BOOK: The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, 140 pages

Life is busy in the 21st century. Much of it is our own making, but that's how we live. We need information now; can't wait 10 seconds for the page to load; too long, didn't read; kids going in different directions. I just seem to go, go, go. Go, dog, go! Reading is a way to slow things down, but I often read mysteries, or thrillers. Books that engage me and have me frantically turning pages so I don't fall asleep, because if I stop, I might fall asleep. However,  as I read The Country of the Pointed Firs, this small, charming book, I could feel my body slow down and my brain slow down as I adjusted to life as told in small tales from a 19th century fishing village on the shores of Maine.

There isn't much to this story, not really a plot, just collected stories from the unnamed narrator as she spends a summer in Dunnett Landing, meeting friends and family of her landlady.  There is herb gathering, family reunions, and boat trips for the day - depending on the wind direction. There are stories from sea-faring days, and even laments of how life is changing by the end of the 1800s. But overall, there is a peacefulness, and calm that comes with Mrs Todd and the stories related in this quiet book. I'm so delighted to have discovered this gem.

on entertaining:

Tact is after all a kind of mindreading, and my hostess held the golden gift. p59

on old friends:

There, it does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that know what you know. Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out. p73

on life near an ocean:
[The view] 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. p58 


also reviewed: Eva at a striped armchair; JoAnn at lakeside musings wrote about the author;