View from the Fazenda : a tale of the Brazilian heartlands / Ellen Bromfield Geld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geld, Ellen Bromfield, 1932-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Geld, Ellen Bromfield, 1932-.

Geld, Ellen Bromfield.

Plantation life--Brazil--Sao Paulo (State).

Plantation life.

São Paulo (Brazil : State)--Social life and customs.

São Paulo (Brazil : State).

São Paulo (Brazil : State)--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (360 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

" ...This is the story of an amazing American couple who with courage and wit but little money, start a homestead adventure in a foreign land and, against all odds, turn it into a successful farm."--Gene Logsdon, author of The Man Who Created Paradise "In oftentimes poetic language, she paints a portrait as diverse as the country itself as she traverses to its far corners over the ensuing years. Whether riding a vintage paddle-wheel steamer down the Sao Francisco River, taking a group of visiting U.S. farmers on tour, attending Carnaval, or traveling deep into a mountainside where garimpeiros search for diamonds, Geld discusses history, politics and culture."-ForeWord "Ellen Bromfield Geld couldn't have had a better teacher in all the world than her father. Her writing and her life in Brazil vividly reflect the strength of Louis Bromfield's convictions, his love of the land and the enduring importance of his legacy." --Lauren Bacall"I imagine everyone has a center of gravity," says Ellen Geld. "Something which binds one to the earth and gives sense and direction to what one does." Ellen's center of gravity is a writing table before a window that looks through the trees and down the slope to the croplands, revealing the changing scenes in a place that has become a way of life. The place is Fazenda Pau D'Alho, Brazil, where she and her husband Carson have lived and farmed since 1961. The changing scenes describe planting groves of coffee and pecans, and pasturing cattle in seas of grass. From her writing table, Ellen Geld here gives us View from the Fazenda, intricately weaving the threads of daily life on the farm into the broader pattern she has come to recognize in her quest for the knowledge of a country. Beginning with the serendipitous trip from her native Ohio to the outward reaches of Brazil, Geld provides us with a firsthand account of a remarkable adventure and an extraordinary life. Everywhere, using plain talk and warm humor, she seeks the character of a people who--arriving as immigrants or slaves, their blood and history mingled with that of native Indians--have created the true character of Brazil: a huge, diverse country, living in several eras at the same time, yet ever changing in its people's amazing ability to "find a way.

Contents:

Intro

1 Of Gravity and Distance

2 A Place of Learning

3 The Frontier's Edge

4 A Frontier Town

5 A Quest for Land

6 The Incorrigible Pioneers

7 Of Chance and Circumstance and Juca de Botucatu

8 Fazenda Pau D'Alho

9 The Casa de Fazenda

10 A Step into the Past

11 Of the Passage of Days and the Meaning of Trees

12 While Politicians Sleep, Brazil Grows

13John the Bull and His Harem

14 Of Cattle and Men

15 "Resting Our Idea

16 Of Cattle Shows, Writers, and Sculptors

17 Of Italian Immigrants and "Clubes 4-S

18 Coming of Age in the Valley of the Tiete

19 Of Frost and Exodus to the Amazon

20 The Worlds of Aparecido and Jose

21 Gold in the River

22 The Trees of the Future

23 A Wedding of Two Worlds

24 A Handful of Grass

25 The Man in the Bell Jar

26 A Timeless Place

27 The Meaning of a Way of Life

28 The One Who Knows...

29 The Ohioans and Parana

30 The Heifer of the Future

31 Dona Zeze and th Schoolhouse by the Road

32 The Hearts of Brazil

33 Of Roots and Ideas

Glossary og Portuguese and Indian Words.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

0-8214-4097-7

OCLC:

613383773