Green Mountain Farm by Elliott Merrick

"What were leaky roofs and cold hands and gray days and rock as compared with such riches of freedom and aloneness," Elliott Merrick writes of raising his family on a farm in Vermont in the 1930s. In a series of essays, Merrick recalls the labor and reward of forging an existence out in wilderness, the work and pleasure of living off the land, not just living on it. He characterizes the spectrum of personalities inhabiting his corner of Vermont, philosophizes on the nature of the writer's craft and the nature of nature itself, and lovingly reminisces about his children's younger years. All the while he maintains his affection for and devotion to the sometimes breathlessly severe, sometimes sweetly mild, always overwhelmingly beautiful landscape.

Merrick effortlessly describes moonlit nights spent cross-country skiing, lakes and streams and waterfalls, verdant summers flavored by blackberries and raspberries. He also acknowledges the harsh frosts and never-ending overcast days. Whatever he writes of takes little to imagine; he penetrates to the essential aspects of a blustery autumn day or the fleeting leap of a doe, his rendering easy and accurate, infused with a pervasive sense of actuality.

Perhaps one of Merrick's most penetrating insights involves his Thoreauvian sense of immediacy, his ability to recognize the present and embrace it. "Into my mind comes the realization that here I am, now, out of all time and all space, here in this place. And I say to myself, This is my house. My woman. A baby. Two babies. Simple things like that." Indeed simplicity, for Merrick as for Thoreau, is a chief virtue.

Merrick at one point recalls a canoe trip he and his wife took. He meditates on the balance between old and new, the sleekly engineered boat gliding on the untouched river of the ancients. He rejoices in accepting the best of both worlds. "And here it is again, the wild and the civilized side by side, and we in the middle, picking and choosing a little of each." In this he almost goes beyond Thoreau, reconciling a deep admiration for the natural world with a balanced appreciation for modern advancements.

Merrick refuses to idolize the past, asserting that the present has all of history's benefits along with improvements of its own, making it the best time yet in which to live. Merrick's refreshing enthusiasm for the here and now illuminates his work, transmitting to the reader an anticipation and a longing for the exhilarating balance he finds in life.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Like Machiavelli with The Prince, Sun Tzu wrote a manual containing instructions for matters of state, only the latter lived one thousand years earlier and half the world away. Sun Tzu's writing pleased the king of his province in 500 B.C. China, and the treatise continues to be revered for its military wisdom today. I heard a guest on a radio program mention it, and so I decided I should read it myself.

"[T]he general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack," declares Sun Tzu. He makes it clear that deception is the key to winning a war; keeping the enemy confused the primary goal. Furthermore, Sun Tzu encourages leaders to keep their subordinates guessing too, by concealing plans from all but a select few and thereby preserving their veil of secrecy from the spies that inevitably creep into the ranks of troops.

For Sun Tzu, flexibility is paramount. "According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans." A leader should base his movements on his enemy's actions, watching him sedulously and responding appropriately. When attacking, Sun Tzu advises targeting the opponent's weakest point. "Military tactics are like unto water, for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the way to avoid what is strong is to strike what is weak. Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing."

Though Sun Tzu's enthusiasm for war dominates the work, he counsels cautious circumspection in inciting conflict. "[A] kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life." He recognizes that war is irrevocable and urges leaders to refrain from waging wars merely out of personal spite. For where deception reigns virtuous can only be hardship and turmoil, ceaseless unrest.