the simplicity of their life together wasnunclassifiable.nTheir subsequent trip along the IntracoastalnWaterway in Louisiana isnchronicled in Shantyboat on the Bayous,nan unpublished manuscript Hubbardnleft on his death in 1986 that thenUniversity Press of Kentucky has justnpublished. It takes up where Shantyboatnleft off in New Odeans and tellsnmore stories of traveling, and likenShantyboat is made up of a wealth ofndetails about daily living and peoplenmet, with an occasional striking andnmoving passage that conveys the depthnof feeling of this very reserved man.n(Hubbard’s best known book is thenstory of his and Anna’s later years innKentucky, where they settled in anhouse they built themselves: PaynenHollow, published in 1974 when thenback-to-the-land movement hadncaught up with them.)nWendell Berry has written part biography,npart appreciation for a man hencame to know in July 1964, when on ancanoe trip Berry literally stumblednupon the Hubbards’ home. Also anKentuckian, perhaps as well-known fornhis conservation work as for his poetry,nBerry is as interested as Hubbard wasnin living a good life, not just describingnit on the page, and he is as conscious asnHubbard that “No accomplishmentncan offset bad living.” For a man whonhas left so much autobiographical materialnthe job is to fill in the blank spotsnand clarify, which Berry has done verynwell. Citing the above aphorism. Berrynpoints out with perfect understandingn44/CHRONICLESnHEY, BABE,nMY NAME’S OLAFnLIBERAL ARTSnthat “It is this belief, and not hisndwelling place or way of life, thatnidentifies Harlan as unmodern.”nYet it is the unfashionableness of thenHubbards’ life — without electricitynand for many years without runningnwater, as much as possible without cashnmoney, which Hubbard disliked; a lifenthey maintained together despite thenfact that the grain of their society rannthe other way, and despite theirnfriends’ well-meaning arguments innfavor of, say, some labor-saving toolnsuch as a power saw — that makesnHubbard’s books such a pleasure tonread. He understood clearly what mostnof us register dimly as irritation at ournfax machine or telephone: that laborsavingndevices eat up our time, first byntheir expense, then by their insistencenon being accommodated now, or fixed,nand finally by their invasion (like thentelephone) of our privacy. HarlannHubbard did not much like his littleninboard motor, made necessary by thenstill water of the bayous, because he feltna slave to it, and he was exactly right.nOne of Berry’s very good discussionsnof Hubbard’s thinking concernsnhis faith, for in places he sounds Christian,nin others anti-Christian. Pointingnto one passage in which Hubbard celebratesnthe coming aftedife, of which henseems so sure, and then to another innwhich he welcomes the coming nothingness,nof which he also seems certain,nBerry writes, “The two assertionsnare inconsistent with each other, butnthey are not, taken together, inconsistentnwith the life of faith in thisnA thirty-two-year-old Baltimore man suddenly began speakingnwith a Scandinavian accent after suffering a stroke lastnspring. The condition lasted for six weeks. “He was prettynclear; everyone who heard him said he sounded Scandinaviannor Nordic,” said Dr. Dean Tippett to the Associated Press.nThe man’s condition has been called the “foreign accentnsyndrome,” a rare condition caused when a brain malfunctionnproduces speech alterations that sound like a foreignnaccent. The best known case of this syndrome was reportednin 1947, when a thirty-year-old Norwegian began soundingnGerman after being struck by shrapnel from a Nazi air raid.nThe Baltimore man told the press that he hoped his newlynacquired accent would help him pick up women.nnnworld” — a piece of profound commonnsense that characterizes all of hisncomments on Hubbard.nHubbard has often been comparednto Thoreau — whom he in fact admiredngreatiy and read with care — andnhere again Berry has put his finger onnthe differences: Hubbard’s is a muchnplainer style, much homier and muchnmore concerned with daily living. Butnthe greatest difference, as Berry pointsnout, is that “whereas Thoreau wentninto the woods for two years, thenHubbards went for more than forty.”nNor were they interested in Thoreau’snbrand of Yankee asceticism. Their dietnwas more varied than, probably, yoursnand mine; they played daily theirnmuch-loved Bach and Brahms; theynread French and German and a widenvariety of books. While living an isolatednlife they were not hermits; on thenbayou trip they mailed one Decembern175 Christmas cards from Patterson,nLouisiana. They did not seek povertynor, like a more modern variety of Thoreau-follower,nthink that the sole waynto live in harmony with the naturalnworld around us is to take only picturesnand leave only footprints. What theynwere interested in was self-sufficiencynand the independence of mind whichncomes with it — that more than anything.nHubbard thought at one time ofnnaming his shantyboat “Multo innParvo” — “much in little.” It wouldnhave been a good name for a boat soncannily compact as theirs: they carriedncanned food, clothing, and other necessities,nplus painting supplies, books,neven a cello, a viola, and a violin, allnstored out of sight and safe away. Muchnin littie is also a phrase that couldndescribe their life. Berry is careful notnto idealize the Hubbards: they werennot always happy, and their way ofnliving was not without discomfort andntrouble and its share of danger. “Onennever knows, and must always benalert,” Hubbard wrote of shantyboatnlife and the constant necessity ofnwatching the weather and water; and itnwas a sharp disappointment to him thatnhis painting was never recognized. Butnhe and Anna were, apparentiy, largelyncontent, and happy in the classicalnsense. We should all be so lucky.nKatherine Dalton is managing editornof Chronicles.n