agrarian novels
December 17, 2019 2:57 PM Subscribe
What books include descriptions of people growing their own food as a normal part of life, in a time and/or place where growing much or all of your own food is normal for most people and has been for a long time.
Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsum
posted by philip-random at 3:30 PM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 3:30 PM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder has amazing descriptions of self-farmed food in 1866, as described from the POV of a 10 year old boy protagonist (Ingalls’ eventual husband Almanzo Wilder).
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:47 PM on December 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:47 PM on December 17, 2019 [9 favorites]
If post-apocalyptic is acceptable then Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling has a lot about growing food, especially potatoes. As does Andy Weir's The Martian. I am not sure if these are what you are looking for.
posted by Botanizer at 3:49 PM on December 17, 2019
posted by Botanizer at 3:49 PM on December 17, 2019
This is subverted somewhat in All Among the Barley, a novel set in a farm in rural 1930s Suffolk in England, where most of the farm labour's done by horses, the family of the protagonist are a little above subsistence level, and nearly everything is made and grown in the village. The subplot that subverts this involves someone who's come up from London from a proto-fascist group in order to write up and idealise this lifestyle for their propaganda magazine.
There's quite a bit of description of horse-drawn farming work, and making bread with local ground wheat. It's drawn from conversations the mid-40s author had with people who'd grown up in that time, but it was written in the past couple of years (started slightly before the UK and US veered down the road that points towards fascism).
posted by ambrosen at 3:56 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
There's quite a bit of description of horse-drawn farming work, and making bread with local ground wheat. It's drawn from conversations the mid-40s author had with people who'd grown up in that time, but it was written in the past couple of years (started slightly before the UK and US veered down the road that points towards fascism).
posted by ambrosen at 3:56 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's not the whole book, obviously, but Anna Karenina is notorious for its long descriptions of Konstantin managing his estate, which includes advances in agricultural science that started to upset the agrarian lifestyle.
posted by momus_window at 4:03 PM on December 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by momus_window at 4:03 PM on December 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Not the focus of the novels, but the Brother Cadfael series has a herbarium that features, and the harvest and growing of food features as part of the setting.
posted by freethefeet at 4:28 PM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by freethefeet at 4:28 PM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
Greenlanders by Jane Smiley has a lot of sections describing how food is aquired and preserved in a difficult environment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greenlanders?wprov=sfla1
posted by pilot pirx at 4:47 PM on December 17, 2019
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greenlanders?wprov=sfla1
posted by pilot pirx at 4:47 PM on December 17, 2019
Yes, seconding Anna Karenina. The Levin-farming bits (“bits”) are much more memorable to me than the Anna-Vronsky stuff.
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley is set on a farm. It’s not really about growing food (it’s King Lear retold), but there is a lot of farm management. I learned enough about tile drainage that I was able to have a conversation about it with a native Iowan.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:11 PM on December 17, 2019
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley is set on a farm. It’s not really about growing food (it’s King Lear retold), but there is a lot of farm management. I learned enough about tile drainage that I was able to have a conversation about it with a native Iowan.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:11 PM on December 17, 2019
Cold Comfort Farm, East of Eden, A Thousand Acres, Giants in the Earth, Nothing to Do But Stay, Hannah Coulter
posted by Ideefixe at 6:37 PM on December 17, 2019
posted by Ideefixe at 6:37 PM on December 17, 2019
Halldor Laxness's Independent People, though sheep farming has at least equal importance.
posted by praemunire at 7:23 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 7:23 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
I love love love Cold Comfort Farm, it is one of my all time favorite books. But the farming in it is satirically described with made up humorous terms such as "scranletting" that the author purposefully inserted to poke fun at "love among the loam" authors such as D.H. Lawrence, Mary Web, and Sheila Kaye Smith. So if you want to learn anything about actual farming, this is not the book for you.
posted by seasparrow at 11:01 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by seasparrow at 11:01 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Have you read Willa Cather? My Antonia and O Pioneers seem appropriate.
posted by suelac at 3:58 PM on December 18, 2019
posted by suelac at 3:58 PM on December 18, 2019
Response by poster: Thanks for the answers so far! Looking forward to reading some of these! I hope there are more!
Preference for authors who write from a time and/or place where growing much or all of your own food in a given region is normal for most people and has been for a long time.
Examples I can think of offhand include The Soil by Takashi Nagatsuka, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, and some of the early bits of God Grew Tired of Us by John Bul Dau. Also probably I'm guessing some of John Steinbeck's books.
posted by aniola at 4:39 PM on December 18, 2019
Preference for authors who write from a time and/or place where growing much or all of your own food in a given region is normal for most people and has been for a long time.
Examples I can think of offhand include The Soil by Takashi Nagatsuka, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, and some of the early bits of God Grew Tired of Us by John Bul Dau. Also probably I'm guessing some of John Steinbeck's books.
posted by aniola at 4:39 PM on December 18, 2019
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It’s a sort of post-apocalyptic utopia fantasy novel . A lot of the world is rough but one place has worked out how to live the good life through sustainable, hyper-local agriculture.
Author Will Bonsall is an active member of several seed saver and breeding programs, also author of Radical self-reliant gardening tomes, so it’s a very informational read, and he has good non-fiction resources to complement the fiction.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:25 PM on December 17, 2019 [5 favorites]