What I expected from a Wendell Berry novel is not what I’ve experienced. I presumed that we’d find in Port William a Christian town whose characters are, albeit imperfect, nonetheless shimmering with admirableness.

A Place on Earth (2001; rev. ed.) provides no such reassurances. The characters are indeed “twisted timber” but with two dominant features. One is a quiet solemnity mixed with the deep ache of lonesomeness; the other an understated care that we might as well call “love.”

What’s beautiful about life in Port William is not heroism or glorious virtue or, of course, great successes. It’s, rather, the acceptance with which one grants another his place or his due. So far (my wife and I haven’t finished reading it yet), no one readily pushes another aside; no one wishes for this one to be different, better somehow. Acceptance is offered just as readily as a helping hand, and neither involves making a big deal of what has just transpired. This unwillingness to make what happened a big deal we could term “humility.”

Usually, people keep showing up for one another, keep being together in all their imperfections, while embracing this togetherness without making a fuss of it. There is beauty–solemn, sometimes somber, but either way laced with sweetness–in this. There is, in fact, as much beauty as there is earthly–I mean: earthy–love.