Saturday, September 4, 2021

The Planter of Modern Life by Stephen Heyman



Summary (from book's website): "
Louis Bromfield was a World War I ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist as famous in the 1920s as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America’s first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

A lanky Midwestern farm boy dressed up like a Left Bank bohemian, Bromfield stood out in literary Paris for his lavish hospitality and his green thumb. He built a magnificent garden outside the city where he entertained aristocrats, movie stars, flower breeders, and writers of all stripes. Gertrude Stein enjoyed his food, Edith Wharton admired his roses, Ernest Hemingway boiled with jealousy over his critical acclaim. Millions savored his novels, which were turned into Broadway plays and Hollywood blockbusters, yet Bromfield’s greatest passion was the soil.

In 1938, Bromfield returned to Ohio to transform 600 badly eroded acres into a thriving cooperative farm, which became a mecca for agricultural pioneers and a country retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945).

This sweeping biography unearths a lost icon of American culture, a fascinating, hilarious and unclassifiable character who―between writing and plowing―also dabbled in global politics and high society. Through it all, he fought for an agriculture that would enrich the soil and protect the planet. While Bromfield’s name has faded into obscurity, his mission seems more critical today than ever before."

Reviews:

1. Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/stephen-heyman/the-planter-of-modern-life/

2. Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-planter-of-modern-life-review-raising-the-bar-11587133008


Website for the Book: https://www.theplanterofmodernlife.com/

Publisher Site: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324001898

Malabar Farm Foundation: https://malabarfarm.org/

E.B White's Poem, "Malabar Farm", published in the New Yorker (1948):


. . . Strangers arriving by every train,

Bromfield terracing against the rain,

Catamounts crying, mowers mowing,

Guest rooms full to overflowing,

Boxers in every room of the house,

Cows being milked to Brahms and Strauss,

Kids arriving by van and pung,

Bromfield up to his eyes in dung,

Sailors, trumpeters, mystics, actors,

All of them wanting to drive the tractors,

All of them eager to husk the corn,

Some of them sipping their drinks till morn […]

Films:

1. The Rains Came (1939): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdQ95XEiY8

2. "The Land" Documentary (1942): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-fAga_Yf10


(Malabar Farm: Ohiotraveler.com)

Interviews with Author:

1. National Endowment of the Humanities: https://www.neh.gov/blog/planter-modern-life-qa-stephen-heyman

2. Hudson Library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEAlxErPtA8

Discussion Questions:





(Louis Bromfield and the farm: richlandsource.com)