman writer (from now on referred to as the narrator). The chapters are short, sometimes three pages long. I was interrupted in my reading by particular sentences that resonated with me, so I had to write them down. Stories that I read often brought back personal memories of things that had happened in my life years ago—this novel was able to do that for me.
The characters were not saints. They had their petty concerns. But for the most part they were decent people.
Notes:
This is taken from the introduction (which I read afterwards) by Alison Easton which summarizes the structure of the novel far better than I can describe:
• The sense of recognition and connection is further embodied in the construction of the narrative itself—the frequent use of conversation to tell the stories, the way the stories are folded into other stories, the various voices with their different perspectives, the continual sense of audience and shared discussion, the way the action constantly circles back on itself.
I mentioned this novel was short. It was edited by Alison Easton and she used the original version of the novel when it was first published in 1896. Later editions appended 4 short stories (but they are much longer than the original chapters) to the end of the original novel and so you have to be careful of how you read this novel. Three of the four stories appended to this novel were included in the issue I had (along with 7 other stories) but I did not read all of them. I felt I had no need to—I can read them later if I want. Easton’s reasoning was this, and why I would recommend reading the novel by only reading those chapters in the original editions, and digesting what it means to you, and then read the additional three stories if you want, understanding this is not how Jewett meant for her novel to be read: “I feel that the expanded version spoils the integrity of her text, making it increasingly a more conventional novel in form and thus losing the delicate suggestiveness and web-like effects of the sketch structure.”
I was intrigued by a synopsis summarizing Sarah Orne Jewett’s life. It is stated that she “incurred serious injuries in 1902 after being thrown from a carriage. This prevented any further writing. She died in 1909.” I was mystified as to why being thrown from a carriage would end her writing career... When I dug a little bit deeper, I found this:
• Author Sarah Orne Jewett, of South Berwick, Maine, ended her writing career after a carriage accident in 1902. “The horse stepped on a rolling stone and fell, throwing Miss Jewett, who held the reins, and Miss Rebecca Young, her seat companion, over the horse’s head. Miss Young escaped with a severe shaking up, but Miss Jewett was considerably injured about the head and spine.” She never fully recovered from the accident. (Jim: I found in another link that she had trouble concentrating after the accident.)
Here are a couple of quotes from the book that resonated with me (they are examples among many!):
This is the end of the family reunion:
• “The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these old friends had been. There were enough young persons at the reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their comrades, — the time of separation has not come. To see the joy with which these elder kinfolk and acquaintances had looked in one another’s faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was possible to live in that all thinly settled region. They did not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place, especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without their social advantages and satisfactions. I heard the words ‘next summer’ repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all the leaves were green.
The narrator is leaving Mrs. Todd’s house at the end of the summer to go back to the city…:
• “When I went in again the little house had suddenly looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.
Reviews (just a sampling):
• http://www.makemag.com/review-the-cou...
• https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/b...
• https://johnpistelli.com/2018/09/17/s...
• Willa Cather edited The Best Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett (1925) for publisher Houghton Mifflin, and in her preface classed The Country of the Pointed Firs with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as one of "three American books which have the possibility of a long, long life."
March 6, 2015
When I decided to read this book again now as a "buddy" read, I had a residual memory from a distant reading maybe 25 or more years ago. A memory that was positive but nebulous. Now I have a new, and, happily, very precise memory to carry forward. I love this book with its portrait of the rural towns and peoples of New England, primarily of the state of Maine and primarily of the town of Dunnet's Landing, seen through the eyes of a visitor from the city, a woman sympathetic to the people and lifestyle.
Jewett, an influence for Willa Cather, another author I admire so much, writes largely unsentimentally of the daily lives and relationships of the farmers and fishermen, wives, husbands, widows and widowers, the small details that unite these people who are still in some ways close to their Puritan stock. The writing is simple but also very appropriate. It is majestic in it's description of the mighty pines standing guard over the landscape. It is classical in describing some of the characters.
A few examples: describing Mrs. Todd,
She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its
rings of black and gray seemed to circle about her feet
in the dim light. Her height and massiveness in the low
room gave her the look of a huge sibyl, while the strange
fragrance of the mysterious herb blew in from the little
garden. (p 8)
And an island description:
Through this piece of rough pasture ran a huge shape
of stone like the great backbone of an enormous creature.
At the end, near the woods, we could climb up on it and
walk along to the highest point; there above the circle
of pointed firs we could look down over all the island,
and could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred
other bits of island ground, the mainland shore and all
the far horizons. It gave a sudden sense of space, for
nothing stopped the eye or hedged one in,---that sense
of liberty in space and time which great prospects
always give. (p 45)
This openness and bleakness is freeing and also part of the hardship.
After Mrs. Todd discusses the hard loss of her husband at sea, a common loss among the women in the area, our narrator writes:
She looked away from me, and presently rose and
went on by herself. There was something lonely and solitary
about her great determined shape. She might have been
Antigone alone on the Theban plain. It is not often given
in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and
silence. (p 49)
And lastly, this wagon trip with a taciturn friend:
Many times, being used to the company of Mrs. Todd and
and other friends who were in the habit of talking, I
came near making an idle remark to William, but I was for
the most part happily preserved; to be with him only for a
short time was to live on a different level, where
thoughts served best because they were thoughts in
common;the primary effects upon our minds of the simple
things and beauties that we saw. Once when I caught sight
of a lovely gay pigeon-woodpecker eyeing us curiously
from a dead branch, and instinctively turned toward
William, he gave an indulgent, comprehending nod which
silenced me all the rest of the way. The wood road was not
a place for common noisy conversation; one would interrupt
the birds and all the still little beasts that belonged
there....I grew conscious of the difference between
William's usual fashion of life and mine; for him there
were long days of silence in a sea-going boat, and I
could believe that he and his mother usually spoke very
little because they so perfectly understood each other.
(p 145-6)
Sarah Orne Jewett wrote in and of a different time, in a quite solitary part of this country. What particularly impressed me was the unsentimental, but loving, presentation. (The only exception I noted was in the final two stories, "Martha's Lady" and "Aunt Cynthy Dallett", both written a few years after most of the rest of the book did seem a bit on the sentimental side and were not among my favorites.) Jewett is of these people. She understands them and their history and would like us to know them too.
This was written in the late 19th century and uses Downeast dialect at times. If reading some dialect bothers you then this might be an irritant. Otherwise I highly recommend this book to short story readers and all who enjoy venturing into an earlier time in American life.
Thank you to Diane Barnes for a truly enjoyable buddy read!
Jewett, an influence for Willa Cather, another author I admire so much, writes largely unsentimentally of the daily lives and relationships of the farmers and fishermen, wives, husbands, widows and widowers, the small details that unite these people who are still in some ways close to their Puritan stock. The writing is simple but also very appropriate. It is majestic in it's description of the mighty pines standing guard over the landscape. It is classical in describing some of the characters.
A few examples: describing Mrs. Todd,
She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its
rings of black and gray seemed to circle about her feet
in the dim light. Her height and massiveness in the low
room gave her the look of a huge sibyl, while the strange
fragrance of the mysterious herb blew in from the little
garden. (p 8)
And an island description:
Through this piece of rough pasture ran a huge shape
of stone like the great backbone of an enormous creature.
At the end, near the woods, we could climb up on it and
walk along to the highest point; there above the circle
of pointed firs we could look down over all the island,
and could see the ocean that circled this and a hundred
other bits of island ground, the mainland shore and all
the far horizons. It gave a sudden sense of space, for
nothing stopped the eye or hedged one in,---that sense
of liberty in space and time which great prospects
always give. (p 45)
This openness and bleakness is freeing and also part of the hardship.
After Mrs. Todd discusses the hard loss of her husband at sea, a common loss among the women in the area, our narrator writes:
She looked away from me, and presently rose and
went on by herself. There was something lonely and solitary
about her great determined shape. She might have been
Antigone alone on the Theban plain. It is not often given
in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and
silence. (p 49)
And lastly, this wagon trip with a taciturn friend:
Many times, being used to the company of Mrs. Todd and
and other friends who were in the habit of talking, I
came near making an idle remark to William, but I was for
the most part happily preserved; to be with him only for a
short time was to live on a different level, where
thoughts served best because they were thoughts in
common;the primary effects upon our minds of the simple
things and beauties that we saw. Once when I caught sight
of a lovely gay pigeon-woodpecker eyeing us curiously
from a dead branch, and instinctively turned toward
William, he gave an indulgent, comprehending nod which
silenced me all the rest of the way. The wood road was not
a place for common noisy conversation; one would interrupt
the birds and all the still little beasts that belonged
there....I grew conscious of the difference between
William's usual fashion of life and mine; for him there
were long days of silence in a sea-going boat, and I
could believe that he and his mother usually spoke very
little because they so perfectly understood each other.
(p 145-6)
Sarah Orne Jewett wrote in and of a different time, in a quite solitary part of this country. What particularly impressed me was the unsentimental, but loving, presentation. (The only exception I noted was in the final two stories, "Martha's Lady" and "Aunt Cynthy Dallett", both written a few years after most of the rest of the book did seem a bit on the sentimental side and were not among my favorites.) Jewett is of these people. She understands them and their history and would like us to know them too.
This was written in the late 19th century and uses Downeast dialect at times. If reading some dialect bothers you then this might be an irritant. Otherwise I highly recommend this book to short story readers and all who enjoy venturing into an earlier time in American life.
Thank you to Diane Barnes for a truly enjoyable buddy read!
March 7, 2015
This is the 4th or 5 the time I've read this book, and once again I returned to a simpler time with gentle people in a small Maine village. Most of the women in these tales are widows or spinsters, making the best of their lives despite disappointments and diminished circumstances, finding happiness in small things: a nice cup of tea and a warm fire on a stormy night, an unexpected visit from a neighbor, a beautiful day, or seeing relatives at a family reunion. I read these stories at bedtime, and drifted off to sleep with a feeling of contentment. It's a beautiful book about strong courageous women living simple lives with grace.
October 26, 2020
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories is a beautifully written novel. It was written serially in 1896 for ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ before being published in book form in Boston and New York by Houghton, Mifflin and Company later in the same year.
It was set in the fictional coastal town of Dunnet Landing in rural Maine. I was struck first of all by the calming appeal of ‘unchanged shores of the pointed firs’ and the charm of a quaint seaside village. In many ways, being immersed in its pages was akin to having a quiet retreat right by the sea. It was a veritable treat.
An unnamed narrator, a lady writer, took up summer lodgings with Mrs Todd, the local apothecary and herbalist. She rents the one-room village schoolhouse in order to write without interruption. I imagined that would make an ideal hideout for some heavy duty writing, especially if it commands an amazing view of the sea.
The beauty of this novel rests in the friendship ties the narrator forged with Mrs Todd and her family (old Mrs Blackett and her shy adult son, William) and friends (e.g., Captain Littlepage, Elijah Tilley) over the course of a summer. There are short trips Mrs Todd and the narrator make to the remote and strange island worlds and their inhabitants, which were refreshing excursions I enjoyed. Memorable were a boat trip to Green Island and a grand reunion of the Bowden family. Jewett masterfully captured an intricate blend of feelings in the cultivation of lasting friendship – strangers tentatively reaching out, learning about others and themselves, treading potentially sensitive terrain, discovering a growing admiration and finding a deepening warmth, trust, and gratitude.
Reading this book now so many years after it was published, I was attracted to a bygone time when life was much simpler and a stone bottle of homemade spruce beer could be chilled by lowering it into a deep well.
You can always tell a good book when you miss it as soon as the last page is read. In my mind, I am still trailing the narrator and Mrs Todd as they go about gathering herbs or receiving guests.
A calm and restful read. Highly recommended.
It was set in the fictional coastal town of Dunnet Landing in rural Maine. I was struck first of all by the calming appeal of ‘unchanged shores of the pointed firs’ and the charm of a quaint seaside village. In many ways, being immersed in its pages was akin to having a quiet retreat right by the sea. It was a veritable treat.
An unnamed narrator, a lady writer, took up summer lodgings with Mrs Todd, the local apothecary and herbalist. She rents the one-room village schoolhouse in order to write without interruption. I imagined that would make an ideal hideout for some heavy duty writing, especially if it commands an amazing view of the sea.
The beauty of this novel rests in the friendship ties the narrator forged with Mrs Todd and her family (old Mrs Blackett and her shy adult son, William) and friends (e.g., Captain Littlepage, Elijah Tilley) over the course of a summer. There are short trips Mrs Todd and the narrator make to the remote and strange island worlds and their inhabitants, which were refreshing excursions I enjoyed. Memorable were a boat trip to Green Island and a grand reunion of the Bowden family. Jewett masterfully captured an intricate blend of feelings in the cultivation of lasting friendship – strangers tentatively reaching out, learning about others and themselves, treading potentially sensitive terrain, discovering a growing admiration and finding a deepening warmth, trust, and gratitude.
Reading this book now so many years after it was published, I was attracted to a bygone time when life was much simpler and a stone bottle of homemade spruce beer could be chilled by lowering it into a deep well.
You can always tell a good book when you miss it as soon as the last page is read. In my mind, I am still trailing the narrator and Mrs Todd as they go about gathering herbs or receiving guests.
A calm and restful read. Highly recommended.
January 18, 2016
This chronicle of life in a Maine coastal village around the end of the 19 century was a pleassure to read. It's a novel, but each chapter has the feel of a short story, stories of this very quaint place and the people who live there. It's inhabitants are mostly widows, husbands lost to the sea, and aging seamen, all struggling to make a daily living off the land and sea. But best of all, the author paints a visually stunning picture of the landscape and seascape of the setting. Jewett was born in this area so she knows of what she writes, and the writing was superb. I'm happy to have discovered this author and look forward to reading more of her work.
September 13, 2020
Note, Sept. 13, 2020: I've just edited this, to correct a factual error based on a misunderstanding of one of Cather's statements in the Preface.
As a teenager, Jewett was inspired to become a writer by her indignation over the sneering condescension with which summer visitors from Boston treated the country people of her beloved native Maine. "I determined to teach the world," she wrote, "[that they] were not the awkward, ignorant set those people seemed to think. I wanted the world to know their grand, simple lives; and so far as I had a mission, when I first began to write, I think that was it." Most readers of these stories will feel that she fulfilled her mission admirably, creating gems of short fiction endowed with the same simple grandeur as her subjects, stories that make ordinary human character and life endlessly fascinating in the best Realist tradition, and which use a particular setting to illuminate universal truths in the best regionalist tradition. And, as the above quote shows, her regionalism (like that of many other writers, then and now) is a justified defense of genuine diversity, a ringing statement that the cultural attitudes and practices of our ruling snobocracy are not the "right" ones to which all the rest of the world needs to be forcibly assimilated.
The long title piece is more a series of prose sketches than a plotted story; but it contains some of the author's most vivid characterizations and richest descriptions of Maine life. At least one other posthumous collection of Jewett's stories has this title, but a different editor and different though overlapping content. Of the stories here, "The White Heron," an expression of love and protective care for nature that shows us the 19th-century roots of today's environmentalism, is no doubt her masterpiece; but all of the stories are good. My own favorite is "Martha's Lady," a beautiful study of the power of friendship and encouragement.
As a teenager, Jewett was inspired to become a writer by her indignation over the sneering condescension with which summer visitors from Boston treated the country people of her beloved native Maine. "I determined to teach the world," she wrote, "[that they] were not the awkward, ignorant set those people seemed to think. I wanted the world to know their grand, simple lives; and so far as I had a mission, when I first began to write, I think that was it." Most readers of these stories will feel that she fulfilled her mission admirably, creating gems of short fiction endowed with the same simple grandeur as her subjects, stories that make ordinary human character and life endlessly fascinating in the best Realist tradition, and which use a particular setting to illuminate universal truths in the best regionalist tradition. And, as the above quote shows, her regionalism (like that of many other writers, then and now) is a justified defense of genuine diversity, a ringing statement that the cultural attitudes and practices of our ruling snobocracy are not the "right" ones to which all the rest of the world needs to be forcibly assimilated.
The long title piece is more a series of prose sketches than a plotted story; but it contains some of the author's most vivid characterizations and richest descriptions of Maine life. At least one other posthumous collection of Jewett's stories has this title, but a different editor and different though overlapping content. Of the stories here, "The White Heron," an expression of love and protective care for nature that shows us the 19th-century roots of today's environmentalism, is no doubt her masterpiece; but all of the stories are good. My own favorite is "Martha's Lady," a beautiful study of the power of friendship and encouragement.
August 19, 2021
My review has disappeared.
And has been found: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
apparently I never wrote a review for the other stories in this edition and only posted for the main story.
And has been found: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
apparently I never wrote a review for the other stories in this edition and only posted for the main story.
October 16, 2020
Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett is not a book many would lift off the library shelf but I'd read a few of her short stories, including one that I used successfully in an intermediate level ESL class with a large variety of students. For that reason, I was curious to read the author's longer work and found its descriptions of Maine landscapes to be interesting but exceedingly bleak.
Entering Jewitt's world was like being cast backward into a time near the start of the 20th Century, to a place long gone, the fictional world of Dunnit's Landing, based on the author's home of South Berwick, Maine, at the time when the novel is set a declining seaport near the border with New Hampshire. Ms. Jewitt famously counseled fellow writer Willa Cather to stop attempting to copy Henry James & to write about the area she knew best, the rural Midwest, advice that Cather took to heart and did with considerable success. Cather's O Pioneers is dedicated to Sarah Orne Jewitt.
While reading The Country of Pointed Firs, I felt at times as if I had taken up residence in a John Sloan painting, a very static, isolated, even desolate world where glances mean more than spoken words and one's goal is to keep one's distance from others, even from close friends & neighbors. Here is just one example of that quality:
The so-called "rustic simplicities" of rural New England become defining qualities. Thus, Dunnet's Landing could be Grover's Corners or New Bedford or Walden Pond. As expressed by Sarah Jewitt, there is great beauty not just in nature but in self-sufficiency and one's loyalty should be to the seasonally revealing landscapes of coastal Maine, not to one's fellow humans. In fact, there are no children in this novel and no meaningful interactions between men & women in Dunnit's Landing. As Jewitt phrases it in The Country of Pointed Firs:
Entering Jewitt's world was like being cast backward into a time near the start of the 20th Century, to a place long gone, the fictional world of Dunnit's Landing, based on the author's home of South Berwick, Maine, at the time when the novel is set a declining seaport near the border with New Hampshire. Ms. Jewitt famously counseled fellow writer Willa Cather to stop attempting to copy Henry James & to write about the area she knew best, the rural Midwest, advice that Cather took to heart and did with considerable success. Cather's O Pioneers is dedicated to Sarah Orne Jewitt.
While reading The Country of Pointed Firs, I felt at times as if I had taken up residence in a John Sloan painting, a very static, isolated, even desolate world where glances mean more than spoken words and one's goal is to keep one's distance from others, even from close friends & neighbors. Here is just one example of that quality:
She looked away from me and presently rose & went on by herself. There was something lonely & solitary about her great determined shape. She might have been Antigone alone on the Theban plain. It is not often given in a noisy world to come to places of great grief & silence. An absolute, archaic grief possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some historic soul, with her sorrows & the remoteness of a daily life busied with rustic simplicities & the scents of primeval herbs.Characters in Jewett's fiction seem to impose a kind of hermit's existence on themselves. But in walling themselves off from others, I take note that nature is somehow accentuated.
The so-called "rustic simplicities" of rural New England become defining qualities. Thus, Dunnet's Landing could be Grover's Corners or New Bedford or Walden Pond. As expressed by Sarah Jewitt, there is great beauty not just in nature but in self-sufficiency and one's loyalty should be to the seasonally revealing landscapes of coastal Maine, not to one's fellow humans. In fact, there are no children in this novel and no meaningful interactions between men & women in Dunnit's Landing. As Jewitt phrases it in The Country of Pointed Firs:
I came near to making an idle comment to William but was for the most part happily preserved; to be with him only for a short time was to live on a different level where thoughts served best because they were thoughts in common; the primary effects upon our minds of the simple things & beauties that we saw.In reading Jewitt's novel, one remembers Robert Frost's admonition that "Good fences make good neighbors" and his poetic portraits of nature that for the careful observer contain both great beauty and also an occasionally menacing aspect as well.
November 9, 2017
Sarah Orne Jewett was robbed by the patriarchy
November 10, 2018
Been meaning to read this forever so here goes. In her intro Willa Cather says that this book and "The Scarlet Letter" and "Huckleberry Finn" are the three most likely to survive and thrive in the future(i.e NOW). So now I have to re-read "The Scarlet Letter"! Been meaning to anyway. Hated it in high school.
A few words about Ms. Jewett's prose: crystalline, bell-clear, a bit chilly, totally fitting for the times, places and people being described. I have no doubt that E. Annie Proulx has read plenty of Jewett's writing. "The Shipping News" comes readily to mind.
Weird ... I've been in the middle of a health scare recently(including emergency surgery) and it's definitely having an effect on my "attitude" when I'm reading. Reading "The Sheltering Sky," a VERY bleak book, hasn't helped, I suppose, but this book seems kind of strange to me too. In a visual sense it seems very sharp-edged and chilly and I suppose that may be because of my mood, not the author's. The language is beautiful. The world of the Landing seems very remote to me, even though I live in Maine and this story is set not THAT long ago. When I was born(1946) it was 60-70 years ago, but now it's double that. Maybe that's the problem: I'm looking for soft and familiar and heart-warming and that's just not what SOJ is all about.
Moving along in this collection of vignettes about the lives of the locals. The prose is strong, but kind of cold, resembling the native's ways of speaking and strong church-going lifestyles with the danger of the sea thrown in for good measure. A mostly bygone age now.
Still finding that I can't read more than about 20 pages of this at a time. It is boring? Not exactly, but there is NO PLOT AT ALL. The old captain's tale, however, is worthy of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Award.
The Brackett reunion scene is majestic and cinematic. One of the story's themes is how humans deal with the passage of time. Another is loneliness and isolation.
As the "story"(there really isn't one) continues the author casts he net here and there to fill in her portrait of one Maine coastal community and its inhabitants in the late 19th century. The over all effect is very controlled and a bit chilly ...
I'm actually closing on the end of this novella, which occupies the first half of the collection. Last night's reading was excellent as it told the story of the queen(Victoria)'s twin. A pretty darned great little story. One is impressed with the stoicism that the rural folk display in the face of a lot of isolation. Even the village folk seem to keep to themselves a lot. That makes the visitin' and the reunions(there's a lot of that in this book) all the sweeter, though the emotional reserve is still there. I suppose.
I finally finished this last night after months of struggle with my physical and emotional health. I was unable to read much of it while sick(I'm still recovering) as this book seemed to add to my gloom. Great writing, though a bit gloomy(all that isolation!) and chilly. The part about William's wedding was uncompleted at Jewett's death. I don't know who finished it or how.
The first short story is "A White Heron," which I'd read before a few years ago. More perfection ... It also brings to mind the career of Audubon. I remember my dismay when I learned that he'd killed all those birds so he could mount them for painting. Of COURSE he did! How else could he have painted them? No cameras back then.
Next up is "The Flight of Betsey Lane," which is notable for its description of life on a New England poor farm. Betsey's adventure is fun to read, but not notable literature-wise. One does root for her ...
"The Dulham Ladies" - Still keeping to the all women themes. This one is an observational piece, and pretty much as fun as the preceding story.
"Going to Shrewsbury" another happy/sad tale of life for a woman down on her luck in the 19th century. Things turn out pretty well for Mrs. Peet, however. I'm not exactly clear whether the Shrewsbury here is meant to be in England, in which case it's a real place, or if its supposed to be a fictional town in Maine, or if it's supposed to be Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, the town my family was living in when I was born. It's on Worcester's eastern border.
"The Only Rose" - a meditation on the lives of two elderly women of different means. A typical topic for the author.
"Miss Tempy's Watchers" - A mood piece about solitary women. The usual, well executed, of course.
"Martha's Lady" - Very interesting ... a story of female love that stretches over the years and edges up to lesbian in nature.
"The Guests of Mrs. Timms" - a comedy with a slightly bitter social edge. Oh, the social problems telephones solved! That technology would have helped to prevent sour/hurt feelings in this one, but would also have prevented an unexpected gift.
"The Town Poor" - a straightforward look at the plight of women with no one(a man) to provide for them. We've come as long way, but I still throw up my hands at people who want to prevent government to help those in need. In this case, a pair of destitute elderly sisters.
"The Hilton's Holiday" - a trip to town for Dad and the girls. For a change, a man has a prominent role in the story. A good man ...
"Aunt Cynthy Dallett" - this story wraps up the collection and focuses hard on the theme of women getting old in varying financial circumstances. A very neat and subtle twist comes with the the end and the working out of one aging woman's financial straits. She gets her problem solved, but has to yield to the will(in an acceptable way) of a wealthier relative.
A few words about Ms. Jewett's prose: crystalline, bell-clear, a bit chilly, totally fitting for the times, places and people being described. I have no doubt that E. Annie Proulx has read plenty of Jewett's writing. "The Shipping News" comes readily to mind.
Weird ... I've been in the middle of a health scare recently(including emergency surgery) and it's definitely having an effect on my "attitude" when I'm reading. Reading "The Sheltering Sky," a VERY bleak book, hasn't helped, I suppose, but this book seems kind of strange to me too. In a visual sense it seems very sharp-edged and chilly and I suppose that may be because of my mood, not the author's. The language is beautiful. The world of the Landing seems very remote to me, even though I live in Maine and this story is set not THAT long ago. When I was born(1946) it was 60-70 years ago, but now it's double that. Maybe that's the problem: I'm looking for soft and familiar and heart-warming and that's just not what SOJ is all about.
Moving along in this collection of vignettes about the lives of the locals. The prose is strong, but kind of cold, resembling the native's ways of speaking and strong church-going lifestyles with the danger of the sea thrown in for good measure. A mostly bygone age now.
Still finding that I can't read more than about 20 pages of this at a time. It is boring? Not exactly, but there is NO PLOT AT ALL. The old captain's tale, however, is worthy of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Award.
The Brackett reunion scene is majestic and cinematic. One of the story's themes is how humans deal with the passage of time. Another is loneliness and isolation.
As the "story"(there really isn't one) continues the author casts he net here and there to fill in her portrait of one Maine coastal community and its inhabitants in the late 19th century. The over all effect is very controlled and a bit chilly ...
I'm actually closing on the end of this novella, which occupies the first half of the collection. Last night's reading was excellent as it told the story of the queen(Victoria)'s twin. A pretty darned great little story. One is impressed with the stoicism that the rural folk display in the face of a lot of isolation. Even the village folk seem to keep to themselves a lot. That makes the visitin' and the reunions(there's a lot of that in this book) all the sweeter, though the emotional reserve is still there. I suppose.
I finally finished this last night after months of struggle with my physical and emotional health. I was unable to read much of it while sick(I'm still recovering) as this book seemed to add to my gloom. Great writing, though a bit gloomy(all that isolation!) and chilly. The part about William's wedding was uncompleted at Jewett's death. I don't know who finished it or how.
The first short story is "A White Heron," which I'd read before a few years ago. More perfection ... It also brings to mind the career of Audubon. I remember my dismay when I learned that he'd killed all those birds so he could mount them for painting. Of COURSE he did! How else could he have painted them? No cameras back then.
Next up is "The Flight of Betsey Lane," which is notable for its description of life on a New England poor farm. Betsey's adventure is fun to read, but not notable literature-wise. One does root for her ...
"The Dulham Ladies" - Still keeping to the all women themes. This one is an observational piece, and pretty much as fun as the preceding story.
"Going to Shrewsbury" another happy/sad tale of life for a woman down on her luck in the 19th century. Things turn out pretty well for Mrs. Peet, however. I'm not exactly clear whether the Shrewsbury here is meant to be in England, in which case it's a real place, or if its supposed to be a fictional town in Maine, or if it's supposed to be Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, the town my family was living in when I was born. It's on Worcester's eastern border.
"The Only Rose" - a meditation on the lives of two elderly women of different means. A typical topic for the author.
"Miss Tempy's Watchers" - A mood piece about solitary women. The usual, well executed, of course.
"Martha's Lady" - Very interesting ... a story of female love that stretches over the years and edges up to lesbian in nature.
"The Guests of Mrs. Timms" - a comedy with a slightly bitter social edge. Oh, the social problems telephones solved! That technology would have helped to prevent sour/hurt feelings in this one, but would also have prevented an unexpected gift.
"The Town Poor" - a straightforward look at the plight of women with no one(a man) to provide for them. We've come as long way, but I still throw up my hands at people who want to prevent government to help those in need. In this case, a pair of destitute elderly sisters.
"The Hilton's Holiday" - a trip to town for Dad and the girls. For a change, a man has a prominent role in the story. A good man ...
"Aunt Cynthy Dallett" - this story wraps up the collection and focuses hard on the theme of women getting old in varying financial circumstances. A very neat and subtle twist comes with the the end and the working out of one aging woman's financial straits. She gets her problem solved, but has to yield to the will(in an acceptable way) of a wealthier relative.
January 12, 2015
The Country of the Pointed Firs was first published in 1896, when Sarah Orne Jewett was about 47 years old. The only thing I had previously read by Sarah Orne Jewett was “The White Heron,” which seems to be the short story that is always chosen for the anthologies. It is a fine story, but it seems to be a rather limited example of Jewett’s writing, which is otherwise so full of human interactions and details of social life in coastal Maine.
The details are the glory of this book. I learn what it was like to live in another time, and I see fascinating characters portrayed with love and truth, their flaws described with humor rather than judgment.
Here are some examples of details about mundane life that are striking to a modern reader:
-
-
-
Then there are the cute interpersonal insights:
And finally, the philosophical musings that sometimes seem a bit too grand, but still never fail to keep you thinking about things:
In the introduction, the editor says that Willa Cather chose this, when asked, as one of three American novels “deserving of a long, long life,” along with The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. I wonder which authors of our time, 100 years from now, will prove to have captured the world with such sensitivity and thoughtfulness?
The details are the glory of this book. I learn what it was like to live in another time, and I see fascinating characters portrayed with love and truth, their flaws described with humor rather than judgment.
Here are some examples of details about mundane life that are striking to a modern reader:
I found my luncheon ready on the table in the little entry, wrapped in its shining old homespun napkin, and as if by way of special consolation, there was a stone bottle of Mrs. Todd’s best spruce beer, with a long piece of cod line wound round it by which it could be lowered for coolness into the deep schoolhouse well.
-
“Truth is, I’ve been off visitin’; there’s an old Indian footpath leadin’ over towards the Back Shore through the great heron swamp that anybody can’t travel over all summer. You have to seize your time some day just now, while the low ground’s summer-dried as it is to-day, and before the fall rains set in.”
-
“It’s a dreadful long way to go with a horse; you have to go ‘most as far as the old Bowden place an’ turn off to the left, a master long, rough road, and then you have to turn right round as soon as you get there if you mean to get home before nine o’clock at night. But to strike across country from here, there’s plenty o’ time in the shortest day, and you can have a good hour or two’s visit beside; ’tain’t but a very few miles, and it’s pretty all the way along.”
-
“No,” said Mrs. Hand, speaking wistfully,―“no, we never were in the habit of keeping Christmas at our house. Mother died when we were all young; she would have been the one to keep up with all new ideas, but father and grandmother were old-fashioned folks, and―well, you know how ’twas then, Miss Pendexter: nobody took much notice of the day except to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
Then there are the cute interpersonal insights:
“You must have felt very tired,” said I, eagerly listening.
“I was ‘most beat out, with watchin’ an’ tendin’ and all,” answered Mrs. Todd, with as much sympathy in her voice as if she were speaking of another person.
And finally, the philosophical musings that sometimes seem a bit too grand, but still never fail to keep you thinking about things:
More than this one cannot give to a young State for its enlightenment; the sea captains and the captains’ wives of Maine knew something of the wide world, and never mistook their native parishes for the whole instead of a part thereof; they knew not only Thomaston and Castine and Portland, but London and Bristol and Bordeaux, and the strange-mannered harbors of the China Sea.
In the introduction, the editor says that Willa Cather chose this, when asked, as one of three American novels “deserving of a long, long life,” along with The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. I wonder which authors of our time, 100 years from now, will prove to have captured the world with such sensitivity and thoughtfulness?
January 14, 2023
Ms. Jewett gives us a loving picture of life in a small Maine coastal town through the eyes of a Boston writer seeking a quiet place to live and write for the summer. Over the course of the novella and four accompanying stories the narrator develops a deep friendship with her landlady, Mrs. Todd, who is a wise and gentle lady, deeply enmeshed in the culture of her community, but occasionally capable of a strong judgment or a cutting remark. We also get to meet and love Mrs. Todd's remarkable mother who is in her 80s but takes care of herself on a nearby island with only Mrs. Todd's charming but pathologically shy brother William for company. It's impossible to fail to fall in love with the many eccentric characters of this town that has declined since the times when every man went to sea whaling or trading and brought back goods and knowledge from around the world. The old retired captains are still there and as are the farmers who scrabble out a living from the stony Maine soil. The narrator has a distinctive female point of view that allows her to develop a rapport with Mrs. Todd, which she is able to share in turn with the reader. The whole thing was beautiful and transported me to another world that sadly no longer exists.
September 14, 2012
1. The Return
There was something about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of Eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching...
Like the unnamed narrator of The Country of Pointed Firs, I also felt a gentle happiness at my return to Dunnet Landing in my second reading of this book. How I love its quiet serenity. On the surface, it, like Cranford, is about a town full of dear old ladies whose greatest pleasure it is to go about visiting each other. Their worn faces are often lighting up beautifully with affection and simple pleasure. Yet woven throughout the book are hints of loneliness and melancholy, which are bracing as the sea-air, and which keep it from being at all cloying or twee.
Speaking of that sea-air:
The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm sunshiny air was of some ethereal Northern sort, with a cool freshness as if it came over new fallen snow. The world was filled with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor.
To read this prose it to be refreshed.
I used to own an 1896 first edition of this novel, but I didn't keep it. This unpretentious (and now vintage in its own right) 1950s Anchor paperback seems to suit it best.
There was something about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of Eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching...
Like the unnamed narrator of The Country of Pointed Firs, I also felt a gentle happiness at my return to Dunnet Landing in my second reading of this book. How I love its quiet serenity. On the surface, it, like Cranford, is about a town full of dear old ladies whose greatest pleasure it is to go about visiting each other. Their worn faces are often lighting up beautifully with affection and simple pleasure. Yet woven throughout the book are hints of loneliness and melancholy, which are bracing as the sea-air, and which keep it from being at all cloying or twee.
Speaking of that sea-air:
The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm sunshiny air was of some ethereal Northern sort, with a cool freshness as if it came over new fallen snow. The world was filled with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor.
To read this prose it to be refreshed.
I used to own an 1896 first edition of this novel, but I didn't keep it. This unpretentious (and now vintage in its own right) 1950s Anchor paperback seems to suit it best.
October 5, 2019
THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS (1896) is neither a novel nor a collection of short stories, but rather a series of linked sketches set on a fictional Maine seaport town called Dunnet Landing.
The author has a quietly evocative writing style which paints a portrait of a disappearing way of life. Nothing much happens: just everyday events, and the memories of the joys as well as the inevitable losses and hardships experienced by the people (mostly old women) living in Maine’s coastal fishing villages.
It is a tale of a summer spent in a peaceful nook of the Maine coast, away from the currents of tourist travel. The author’s writing is so pleasant and unaffected that you do not really suspect how mesmerizing her storytelling is.
Jewett was Willa Cather's friend and mentor. Several years after Jewett's death Cather stated:
“If I were asked to name three American books which have the possibility of a long, long, life, I should say at once: The Scarlett Letter, Huckleberry Finn, and The Country of the Pointed Firs. I think of no others that confront time and change so serenely.The last book seems to me fairly to shine with reflection of its long joyous future.”
THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS is a book unlike any other. Cather's recommendation made me read it and I was absolutely beguiled by its gentle and observant narrator. I can see why she thought it was a masterpiece. A delightful book.
The author has a quietly evocative writing style which paints a portrait of a disappearing way of life. Nothing much happens: just everyday events, and the memories of the joys as well as the inevitable losses and hardships experienced by the people (mostly old women) living in Maine’s coastal fishing villages.
It is a tale of a summer spent in a peaceful nook of the Maine coast, away from the currents of tourist travel. The author’s writing is so pleasant and unaffected that you do not really suspect how mesmerizing her storytelling is.
Jewett was Willa Cather's friend and mentor. Several years after Jewett's death Cather stated:
“If I were asked to name three American books which have the possibility of a long, long, life, I should say at once: The Scarlett Letter, Huckleberry Finn, and The Country of the Pointed Firs. I think of no others that confront time and change so serenely.The last book seems to me fairly to shine with reflection of its long joyous future.”
THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS is a book unlike any other. Cather's recommendation made me read it and I was absolutely beguiled by its gentle and observant narrator. I can see why she thought it was a masterpiece. A delightful book.
July 21, 2009
I have just rediscovered a favorite old author.
One of the antique books from the 1800's sitting on my bookshelf is a collection of Sarah's short stories, and I love every one of them.
The setting for many of these stories is coastal Maine, and so the pull of the sea and the old village way of life is very strong in them.
I'm charmed with her language from the past and the postcard view of a simpler time long gone, when Nature spoke and pies were the solution to the world's problems, when Watchers stayed with the dead all night long, and everyday life could provide more than enough material to create a book full of stories.
Heading to my old wooden rocker on the front porch now ...to read "A Dunnet Shepherdess."
One of the antique books from the 1800's sitting on my bookshelf is a collection of Sarah's short stories, and I love every one of them.
The setting for many of these stories is coastal Maine, and so the pull of the sea and the old village way of life is very strong in them.
I'm charmed with her language from the past and the postcard view of a simpler time long gone, when Nature spoke and pies were the solution to the world's problems, when Watchers stayed with the dead all night long, and everyday life could provide more than enough material to create a book full of stories.
Heading to my old wooden rocker on the front porch now ...to read "A Dunnet Shepherdess."
March 20, 2015
This is classically prosed dialect as spoken in a certain mid-summer place and time. It is exquisite. The locale is late nineteenth century into earliest 1900's Maine coastal town- and the web of islands that surround its rocky shores. Surroundings are detailed to form and purpose and entwined within its occupants' mood. The characterizations of these elder women, the visitor and some of the sea-faring men who visit come completely alive. Beautiful read.
February 8, 2008
Recommended to me by my daughter, this book is just a literary masterpiece. I will never know why I had to read Ivanhoe in high school instead of something like this. I never knew this author existed. Jewett's use of language just sets a standard few authors have ever mastered. I just loved it.
February 6, 2019
Sublime. Recommended for cold, quiet nights.... near a window... with a hot tea.
October 16, 2024
#BookReview – The Country of the Pointed Firs and other stories by Sarah Orne Jewett
After reading Sarah Orne Jewett's 'A Country Doctor', I decided to read another book by her, 'The Country of the Pointed Firs'.
'The Country of Pointed Firs' is a short novel at around 130 pages. The story is set in a coastal town in Maine called Dunnet Landing. Our unnamed narrator is a woman who is a writer. She comes to this town during summer to spend time writing. She stays at the place of a person called Mrs.Todds. What happens to our narrator during the course of the summer, the different fascinating people she meets, and the interesting experiences she has forms the rest of the story.
'The Country of Pointed Firs' doesn't feel like one continuous novel with an overarching plot, but it feels like a collection of anecdotes. It made me remember Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book' and Ray Bradbury's 'Dandelion Wine' which have a similar structure. It also made me remember Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece, 'Up in the Old Hotel', which was his love letter to the New York of a bygone era, and which is also a collection of anecdotes. Sarah Orne Jewett's book came out in 1896, much before these other ones. It makes one think how much of a risk she must have taken during those times, publishing a novel like this, with such an unusual structure. Novels of that era had a clear overarching plot with a beginning, middle, and an end, and a book like this which calls itself a novel, but feels like a collection of anecdotes, must have been unheard of. It is a pioneering book. It is regarded as Sarah Orne Jewett's finest work, and I can understand why.
The narrator and Mrs.Todd are part of most of the anecdotes in the book, and there is one character who stars in each of those anecdotes. My favourites out of those characters were Joanna, who after a heartbreak, moves to an island and lives there alone and doesn't talk to anyone, Mrs.Blackett, Mrs.Todd's mom, who lives in an island with her grown-up son, William, Mrs.Todd's brother, and Elijah Tilley, an old fisherman, who knows everything there is to be known about the sea and fishing, and who doesn't talk much. I also loved Esther the schoolteacher who becomes a shepherdess, and Captain Tolland's wife. These two characters come in the other stories in the book.
There are four other related stories in the book – A Dunnet Shepherdess, The Foreigner, The Queen's Twin, William's Wedding. They are shorter and they have the same two main characters, our unnamed narrator and Mrs.Todd. I loved them too. They could have been easily reworked into the main story, because they fit in there naturally. I don't know why they exist as separate stories.
I loved 'The Country of the Pointed Firs and other stories'. The depiction of a fictional coastal town in the Maine of the 19th century, and its people and culture and their way of speaking and their way of life, is so beautifully done. The characters in the stories are beautiful and charming. Mrs.Todd is a wonderful character and I loved her presence throughout the book. Joanna's story was heartbreaking. When the narrator and Mrs.Todd part at the end of the summer, that scene is very moving and it made me cry. I'm hoping to read more of Sarah Orne Jewett's stories.
Sharing some of my favourite parts from the book.
#Quote1
"When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair."
#Quote2
"It is very rare in country life, where high days and holidays are few, that any occasion of general interest proves to be less than great. Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England nature that, once given an outlet, it shines forth with almost volcanic light and heat. In quiet neighborhoods such inward force does not waste itself upon those petty excitements of every day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires break through the granite dust in which our souls are set. Each heart is warm and every face shines with the ancient light. Such a day as this has transfiguring powers, and easily makes friends of those who have been cold-hearted, and gives to those who are dumb their chance to speak, and lends some beauty to the plainest face."
#Quote3
"The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these old friends had been. There were enough young persons at the reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their comrades – the time of separation has not come. To see the joy with which these elder kinsfolk and acquaintances had looked in one another's faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was possible to live in that after all thinly settled region. They did not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place, especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without their social advantages and satisfactions. I heard the words "next summer" repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all the leaves were green."
#Quote4
"At first he had seemed to be one of those evasive and uncomfortable persons who are so suspicious of you that they make you almost suspicious of yourself. Mr. Elijah Tilley appeared to regard a stranger with scornful indifference. You might see him standing on the pebble beach or in a fishhouse doorway, but when you came nearer he was gone. He was one of the small company of elderly, gaunt-shaped great fishermen whom I used to like to see leading up a deep-laden boat by the head, as if it were a horse, from the water's edge to the steep slope of the pebble beach. There were four of these large old men at the Landing, who were the survivors of an earlier and more vigorous generation. There was an alliance and understanding between them, so close that it was apparently speechless. They gave much time to watching one another's boats go out or come in; they lent a ready hand at tending one another's lobster traps in rough weather; they helped to clean the fish, or to sliver porgies for the trawls, as if they were in close partnership; and when a boat came in from deep-sea fishing they were never far out of the way, and hastened to help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing alongside, or holding its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt. As a matter of fact no boat could help being steady and waywise under their instant direction and companionship. Abel's boat and Jonathan Bowden's boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the men themselves, and as inexpressive. Arguments and opinions were unknown to the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as soon have expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as to hear old Mr. Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste breath upon any form of trivial gossip. They made brief statements to one another from time to time. As you came to know them you wondered more and more that they should talk at all. Speech seemed to be a light and elegant accomplishment, and now their unexpected acquaintance with its arts made them of new value to the listener. You felt almost as if a landmark pine should suddenly address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded old camel make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the circus tent.
I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought of these self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be fixed upon nature and the elements rather than upon any contrivances of man, like politics or theology. My friend, Captain Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest of this group, regarded them with deference; but he did not belong to their secret companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.
"They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know most everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once. "They was always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man.""
#Quote5
"The days were few then at Dunnet Landing, and I let each of them slip away unwillingly as a miser spends his coins. I wished to have one of my first weeks back again, with those long hours when nothing happened except the growth of herbs and the course of the sun. Once I had not even known where to go for a walk; now there were many delightful things to be done and done again, as if I were in London. I felt hurried and full of pleasant engagements, and the days flew by like a handful of flowers flung to the sea wind."
Have you read 'The Country of Pointed Firs'? What do you think about it?
After reading Sarah Orne Jewett's 'A Country Doctor', I decided to read another book by her, 'The Country of the Pointed Firs'.
'The Country of Pointed Firs' is a short novel at around 130 pages. The story is set in a coastal town in Maine called Dunnet Landing. Our unnamed narrator is a woman who is a writer. She comes to this town during summer to spend time writing. She stays at the place of a person called Mrs.Todds. What happens to our narrator during the course of the summer, the different fascinating people she meets, and the interesting experiences she has forms the rest of the story.
'The Country of Pointed Firs' doesn't feel like one continuous novel with an overarching plot, but it feels like a collection of anecdotes. It made me remember Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book' and Ray Bradbury's 'Dandelion Wine' which have a similar structure. It also made me remember Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece, 'Up in the Old Hotel', which was his love letter to the New York of a bygone era, and which is also a collection of anecdotes. Sarah Orne Jewett's book came out in 1896, much before these other ones. It makes one think how much of a risk she must have taken during those times, publishing a novel like this, with such an unusual structure. Novels of that era had a clear overarching plot with a beginning, middle, and an end, and a book like this which calls itself a novel, but feels like a collection of anecdotes, must have been unheard of. It is a pioneering book. It is regarded as Sarah Orne Jewett's finest work, and I can understand why.
The narrator and Mrs.Todd are part of most of the anecdotes in the book, and there is one character who stars in each of those anecdotes. My favourites out of those characters were Joanna, who after a heartbreak, moves to an island and lives there alone and doesn't talk to anyone, Mrs.Blackett, Mrs.Todd's mom, who lives in an island with her grown-up son, William, Mrs.Todd's brother, and Elijah Tilley, an old fisherman, who knows everything there is to be known about the sea and fishing, and who doesn't talk much. I also loved Esther the schoolteacher who becomes a shepherdess, and Captain Tolland's wife. These two characters come in the other stories in the book.
There are four other related stories in the book – A Dunnet Shepherdess, The Foreigner, The Queen's Twin, William's Wedding. They are shorter and they have the same two main characters, our unnamed narrator and Mrs.Todd. I loved them too. They could have been easily reworked into the main story, because they fit in there naturally. I don't know why they exist as separate stories.
I loved 'The Country of the Pointed Firs and other stories'. The depiction of a fictional coastal town in the Maine of the 19th century, and its people and culture and their way of speaking and their way of life, is so beautifully done. The characters in the stories are beautiful and charming. Mrs.Todd is a wonderful character and I loved her presence throughout the book. Joanna's story was heartbreaking. When the narrator and Mrs.Todd part at the end of the summer, that scene is very moving and it made me cry. I'm hoping to read more of Sarah Orne Jewett's stories.
Sharing some of my favourite parts from the book.
#Quote1
"When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair."
#Quote2
"It is very rare in country life, where high days and holidays are few, that any occasion of general interest proves to be less than great. Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England nature that, once given an outlet, it shines forth with almost volcanic light and heat. In quiet neighborhoods such inward force does not waste itself upon those petty excitements of every day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires break through the granite dust in which our souls are set. Each heart is warm and every face shines with the ancient light. Such a day as this has transfiguring powers, and easily makes friends of those who have been cold-hearted, and gives to those who are dumb their chance to speak, and lends some beauty to the plainest face."
#Quote3
"The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these old friends had been. There were enough young persons at the reunion, but it is the old who really value such opportunities; as for the young, it is the habit of every day to meet their comrades – the time of separation has not come. To see the joy with which these elder kinsfolk and acquaintances had looked in one another's faces, and the lingering touch of their friendly hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the reluctant partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was possible to live in that after all thinly settled region. They did not expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard work on the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place, especially in winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to any occasion which could bring a large number of families together. Even funerals in this country of the pointed firs were not without their social advantages and satisfactions. I heard the words "next summer" repeated many times, though summer was still ours and all the leaves were green."
#Quote4
"At first he had seemed to be one of those evasive and uncomfortable persons who are so suspicious of you that they make you almost suspicious of yourself. Mr. Elijah Tilley appeared to regard a stranger with scornful indifference. You might see him standing on the pebble beach or in a fishhouse doorway, but when you came nearer he was gone. He was one of the small company of elderly, gaunt-shaped great fishermen whom I used to like to see leading up a deep-laden boat by the head, as if it were a horse, from the water's edge to the steep slope of the pebble beach. There were four of these large old men at the Landing, who were the survivors of an earlier and more vigorous generation. There was an alliance and understanding between them, so close that it was apparently speechless. They gave much time to watching one another's boats go out or come in; they lent a ready hand at tending one another's lobster traps in rough weather; they helped to clean the fish, or to sliver porgies for the trawls, as if they were in close partnership; and when a boat came in from deep-sea fishing they were never far out of the way, and hastened to help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing alongside, or holding its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt. As a matter of fact no boat could help being steady and waywise under their instant direction and companionship. Abel's boat and Jonathan Bowden's boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the men themselves, and as inexpressive. Arguments and opinions were unknown to the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as soon have expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as to hear old Mr. Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste breath upon any form of trivial gossip. They made brief statements to one another from time to time. As you came to know them you wondered more and more that they should talk at all. Speech seemed to be a light and elegant accomplishment, and now their unexpected acquaintance with its arts made them of new value to the listener. You felt almost as if a landmark pine should suddenly address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded old camel make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the circus tent.
I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought of these self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be fixed upon nature and the elements rather than upon any contrivances of man, like politics or theology. My friend, Captain Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest of this group, regarded them with deference; but he did not belong to their secret companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.
"They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know most everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once. "They was always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man.""
#Quote5
"The days were few then at Dunnet Landing, and I let each of them slip away unwillingly as a miser spends his coins. I wished to have one of my first weeks back again, with those long hours when nothing happened except the growth of herbs and the course of the sun. Once I had not even known where to go for a walk; now there were many delightful things to be done and done again, as if I were in London. I felt hurried and full of pleasant engagements, and the days flew by like a handful of flowers flung to the sea wind."
Have you read 'The Country of Pointed Firs'? What do you think about it?
July 13, 2016
I completed my annual re-read of Country of the Pointed Firs more in love with it and my native New England than ever. So much so that I did something I had (for some inexplicable reason) not yet done. I continued on and read the titular "Other Stories."
There is something happening in Jewett's writing that borders on perfection. And I don't mean that hyperbolically. Her slice of small town life is not for every occasion, I'll admit it. If you're in the mood for a thriller or something wrought with high drama, this would not be the ideal book to read. But Country seems to be something I never thought I would encounter. It's as universal a book as I think I'm ever likely to read.
Precise and ethereal all at once, there's something altogether spiritual, like an underground river, flowing through each quiet vignette. Jewett's immense love and dedication to her home radiates like scattered sunlight through every paragraph. Another goodreads reviewer, Emily, wrote that "To read this prose it to be refreshed." There is no better, more succinct way of putting it.
The portrait Jewett paints in Country is gorgeous when you are just standing back, considering the whole. But when you get in close to look at her brush strokes, you can truly see how exquisite and exacting her technique. Dialog sings, descriptions snap. Often authors tend to lean into one or the other, depending on their strengths and preferences. Country is in perfect balance, the effect of which is utter harmony.
Critics will probably say this book is too slow. Or that nothing happens, outside of a bunch of women and a few men talking to one another. These are true statements after a fashion, but I would hazard a guess that at some point in everyone's life we each need a slow moment. We need to hear the unhurried sound of authentic people living connected lives, connected to each other and connected to the ground beneath them. Anyone who feels that need and manages to find their way to this book...let's just say I'm almost jealous of them for the experience they're about to have.
There is something happening in Jewett's writing that borders on perfection. And I don't mean that hyperbolically. Her slice of small town life is not for every occasion, I'll admit it. If you're in the mood for a thriller or something wrought with high drama, this would not be the ideal book to read. But Country seems to be something I never thought I would encounter. It's as universal a book as I think I'm ever likely to read.
Precise and ethereal all at once, there's something altogether spiritual, like an underground river, flowing through each quiet vignette. Jewett's immense love and dedication to her home radiates like scattered sunlight through every paragraph. Another goodreads reviewer, Emily, wrote that "To read this prose it to be refreshed." There is no better, more succinct way of putting it.
The portrait Jewett paints in Country is gorgeous when you are just standing back, considering the whole. But when you get in close to look at her brush strokes, you can truly see how exquisite and exacting her technique. Dialog sings, descriptions snap. Often authors tend to lean into one or the other, depending on their strengths and preferences. Country is in perfect balance, the effect of which is utter harmony.
Critics will probably say this book is too slow. Or that nothing happens, outside of a bunch of women and a few men talking to one another. These are true statements after a fashion, but I would hazard a guess that at some point in everyone's life we each need a slow moment. We need to hear the unhurried sound of authentic people living connected lives, connected to each other and connected to the ground beneath them. Anyone who feels that need and manages to find their way to this book...let's just say I'm almost jealous of them for the experience they're about to have.
January 11, 2019
We never know the name of the narrator of the 1896 novel, and we learn very little about her. She is a writer who apparently comes to the town of Dunnet's Landing, Maine, for some peace and quiet to concentrate on her writing. She seems to be in early middle-age, younger than most of the women she writes about, and she must have means because she has travelled a lot. But, primarily, she is a conduit for the stories of the residents of Dunnet's Landing: mostly middle-aged and elderly women.
The book is slow-paced and light on action and plot, not my usual cup of tea. It is chiefly a portrait of a town and its inhabitants at a point in time. The back story of Dunnet’s Landing is that it was the home of sea captains. Most of them have been lost at sea or are otherwise dead, so the town is very much the home of elderly women who are the widows and daughters of sea captains and sailors. They live lives of quiet dignity. They are supremely self-sufficient, so this is somewhat a feminist novel way before its time. Much emphasis is placed on the traditionally-female strength of relationship-building. The women have warm friendships, even with relatives and friends whom they seldom see (two main characters live on islands off the coast and a few others live in the rural areas outside Dunnet’s Landing). They are generous with each other, sometimes in ways that they can’t really afford. Life in a fading seaport is lived very close to the bone.
I didn’t absolutely love this book because of the slow pace and lack of strong action. But I liked that Jewett chose elderly women as her subject matter and portrayed them so beautifully, with no condescension whatsoever.
If you read this book, be sure to get an edition that includes not just the novella Country of the Pointed Firs, but also the additional Dunnet’s Landng stories. The extra stories are really worth reading.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
Author of The Saint's Mistress: https://www.bing.com/search?q=amazon....
The book is slow-paced and light on action and plot, not my usual cup of tea. It is chiefly a portrait of a town and its inhabitants at a point in time. The back story of Dunnet’s Landing is that it was the home of sea captains. Most of them have been lost at sea or are otherwise dead, so the town is very much the home of elderly women who are the widows and daughters of sea captains and sailors. They live lives of quiet dignity. They are supremely self-sufficient, so this is somewhat a feminist novel way before its time. Much emphasis is placed on the traditionally-female strength of relationship-building. The women have warm friendships, even with relatives and friends whom they seldom see (two main characters live on islands off the coast and a few others live in the rural areas outside Dunnet’s Landing). They are generous with each other, sometimes in ways that they can’t really afford. Life in a fading seaport is lived very close to the bone.
I didn’t absolutely love this book because of the slow pace and lack of strong action. But I liked that Jewett chose elderly women as her subject matter and portrayed them so beautifully, with no condescension whatsoever.
If you read this book, be sure to get an edition that includes not just the novella Country of the Pointed Firs, but also the additional Dunnet’s Landng stories. The extra stories are really worth reading.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
Author of The Saint's Mistress: https://www.bing.com/search?q=amazon....
October 14, 2020
One night, I started "The Country of the Pointed Firs" about thirty minutes before going to bed, which wasn't a great idea because this isn't the kind of book that'll grab your attention right away (at least not for me). I kept picking it up and putting it down over the course of a few days, frustrated because I read such positive reviews and it wasn't pulling me in. I almost gave up after the 50 page mark, but finally it all clicked. Thank Gawd!
This book took time. I didn't want to finish it too quickly at first, and then I didn't want to finish it at all. I could've easily read 300 more pages of Mrs. Todd's stories alone. The descriptions of Dunnet Landing, and the sea, and the islands, and the summer - you could feel everything. Jewett's descriptions of nature are remarkable. I kept thinking about how, off the top of my head, Thomas Hardy, for instance, describes a forest or a meadow like he's describing a painting of that forest or meadow, but Jewett describes the forest she's actually standing in. I was literally there with her.
I loved how much of the book was dialogue, and I loved the old Maine dialect used (which slowed me down at first). I loved how most of the characters were women, and I loved the book's simplicity. No major dramas, no outlandish plot twists, nothing insanely shocking or horrific or sappy. The way it handled death, and getting old, and the solitude of living in a rural area - many passages made me teary eyed and gave me goosebumps because I'm reading it and I'm just like, "Oh my God... THIS IS TOO PURE." It was just so real, and timeless.
I know it sounds a little crazy but after I finish a book I really love, I feel bad putting it back on the shelf too soon so I sleep with it in bed.
Okay, I think that's how I'll end this review.
This book took time. I didn't want to finish it too quickly at first, and then I didn't want to finish it at all. I could've easily read 300 more pages of Mrs. Todd's stories alone. The descriptions of Dunnet Landing, and the sea, and the islands, and the summer - you could feel everything. Jewett's descriptions of nature are remarkable. I kept thinking about how, off the top of my head, Thomas Hardy, for instance, describes a forest or a meadow like he's describing a painting of that forest or meadow, but Jewett describes the forest she's actually standing in. I was literally there with her.
I loved how much of the book was dialogue, and I loved the old Maine dialect used (which slowed me down at first). I loved how most of the characters were women, and I loved the book's simplicity. No major dramas, no outlandish plot twists, nothing insanely shocking or horrific or sappy. The way it handled death, and getting old, and the solitude of living in a rural area - many passages made me teary eyed and gave me goosebumps because I'm reading it and I'm just like, "Oh my God... THIS IS TOO PURE." It was just so real, and timeless.
I know it sounds a little crazy but after I finish a book I really love, I feel bad putting it back on the shelf too soon so I sleep with it in bed.
Okay, I think that's how I'll end this review.
September 18, 2024
Loved the portraits in this! Slow and funny and sad all at once. My kind of book.
August 28, 2010
Sarah Orne Jewett was a woman profoundly admired by the young Willa Cather; and, in fact, Jewett told Cather (paraphrasing) 'to stop writing like Henry James, and just tell the story.' Cather was so affected by Jewett's influence that she dedicated her 1913 novel, "O' Pioneers" to Jewett. This collection of Jewett's short stories is magnificent; they are a quiet, pastoral, lovely and idyllic look at a small slice of Americana in a small Maine sea-side village at the end of the 19th century, and told from the perspective of an unnamed female narrator. Each of these unpretentious little stories just has the feel of something that your grandmother, or great-aunt, would have told you over a bowl of blueberries and cream. Cather included Jewett's writing in with Nathanial Hawthorne's and Mark Twain's as some of of America's most timeless fiction. High praise indeed!
If you take a trip to Maine and visit the coastal regions or Acadia National Park, tuck a copy of this collection in your backpack. Sit on a granite boulder under the fir trees overlooking the Atlantic and have a nice quiet visit with Sarah Orne Jewett. You'll be glad that you did!
If you take a trip to Maine and visit the coastal regions or Acadia National Park, tuck a copy of this collection in your backpack. Sit on a granite boulder under the fir trees overlooking the Atlantic and have a nice quiet visit with Sarah Orne Jewett. You'll be glad that you did!
February 23, 2016
Written in 1896 (the year after my grandmother was born, this book made me think so much of my own life and family. I was continually distracted as I made comparison after comparison of life in a small rural community where all such small towns run together. It just made me think of the simpler time of my own life - back when there were noo computers, no pagers, no cellphones ringing all the time. We had one phone (and the number was always something like Oxford 2-3462) and a black and white TV with 3 channels. (A really big day when we got a color set.) People talked to each other, they visited, they knew their neighbors. We don't do that anymore - we're too busy living our own lives within our own houses. I think it's sad sometimes and that's why I loved the book. Sometimes nostalgia can be truly sappy but this seemed real to me. I think this is why the book appeals to people - the nostalgic look at the town and its residents rings true, touches our hearts, and reminds us of the early days of not only our own lives, but the lives of those precious people now gone from us.
September 10, 2016
What a wonderful book. I had this as my summer reading on days when I ate lunch by myself. It's a book that's best read slowly. The narrator for the main story is a woman who has come to a small Maine village for the summer to do some writing. The village was home to many sailors, but that way of life is changing, as most of the older men are retired and the younger men have moved away. The way of life is slower than the city so we as readers take our time to learn about the people of the town. The narrator visits, sometimes with her landlady, and learns about the lives of folks. There are some retired seamen, some widows, and the odd soul who lives apart from the town because that's the way it is. The portraits of the inhabitants are thoughtful, detailed, and engaging. Not a lot happens, but one feels like one has taken a vacation to the small town as well. Highly recommended.
July 31, 2010
A nice, little known American classic. I've been meaning to read this for years, and I'm glad I did, although it wasn't quite a good as I had hoped for.
It wasn't always an easy book to read, IMO, but the character studies and sense of place were beautifully drawn by Jewett, with some real food for thought to mull over and savor.
This collection of loosely woven story vignettes will likely bore a reader craving plot and action. However, if you're in the mood to cerebrally explore a small Maine coastal village around the turn of the century, and read about some interesting and endearing characters, I recommend The Country of the Pointed Firs for a nice, gentle read.
It wasn't always an easy book to read, IMO, but the character studies and sense of place were beautifully drawn by Jewett, with some real food for thought to mull over and savor.
This collection of loosely woven story vignettes will likely bore a reader craving plot and action. However, if you're in the mood to cerebrally explore a small Maine coastal village around the turn of the century, and read about some interesting and endearing characters, I recommend The Country of the Pointed Firs for a nice, gentle read.
September 28, 2017
4.5 stars. The Country of the Pointed Firs itself was a solid 5 for me, but most of the short stories were more like a 4. My favorites of the short stories were "A Native of Winby," "Decoration Day," "The Flight of Betsey Lane," and "The Hiltons' Holiday."
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