Artist of simplicity makes it look easy

Book extols modest living, self-sufficiency as path to happiness

By Ellison G. Weist

Pamplin Media Group, Jul 10, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

courtesy of chelsea green publishing

"A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity"

Early in “A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity,” William S. Coperthwaite writes that “what is beautiful is easier to live with and care for.”

Part coffee-table tome, part treatise on the joys of living simply, Coperthwaite’s book, his first, is a fine example of this testament. Unlike many serious works that expound a return to asceticism, “A Handmade Life” is filled with exuberant celebration of one man’s attempt to live modestly.

Coperthwaite lives in a yurt on the north coast of Maine, a remote and frigid area where back-to-nature living is no walk in the park. Yet his book is filled with examples and pictures of beauty found in the wild or through the efforts of native cultures.

Each chapter is filled with lyrical photographs by Peter Forbes – many of which are breathtaking enough to warrant framing – and includes musings on subjects such as “Beauty,” “Wealth” and “Work.” While readers may not always agree with Coperthwaite, his congenial style makes the book accessible and enjoyable.

In the chapter devoted to “Work” the author speaks of the need for “bread labor,” which refers to “basic work that is necessary for subsistence.” He is horrified by those of us who “do work that we neither enjoy nor believe in.”

This is a theme that continues through the book. Near the end, Coperthwaite envisions a world where retirement does not exist: “When people are doing work they enjoy, retirement as we know it now will disappear. In its place will be the gradual lessening of work as energy wanes.”

Putting energy to good use is another recurring theme; Coperthwaite’s thoughts on exercise will dismay some readers. Several times, he describes recreational running or jogging as wasteful.

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