THE LIVING [Hardcover]

Annie Dillard (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Harper Collins (1991)
• ASIN: B002402AI4
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Annie Dillard is the author of ten books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winner Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, as well as An American Childhood, The Living, and Mornings Like This. She is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and has received fellowship grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Dillard attended Hollins College in Virginia. After living for five years in the Pacific Northwest, she returned to the East Coast, where she lives with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely rewarding, July 20, 2001

By 

J Peter Nixon (Concord, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Living: A Novel (Paperback)

This novel is about settling the Pacific Northwest in the same way that Moby Dick is about whaling. The richly drawn narrative provides a framework for Dillard's exploration of the mysteries of life, suffering and death. There is a philosophical and theological depth to this work that is rare in contemporary fiction.

This is not to say that Dillard sacrifices literary quality to make philosophical points. To the contrary, some of the sentences are simply breathtaking. One of my favorites occurs early in the novel, when Dillard is describing the forbidding topography of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of one of the settlers:

"God might have created such a plunging shore as this before He thought of making people, and then when he thought of making people, he mercifully softened up the land in the palms of his hands wherever he expected them to live, which did not include here."

This novel can be difficult at times, but it is worth the effort and rewards the close reader.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should Have Been Called "The Dying"!, March 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Living: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a dreadful, exhausting book. But I've read it three times! Annie Dillard is an unflinching, straightforward writer who has a firm grasp on the strengths and frailties of human nature. She accurately captures the feel of NW Washington "high woods" and the people who settled the area. By the time you finish this novel you will not just feel like you know the characters, you'll feel like you're related to each one of them and have greived their passing. I highly recommend it to anyone who is from this area of the United States - you will recognize the landscape, the attitudes, and certainly the weather. A character states, after a looong spell of rain and overcast skies, "We live in a lidded pot."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atmospheric Transport To Our Past, April 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Living: A Novel (Paperback)

Annie Dillard is one of the best writers today. Her prose is poetic and her poetry is perfection. The Living, a marvelous book about the trials and tribulations of pioneers, is gripping, descriptive, and wonderfully told. To read it, was to be transported. You felt the moss on the trees, you smelled the rich pines, you tasted the salt air. It's an achievement, in every sense of the word.