Customer Reviews

Living

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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."

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.

Annie Dillard has one of the clearest, most attractive writing voices I have ever read. It's almost always an eye-opening joy to read her, just for the way she puts words and sentences together. This novel is no exception, although it's not her best work.

The plot here - about the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and some characters in and around Bellingham, Washington - is fairly interesting, although not compelling.

After about 100 pages, I started to find the title ironic: I felt it should be called "The Dead and Dying." One gets a real taste of how difficult life was in the 19th century, when the frontier was still being opened.

But Dillard's style does not mesh well with the demands of a novel. She is far better at conveying her innermost thoughts; her memoirs and essays are what make her so good. If you have the choice, read those rather than this.

I read Annie Dillard's The Living through the library and am now buying a copy to send to my sister in Vancouver, B.C. When visiting there, we traveled the area discussed in the book, which has come alive for me now. The protaganist IS the Great Northwest, and as such, the trials, triumphs and tribulations of Ms. Dillard's 'main character' enthrall, delight and dismay - but never disappoint. Much as I have enjoyed her non-fiction, I look forward to more fiction from her pen.

Grand in scope and finely detailed...this is just the kind of journey-driven writing that I like. Quirky but real, like the conditions of our lives. I missed the lack of dialogue, though, and feel like she walks a thin line between showing and telling. A bit too much telling for my taste, because I was a little distracted worn & out by the end of this journey.

This is prose craftsmanship at its finest. Dillard's imagery shimmers; her sentences are watertight. She tells a vast story with prose that is poetic in its economy of language. When Dillar is at her best -- and she is often in this book -- her words ring like church bells

I have found this book to be incredibly insightful to the early Northwest. Although the characters are many, and we don't get an indepth study of them, I find that they are there to lend to the overall "feel" of the book. Life was bleak at best, and so are the characters. Life was a struggle, and so are the lives of the characters. My youngest sister and her husband live on Lopez Island and I am sending this book to them because I know they will be able to identify with the weather, the surrounding areas, the people, and the history. Hurrah for Annie Dillard!

Annie Dillard wrote an amazing novel of western struggle in the late 1800's. This book was filled with conflict, vivid images, and a great plot. This book takes the reader to the northern part of Washington in the late 1800's. The book fallows many charcters through hardships, death, joy, and many generations of families. I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters pulled me into their world by the triangles that intangled their lives. This book deals a lot with death and imagetry that seems pull the reader into the charcters lives. Ada Fishburn the main character of the book sets the theme for the book. Her family moved to Whatcom, a providence in Washington to start a new life. The reader gets a sence of sadness from this charcter that seems to fallow to the other charaters that come together later in the book. I thought that this book gave a very historical point of view and also a faction view of what life might of been like in those trying times. I give this book five stars because I know that any intellectual reader will fall in love with this book and its many charcters. The only negitive thing I have to say about this book is that the reading is at a high level and may take a while to read. Besides that point I think that it is worth all the hard work.

Loved it. Gets to the central problem of life as we know it. Death is all around and we don't want to look, but until you do, you can't choose life, you just avoid the question.... comes down to the line from The Shawshank Redemption..."get busy living, or get busy dying". If you liked Cold Moutain, you'll probably like this.