![]() ![]() The Shepherd of the Hills was a widely successful book in its day: 1907. I planned on reading it back then, but life took me slightly on the outside of the group and I hadn't returned to the idea in the two decades since. One by one, my friends read it and brought their opinions of the book back, and before long entire nights were spent discussing The Shepherd of the Hills. Our mentor swore by the brilliance and majesty of The Shepherd of the Hills. Wright was an author of a different time who'd largely been left behind. He ended up being a creeper in the end, but that's a story for another time.Įvery time my friends and I discussed lit, our mentor would chime in with his favorite author: Harold Bell Wright. We loved him and we believed he loved us. He inspired us to think outside of the conventions of faith and brotherhood. That year, we fell under the tutelage of a much older mentor. Most of the time we hung out, we discussed music, movies, books, and theology. We all had a faith in God, though I think that's largely been shaken at this point. A couple are still involved in making music most of us gave it up a decade or more ago. We were a group obsessed with music, we all knew we were destined for a future in the auditory arts. Most of my friends at the time were in their late teens. ![]() This tale of life in the Ozarks continues to draw thousands of devotees to outdoor performances in Branson, Missouri, where visitors can also see the cabin where the real Old Matt and Aunt Mollie lived. Through the shepherd and those around him, Wright assembles here a gentle and utterly masterful commentary on strength and weakness, failure and success, tranquility and turmoil, and punishment and absolution. There he encounters Jim Lane, Grant Matthews, Sammy, Young Matt, and other residents of the village, and gradually learns to find a peace about the losses he has borne and has yet to bear. The shepherd, an elderly, mysterious, learned man, escapes the buzzing restlessness of the city to live in the backwoods neighborhood of Mutton Hollow in the Ozark hills. Refusing to yield to the oft-indulged temptation of painting for the reader the simple life of country innocents, Wright forthrightly shows the passions and the life-and-death struggles that go on even in the fairest of environments that man invades. While Wright rejoices in the triumphs, grace, and dignity of his characters, he has not naively created a pastoral fantasyland where the pure at heart are spared life's struggles and pains. His Eden in the Ozarks has a bountiful share of life's enchantments, but is not without its serpents. In The Shepherd of the Hills, Wright spins a tale of universal truths across the years to the modern-day reader. Originally published in 1907, The Shepherd of the Hills is Harold Bell Wright's most famous work. ![]()
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