Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.
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Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.
"Teaching a Stone to Talk is superb. As with the flying fish, Annie Dillard doesn't do it often, but when she does she silver-streaks out of the blue and archingly transcends all other writers of our day in all the simple, intimate, and beautiful ways of the natural master." -- -- R. Buckminster Fuller
"The natural world is ignited by her prose and we see the world as an incandescent metaphor of the spirit...Few writers evoke better than she the emotion of awe, and few have ever conveyed more graphically the weight of silence, the force of the immaterial." -- -- Robert Taylor, Boston Globe
"This little book is haloed and informed throughout by Dillard's distinctive passion and intensity, a sort of intellectual radiance that reminds me both Thoreau and Emily Dickinson." -- -- Edward Abbey, Chicago Sun-Times
Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including the memoir of her parents, An American Childhood; the Northwest pioneer epic The Living; and the nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A gregarious recluse, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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My personal favorite among the fourteen comprising this book is also the longest, "An Expedition to the Pole." I consider myself to be a deeply religious person, but I also find church services to be almost unbearable (much like one of my literary heroes, Samuel Johnson). In this essay, Dillard contrasts her experiences in an utterly dreadful church service with many of the attempts in the nineteenth century to mount expeditions to reach the North Pole. The attempts of those adventurers are simultaneously tragic and laughable, in that their goal was so vastly beyond their means. The implication is that the same is true in worship: we attempt to worship god, but our efforts are clumsy and fall far short of the mark. There is nobility in both, and certainly Dillard doesn't want to imply that worship is futile. But the parallels are there. It is a brilliant essay.
The second thing I think I should say is that I like it anyway.
Way back at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard decided to open her eyes and see what she could see. Pilgrim is a vibrant and enthusiastic book, Annie reacting exuberantly to the things she sees, even the puzzling and disturbing ones.
Nowadays, she's been "seeing" awhile, and I don't think she really likes what she sees. In Teaching a Stone to Talk, there's a deep feeling of unsettledness, of discomfort. Annie sees a world that is silent, beautiful and ugly at the same time, a world that is complex and unyielding to any attempts to make it make sense without closing your eyes.
There's brilliance here I think...of an unsettling sort. Some of her revelations float right over my head. But often she connects, and beautifully. "An Expedition to the Pole" brilliantly and powerfully compares the titled subject to religion and the search for God. "Total Eclipse" and "God in the Doorway" are other favorites, along with "Living Like Weasels" - probably one of her best essays ever, and the only one in this book that actually feels like Pilgrim.
Read an excerpt. there's a link under "book info." See if you like it. I do.
If you'd like to discuss this book with me, or other books, or recommend something you think I'd like, or just chat, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com. but be nice.