But I don't want to drive on biofuel.

Normally the "let's go back to the land" books annoy the crap out of me. Take Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. It's not that I disagree with her idea that all of us should try to live and eat more locally. I'm down with that. I just didn't happen to enjoy Kingsolver's overbearing, self-righteous, and completely humorless take on the subject.*

So why do I keep reading these sorts of books? I don't know. Maybe because when I find one I like it's such a pleasant surprise? Such was the case with Doug Fine's Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living. Fine, a writer and journalist, buys a ranch in New Mexico and sets about trying to live his life off the grid. Unlike most of these books, he does it in a rather funny way. Take his goals for the year:

"1. Use a lot less oil. 2. Power my life by renewable energy. 3. Eat as locally as possible. 4.Don't Starve, electrocute myself, get eaten by the local mountain lions, get shot by my UN-fearing neighbors, or otherwise die in a way that would cause embarrassment if the obituary writer did his or her research." (p. 4.)

Now THAT is the proper attitude toward going back to the land. In various chapters Fine outlines how he learned to drive on used fry oil, hooking up solar panels on his house (another plus: he admits that the batteries used in solar energy systems are themselves environmental nightmares--that's nice and honest, for a change), raising a couple of goats, and trying to keep the coyotes from his chickens.

So yeah, thumbs up on this one. Although I must admit, part of it also made me sad. Me? I came from the farm. I don't really want to go back to the farm. There was a lot of hard work there. And biofuels? With my bad luck in cars I can barely keep a vehicle running on normal gas, much less biofuels. Can't I just drive less and call it even? 

*Wow, did that feel good to say out loud.

Comments

[lolly]

Funny - I had the opposite reaction. I loved Kingsolver's cozy descriptions and the snippets by family members, while the overall tone of Fine's book was like a surfer-boy describing life and his ex-girlfriend. I didn't last long with that book... so in truth, I didn't see how it ended. Maybe it got better after I put it down? :)

[Citizen Reader]

No, Lolly, I think you're actually probably right on. (The snippets about the women in his life were not my favorite parts of the Fine book either.) I've never been much of a fan of cozy myself, and "cozy" is probably a better word than mine ("self-righteous"). Interestingly enough, I've always skewed a bit more "boy" in terms of humor and writing, which may explain why often (but not always) I prefer male authors. Hm.

Also? The Fine book ended much the same way it began, so you probably did the right thing in letting it go. To each their own!

[heidi]

Theory: Barbara Kingsolver negotiated a contract with her publisher that pays her by the word. I read all of The Poisonwood Bible and at the end, all I could think, was, "That was so not worth it."

[laura]

The think that irked me about Kingsolver's book was how easy everything seemed to be for them. No crop failures, no insect blights, no blood and guts--hell, they barely even seemed to weed! My limited knowledge of farm life suggests that it is rife with all of the above, and leaving it all out seems a bit disingenuous.

[The Laundress]

Hurm...

so I really do like Barbara Kingsolver. Especially "Prodigal Summer" but also "Poisonwood Bible". Really. But I couldn't finish "Animal, Vegetable, etc." even though I tried. Three times. I will never read it.

(You sure that wasn't Barbara Ehrenreich who inked the pay-by-the-word deal, heidi? Her books are shorter but she pops 'em out more frequently.)

Anxious to try "Farewell, My Subaru" -- most intriguing review, Citizen Reader, plus he gets major points for a fine title and excellent cover art.
tl

[Citizen Reader]

Heidi, Laundress:
I of course should reserve judgment on Kingsolver, as I have never read her fiction. Just never appealed, but perhaps I will try Prodigal Summer. (Although, Heidi, authors paid by the word are typically not my favorites. I also do not like to feel like I've wasted an untoward amount of time!)

[Citizen Reader]

Laura,
So many things annoyed me about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I didn't know where to start. But your point about "too easy" was well made. Who has that kind of saintly teenage daughter, by the way, who's up for local food experiments and putting food up with her family. (I was the nerdiest, saintliest, teenager there was, whose mom was my best friend, and even I didn't want to spend my summers canning food with mom.) Also, I would think it's a lot easier to go back to the farm after the financial security that is writing an Oprah book. As far as I can tell the best way to go back to a farmette is with massive amounts of other financial safety nets.

Although, in all fairness, I wondered how Doug Fine was financing his land too. Must have squirreled some money away from his journalism career, I guess. I still say that Jeanne Marie Laskas's book Fifty Acres and a Poodle is the most enjoyable of these types of books, maybe because it's not about "sustainability" as such.