Book Review: Gene Everlasting

I have been a fan of Gene Logsdon since I first discovered him in the summer of 2000 in his book The Contrary Farmer.  At the time, we had just purchased a home and I was in the process of establishing a garden and working on some early concepts with The Ranch.  Suddenly I found someone who spoke what I was thinking, who did so with thought and a rather sharp pen, who held politicians and large corporations in equal distain, and who actually practiced what he preached in that he moved back to his childhood home (literally) and proved that one could make a sustainable living of sorts on a small farm.  I have over 70 books on agriculture in that part of my library; Logsdon's books are at least 20% of them.

Logsdon passed away in 2016 (his last book, Letters to A Young Farmer, was reviewed here), but that was not the first time he faced his mortality.  The first was in 2012, when he was diagnosed with cancer.  The book to be discussed, Gene Everlasting:  A Contrary Farmer's Thoughts on Living Forever, was written during and slightly after that event.

The book is, not surprisingly, themed with the content of death, dying, and renewal.  Logsdon contemplates his own death, the nature of life as viewed by a farmer, his thoughts on death (and in a sense, living forever), and what it looks like when one has essentially been issued a reprieve.

The book, like any other Logsdon book, is a mixture of philosophy, thoughts, and practical advice.  In "Intimations of Immortality I and II" he contemplates chickweed and pigweed and what they say about agriculture and life.  In "The Days The Pigs Must Die" he gives a rather detailed discussion to the butchering of pigs (to the point one feels one might be able to do it).  In "Staying Longer in the Saddle" he talks practically about how using tools can enable someone who is older to stay active in agriculture by using simple tools and measures to replace brute strength.  In "Facing Death" he discusses his process of chemotherapy (He was treated at The Cleveland Clinic; if they are smart, they will pass this out as a description of the process to every new cancer patient.  It is a great primer on what to anticipate).  And in "One More Spring" he talks about looking at life around his farm in a new way throughout the year after successful chemotherapy.

Some (of the many) quotable quotes:

"In nature, nothing much really dies.  The various life-forms renew themselves.  Renewal, not death, is the proper word for the progression of life in nature.  If I died of cancer, the proper response would be to bury my flesh and bones for fertilizer in a celebration of natural renewal."  (Garden Therapy Along With Chemotherapy)

"She (Logsdon's mother) would never let her children mope around feeling sorry for themselves.  "When you grow up and get some real problems, you'll think you deserve the luxury of a nervous breakdown" she would tell us.  And then she'd give us more work to do." (Killdeer Woman)

"Large, industrial monocropping just ain't natural.  Large, concentrated populations of people in large cities who need large, industrial monocropping to stay alive ain't natural, either."  (Intimations of Immortality II)

"I wonder if our repugnance over killing animals for food is but another manifestation of our fear of dying and being eaten ourselves." (The Day The Pigs Must Die)

"A further advantage of this new perspective on life was a greater feeling of freedom over whether my opinions about science or religion were going to irritate people and bring angry retaliation.  I didn't have to be afraid of losing my job.  I didn't have one anymore.  I was not running for public office or trying to win a popularity contest.  I was too old to care about human respect.  Old men can be dangerous to society." (One More Spring)

If I ever have a complaint about Logsdon, it is sometimes that his acerbic wit gets the better of him and he loses his point in some rather old baggage he seems to carry with him (I am hopeful that he made his peace with God; he had a lot going on in that regard).  That does not detract from his overall writing, but sometimes I wish he would have read it in the context of the point he was trying to make, instead of making that smaller point.

But that is a small point to quibble with a man recovering from cancer.  And those small points do not detract from the overall tone of the book, which ultimately ends on a hopeful note:

"Memories were the compost of the thinking process, enriching the mind world, never dying as long as there were people who kept on remembering and the written word stayed safe in books or the electronic cloud-god in the sky." (One More Spring)

Overall, definitely a recommended book and worth having on your agricultural/philosophical/social agitator bookshelf.