The last word of this sentence stunned me. The Annie Dillard I know is one of the boldest writers. Could she experience fear when writing? She does. She says, “In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all the angles.” Then, she looks for parts that look … Read More
Tag: Annie Dillard
“The writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? and, Can I do it?”
Every book, story, and poem, Annie Dillard says, presents challenges, “which the writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.” That’s when the real work begins. Can it be done? Can the writer engage our intellects and our hearts? Why are we reading, Dillard asks, “if not in hope … Read More
“There is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go.”
“The island where I live is peopled with cranks like myself.”
The essay “Teaching a Stone to Talk” opens with a description of cranky man named Larry who does, in fact, try to teach a stone to talk. Several times a day, he takes a certain stone off his shelf, removes its cover, and gives it lessons. This light-hearted story leads … Read More
“It was the rough edge of the world, where the trees came smack down to the stones.”
Reading about the majestic trees in the northwest corner of the country in The Overstory made me want to learn more about the history of the relationship between the ancient trees and the new settlers who lived and died by the forests. Annie Dillard focuses on the years between 1855 … Read More
“I had to live on the lip of a waterfall, exhausted.”
You might expect a coming-of-age book to have a plot, to describe the who-what-when-where-how-and-why. But Annie Dillard is not a typical person, nor is her book a typical memoir. She concentrated on describing how she wanted to notice and remember everything. Her goal was to “break up through the skin … Read More
“Terror and beauty are woven into the fringes of things both great and small.”
I have been drawn to this book by Annie Dillard many times, and I continue to appreciate the ideas and the poetic quality of the prose. My favorite chapter is “Seeing.” For her, seeing leads to understanding, which then leads to transformation. Her closing lines describe being moved by the … Read More