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Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
"A collection of meditations like polished stones — painstakingly worded, tough-minded, yet partial to mystery, and peerless when it comes to injecting larger resonances into the natural world." — Kirkus Reviews
Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings. Veering away from the long, meditative studies of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard explores and celebrates moments of spirituality, dipping into descriptions of encounters with flora and fauna, stars, and more, from Ecuador to Miami. There is no writer quite like Dillard when it comes to the mysteries and wonder of the natural world.
Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings. Veering away from the long, meditative studies of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Holy the Firm, Annie Dillard explores and celebrates moments of spirituality, dipping into descriptions of encounters with flora and fauna, stars, and more, from Ecuador to Miami. There is no writer quite like Dillard when it comes to the mysteries and wonder of the natural world.
175 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 1982
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10360 people want to read
About the author
Annie Dillard
72 books2,786 followersAnnie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut.
(from Wikipedia)
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 721 reviews
May 13, 2013
Reading Dillard is like watching a figure skater. You don't really understand or appreciate what you've just experienced until you try to walk across an icy sidewalk.
April 10, 2010
Every time I read Annie Dillard I become more responsible. In general. Her words are purposeful, she addresses sorrow, beauty and terror with nouns and adjectives that, if you aren't careful, look like every other noun and adjective you have ever read. But this isn't so. There is not a wasted syllable. Read about the Deer at Provenance, a story about a young fawn tied to a tree, resigning to the despair of its own death, and the people that circle around, quietly, and watch. And then read how she balances words like 'slender' with 'violence'. Ah! And then Expedition to the Pole! Never has absurdity and wisdom come together so well in American essay than here. The images and thoughts on church, human folly, polar bears and the unknown spin like a fever dream and burn like postmodern prophecy. Woo!
July 21, 2016
Wholly unexpected and completely amazing. I see the reviews of my fellow Goodreaders and I can echo them, Dillard is an artist and her words both perplexed and thrilled me (the polar expedition histories interspersed with detailed observations about the eclectic praise band at her church - finally meshing together with a trippy baby christening on an arctic ice flow??) WOW.
She made me laugh out loud.
She made me wanderlust-y (admittingly, it doesn't take much...)
And she encouraged me to read everything she has written. Thank goodness she has a large canon. This woman is amazing. More Dillard!
Also, I loved this opinion piece from The Guardian that I stumbled on when reading more about her work by Geoff Dyer: Teaching A Stone to Talk made me realise I am drawn to wild authors.
She made me laugh out loud.
It is madness to wear a ladies straw hat and velvet hats to church - we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares and lash us to our pews for the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
She made me wanderlust-y (admittingly, it doesn't take much...)
We are here on the planet only once and might as well get a feel for the place. We might as well get a feel for the fringes and hollows in which life is lived.
And she encouraged me to read everything she has written. Thank goodness she has a large canon. This woman is amazing. More Dillard!
Also, I loved this opinion piece from The Guardian that I stumbled on when reading more about her work by Geoff Dyer: Teaching A Stone to Talk made me realise I am drawn to wild authors.
May 31, 2025
Annie is as much a mystery as the mysterious world she inhabits, and we with her, though she often sees what we do not, in a realm both natural and supernatural.
June 14, 2012
Annie Dillard is one of the most satisfying essayists I know. Although I am not, generally, a reader of nature studies, Dillard's essays seem just perfect to me. If I had a single criticism, it would be that she generally ties in a theme or moral to her story to the extent that it would almost seems forced , but the language is so beautifully descriptive and the resolutions so elegant, that I am willing to forgive her for it.
In "Total Eclipse" she manages to describe the experience of witnessing a total solar eclipse in ways that are otherworldly and profoundly beautiful (and even slightly terrifying). Nothing has made me want to experience a solar eclipse myself more than Dillard's essay. In the title essay, she begins by describing "...a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk." From this, the essay expands eventually into a commentary on cosmology and theology and the palos santos trees on the Galapagos Islands, and yet it all seems to be a natural evolution. This is the way with all of her essays.
Dillard's studies almost feel like free association, though like a perfect jazz solo, what seemed random and disconnected finds its way back home again as naturally as if it were scored.
In "Total Eclipse" she manages to describe the experience of witnessing a total solar eclipse in ways that are otherworldly and profoundly beautiful (and even slightly terrifying). Nothing has made me want to experience a solar eclipse myself more than Dillard's essay. In the title essay, she begins by describing "...a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk." From this, the essay expands eventually into a commentary on cosmology and theology and the palos santos trees on the Galapagos Islands, and yet it all seems to be a natural evolution. This is the way with all of her essays.
Dillard's studies almost feel like free association, though like a perfect jazz solo, what seemed random and disconnected finds its way back home again as naturally as if it were scored.
January 17, 2009
This is a book of essays: some reflective, mostly descriptive. Sometimes I was reading and thinking, "What the hell is she talking about?" But, it's worth it to keep reading because there are phrases and paragraphs that are just golden:
From "Total Eclipse": "The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel."
From "An Expedition to the Pole": "It all seems a pit at first, for I have overcome a fiercely anti-Catholic upbringing in order to attend Mass simply and solely to escape Protestant guitars. Why am I here? Who gave these nice Catholics guitars? Why are they not mumbling in Latin and performing superstitious rituals?"
From "Living Like Weasels": "Our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key....It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes."
And many more...
From "Total Eclipse": "The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel."
From "An Expedition to the Pole": "It all seems a pit at first, for I have overcome a fiercely anti-Catholic upbringing in order to attend Mass simply and solely to escape Protestant guitars. Why am I here? Who gave these nice Catholics guitars? Why are they not mumbling in Latin and performing superstitious rituals?"
From "Living Like Weasels": "Our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key....It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes."
And many more...
July 27, 2015
This one was recommended by readers I trust, but I simply couldn't like it no matter how much I tried. There are very nice bits here and there, but those bits are smothered by the essays' constant habit of insisting on themselves, sometimes explicitly but more often through precious repetitions; heavy, obvious images and symbols; and tortured syntax that says, 'Here comes something meaningful.' Lots of self-indulgence, self-consciousness, coyness, "voice"--all filling in the voids of thought. Maybe the most damning thing to be said--and there are instances of this on almost every page--is that many phrases, sometimes entire sentences, are simply unintelligible. If you're reading quickly, they make an approximate kind of sense, but a closer look reveals nonsense.
November 8, 2020
Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
Here are my favorite stories in this collection of fourteen nature essays
Total Eclipse - Annie and her husband travel to Eastern Washington to see the solar eclipse.
In the Jungle - a perfectly written article of her observations while visiting a remote jungle in Ecuador.
On a Hill Far Away - a touching story about a precocious boy at the farm next door.
Sojourner - a metaphoric article on mangrove forests and floating islands. I’ve always had a fascination with mangrove forests after a boat trip I took in the Everglades.
So in summary, no surprises here. Dillard is one of the premier writers in the nature genre. I really like her literary style and some of her stories are flawless. She is so fluent at writing in the first person.
4.5 stars. 1/2 point deduction as the best ones are on the short side.
Here are my favorite stories in this collection of fourteen nature essays
Total Eclipse - Annie and her husband travel to Eastern Washington to see the solar eclipse.
In the Jungle - a perfectly written article of her observations while visiting a remote jungle in Ecuador.
On a Hill Far Away - a touching story about a precocious boy at the farm next door.
Sojourner - a metaphoric article on mangrove forests and floating islands. I’ve always had a fascination with mangrove forests after a boat trip I took in the Everglades.
So in summary, no surprises here. Dillard is one of the premier writers in the nature genre. I really like her literary style and some of her stories are flawless. She is so fluent at writing in the first person.
4.5 stars. 1/2 point deduction as the best ones are on the short side.
December 19, 2020
There is some beautiful prose and imagery within each essay. And some of the connections between different things that Dillard makes are interesting and give insight into her thinking. But, there are also essays in the book where even by the end of the essay I have a hard time understanding the link between the two things.
While I can appreciate the jumping back and forth between things can give a sense of how our thought process can actually be at times, I did often find it hard to follow. That being said, some of the essays, especially the shorter ones, were not like this.
Looking at individual sentences or paragraphs, I love some of Dillard's writing, but looking at whole essays, I have mixed feelings about whether I want to read more of her work or not.
I give this book 2.5 stars on a first reading.
While I can appreciate the jumping back and forth between things can give a sense of how our thought process can actually be at times, I did often find it hard to follow. That being said, some of the essays, especially the shorter ones, were not like this.
Looking at individual sentences or paragraphs, I love some of Dillard's writing, but looking at whole essays, I have mixed feelings about whether I want to read more of her work or not.
I give this book 2.5 stars on a first reading.
May 30, 2021
I knew from Holy the Firm that Dillard's writings were full of wonderings, but the range of her wonderings is like riding a roller coaster! One moment she is wry and funny, the next she is cosmic and religious (or not)—"Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?" She writes that we should be wearing crash helmets and life preservers! I confess that I didn't understand everything I read, but I will always enjoy her nature and geographical narratives.
December 12, 2020
This book was a solid "meh" to me. There were some essays that I liked, for example "Lenses" and the one about the Galapagos islands. But there were more essays I was just incredibly bored by. It wasn't helped by her often insensitive and reductive portrayal of indigenous peoples. If I hadn't read this book for Life's Library, and had access to the wonderful discussions on my shelf, I probably wouldn't have finished it.
August 29, 2023
i ! love ! evolution !
favorites: living like weasels, in the jungle, teaching a stone to talk, life on the rocks: the Galapagos, aces and eights
favorites: living like weasels, in the jungle, teaching a stone to talk, life on the rocks: the Galapagos, aces and eights
January 25, 2010
Not my favorite, though there are wonderful moments here. She seems in "An Expedition to the Pole" to get wrong what she gets so right in For the Time Being. In the latter, she lays her examinations--internal and external--side-by-side and leaves us to connect. They resonate against one another and flare out into unexpected meanings. Here, she smashes her examinations of the lives of arctic explorers together with her impressions of a largely mundane Catholic service in a surreal mish-mash that clumsily does the work she will later allow her readers to do themselves.
Still and all, she stuns with her sentences ("Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block" for example) and provides the kind of metaphors that clatter around in the brain for days or months or years--the dessicated dead weasel's skull still clamped on the neck of an eagle for the tenacious life, the hide-draped cow skeleton trapped hip-deep in a sinkhole for the side-tracked life.
And while I like this far less that some of her other work, Dillard is a writer that I will be coming back to again and again because she continues to demand answers of the world, despite its recalcitrance. As she says, "The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out;" her life's work seems to be a matter of refusing to accept the sea's obtuseness.
Still and all, she stuns with her sentences ("Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block" for example) and provides the kind of metaphors that clatter around in the brain for days or months or years--the dessicated dead weasel's skull still clamped on the neck of an eagle for the tenacious life, the hide-draped cow skeleton trapped hip-deep in a sinkhole for the side-tracked life.
And while I like this far less that some of her other work, Dillard is a writer that I will be coming back to again and again because she continues to demand answers of the world, despite its recalcitrance. As she says, "The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out;" her life's work seems to be a matter of refusing to accept the sea's obtuseness.
December 8, 2020
A couple of my favorite lines filled with beautiful metaphorical imagery are "And if you dig your fists into the earth and crumble geography, you strike geology."
And, "The continents themselves are beautiful pea-green boats." But I can't recommend a book of essays on imagery alone, separate from its substance.
Sojourner is my favorite essay of the book. OK, it's the only essay I truly like. I didn't know anything about mangroves previously and wow I was in awe learning how resilient they are and the ability to excude salt from the ocean and to make their own soil to stay nourished, wow. And I liked how then our planet was compared to a mangrove wandering aimlessly and accumulating culture. Regarding mangroves, my favorite line in this essay is , "What it is most likely to do is drift anywhere in the alien ocean, feeding on death and growing, netting a makeshift soil as it goes, shrimp in its toes and terns in its hair." I thought that line was beautiful and that is like us and the earth because we find our way in a makeshift fashion to survive and be resilient somehow. Like a sojourner, always on the move somehow. Mangroves and human lives may be pretty and or ugly but we find a way to keep on going, beautifully. I would rate the book higher if I didn't only truly like one essay out of about 14. The more often than not disjointedness and philosophical musings with seemingly randomness did not jive with me, personally.
And, "The continents themselves are beautiful pea-green boats." But I can't recommend a book of essays on imagery alone, separate from its substance.
Sojourner is my favorite essay of the book. OK, it's the only essay I truly like. I didn't know anything about mangroves previously and wow I was in awe learning how resilient they are and the ability to excude salt from the ocean and to make their own soil to stay nourished, wow. And I liked how then our planet was compared to a mangrove wandering aimlessly and accumulating culture. Regarding mangroves, my favorite line in this essay is , "What it is most likely to do is drift anywhere in the alien ocean, feeding on death and growing, netting a makeshift soil as it goes, shrimp in its toes and terns in its hair." I thought that line was beautiful and that is like us and the earth because we find our way in a makeshift fashion to survive and be resilient somehow. Like a sojourner, always on the move somehow. Mangroves and human lives may be pretty and or ugly but we find a way to keep on going, beautifully. I would rate the book higher if I didn't only truly like one essay out of about 14. The more often than not disjointedness and philosophical musings with seemingly randomness did not jive with me, personally.
September 15, 2020
2.5
I honestly don’t know if I can tell you anything that happened or what anything means. The reviews for these essays are profoundly good and I just don’t get it. Really struggling between I’m not smart enough to understand what she’s saying and her writing is just absurd imagery and scenes that are impossible to follow. I imagine reading this in a class would be a different experience but I didn’t. I even started the whole thing over 50 pages in to try to get a better grasp on what was happening. I just think some of the other nature writing I’ve read this year (braiding sweetgrass, trace) conveyed a more intimate connection to nature without being so unnecessarily metaphorical.
As a side note I thought this was non fiction until all of a sudden the narrator was standing on an iceberg that split beneath her feet and as she tried to jump to one side, she fell off, and then got pulled up by a Chinese man as she watched a group of clowns tumble and make a human pyramid on the ice and that’s the type of story that I just don’t follow
I honestly don’t know if I can tell you anything that happened or what anything means. The reviews for these essays are profoundly good and I just don’t get it. Really struggling between I’m not smart enough to understand what she’s saying and her writing is just absurd imagery and scenes that are impossible to follow. I imagine reading this in a class would be a different experience but I didn’t. I even started the whole thing over 50 pages in to try to get a better grasp on what was happening. I just think some of the other nature writing I’ve read this year (braiding sweetgrass, trace) conveyed a more intimate connection to nature without being so unnecessarily metaphorical.
As a side note I thought this was non fiction until all of a sudden the narrator was standing on an iceberg that split beneath her feet and as she tried to jump to one side, she fell off, and then got pulled up by a Chinese man as she watched a group of clowns tumble and make a human pyramid on the ice and that’s the type of story that I just don’t follow
July 31, 2023
READING VLOG
This book has everything: death, clowns, the fear of Santa Claus.
It's great that I live in a city. So much so that when I miss nature, I can pick up Mary Oliver or Dillard and be one with the trees. It's incredible the direction Dillard takes from seeing a weasel, leveling with it, and then somehow I'm alone thinking about my purpose in life.
My last Dillard was years ago, 𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘵 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬. Spellbinding, haunting, mystical in a way.
Dillard is the same here. I used to think the woman took shrooms to reach the elevated thoughts she pursues, but it's actually a strong third cup of joe, which she admits in the text. Here she is jovial, witty, yet still spirited in her usual sense. A lot to enjoy here for Dillard-heads and still a very good entry point if you want to get to know Dillard and her big beautiful brain.
This book has everything: death, clowns, the fear of Santa Claus.
It's great that I live in a city. So much so that when I miss nature, I can pick up Mary Oliver or Dillard and be one with the trees. It's incredible the direction Dillard takes from seeing a weasel, leveling with it, and then somehow I'm alone thinking about my purpose in life.
My last Dillard was years ago, 𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘵 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬. Spellbinding, haunting, mystical in a way.
Dillard is the same here. I used to think the woman took shrooms to reach the elevated thoughts she pursues, but it's actually a strong third cup of joe, which she admits in the text. Here she is jovial, witty, yet still spirited in her usual sense. A lot to enjoy here for Dillard-heads and still a very good entry point if you want to get to know Dillard and her big beautiful brain.
December 14, 2009
Each time I tried to read this book I would notice my boyfriend laughing, what I didn't notice was that I would sit down heavily and sigh as though someone was making me do knuckle push-ups. I was loaned this book by a wealthy, bored woman that I work for and thought it would be polite of me to read the book that means so much to her. Today I decided I'm done fighting. I'm tired of hearing about "god" and self-righteous observations of nature and man conquering it. I found this book pompous, boring, and excruciating to try to read.
March 29, 2013
Simply one of the best essay collections I can ever remember reading. Annie is warm and funny, but also thoughtful and quirky, and so much of the time you're never entirely sure where the essay is going to arrive. This uncertain quality is a nice feature of any essay, to my mind; I love essays that still keep Montaigne's sense of the word "essai" as "an attempt." That said, each of these pieces, long and short, is impeccably crafted, and loaded with memorable side-paths and stunning turns of phrase. Now I know why everyone loves her so much.
September 19, 2023
I seriously wanted to enjoy this book and come to love this new author for me. Stopping at page 23 and deciding to go no further. Life is short, too many book too little time. Although I love “expeditions, encounters and the wonders of the universe this did not at all connect with me. So much of what went on had made little sense to me. Oh well, I tried.
July 28, 2023
An evening read-aloud for my husband and I. Honestly, I found this collection of essays a bit insufferable, and I’m not a huge fan. Sorry to the Dillard fans.
December 29, 2020
I gave this book 2 stars for one main reason: it really made me uncomfortable with the way it talked about various Indigenous / First Nations people, especially those described as "Indians" in South America - as well as the way they were presented as part of the wild and part of the landscape.
Otherwise, this was a solidly 3 star book. I have to start off by saying that I am not a giant fan of non-fiction in general, and some of these essays really bored me. On the other hand, some of these essays, and some of the lines in particular, struck a chord with me. Reading these essays was like reading poetry - it was all about appreciating it as art.
The essays which resonated with me most included "An Expedition to the Pole", which struck me with its message about the relationship between ourselves and our ambition - it was really the kind of thing I was looking to read at this time in my life. I also appreciated "Living Like Weasels", "Lenses" and "Acres and Eights", but I think this is the kind of book which has a different impact on you depending on when in your life you happen to read it. I learnt things from this book, and I have had time to sit with the messages it gave me, but mainly I just appreciated it for the way Dillard uses words like paint on a canvas. I am not the kind of person who loves paintings, but I learnt from this book to be more observant of the nature around me - it forced me to be more observant. But because I live in Australia, it resonated with me less.
Overall, I wouldn't read this book again for many years, if I ever picked it up again. I would only recommend particular essays from this book to people, as some of the depictions of Indigenous peoples bothered me significantly.
Otherwise, this was a solidly 3 star book. I have to start off by saying that I am not a giant fan of non-fiction in general, and some of these essays really bored me. On the other hand, some of these essays, and some of the lines in particular, struck a chord with me. Reading these essays was like reading poetry - it was all about appreciating it as art.
The essays which resonated with me most included "An Expedition to the Pole", which struck me with its message about the relationship between ourselves and our ambition - it was really the kind of thing I was looking to read at this time in my life. I also appreciated "Living Like Weasels", "Lenses" and "Acres and Eights", but I think this is the kind of book which has a different impact on you depending on when in your life you happen to read it. I learnt things from this book, and I have had time to sit with the messages it gave me, but mainly I just appreciated it for the way Dillard uses words like paint on a canvas. I am not the kind of person who loves paintings, but I learnt from this book to be more observant of the nature around me - it forced me to be more observant. But because I live in Australia, it resonated with me less.
Overall, I wouldn't read this book again for many years, if I ever picked it up again. I would only recommend particular essays from this book to people, as some of the depictions of Indigenous peoples bothered me significantly.
October 23, 2021
Unpopular opinion on this one! This was my first Dillard book. The writing was superb, elegant, and rich. However, I tried and tried to get past her underlying and pervasive snark, pessimism, and arrogance and ultimately could not. If an author truly wants to communicate a sense of awe, cohesion, bewilderment, etc. with nature, they should follow the lead of Barbara Kingsolver & her collection of essays (Small Wonders). That was brilliantly written without the flippant above-it-all dismissal found in most of these essays.
July 26, 2017
Found this one somewhere. In the past I have found AD to be a bit of a trial. The Maytrees was unreadable but her memoir wasn't too bad. The BIG problem for me is her intensely twee/poetic prose. This book is a collection of shorter pieces. I read the first one last night and it was ... OK. I'll be reading one at a time.
"Chapter " 2("An Expedition to the Pole") Meanders for many pages between the author's experiences as a spiritual seeker in a local Catholic church(definitely NOT a cathedral) and piecemeal investigations of the history of polar explorations. Then she attempts a dream-like synthesis of the two. I have no idea what she's talking about. Oh well ...
"In the Jungle" - a short piece set in Ecuador. AD must have take a nature tour there. Sounds nice. So ... it's no good hoping that the next story will NOT be over-written and NOT airy-fairy. Best to relax, accept and enjoy the good stuff.
"The Deer at Providencia" - Still in Ecuador and contemplating the unsolvable - suffering and death. Good stuff. In. Africa I watched a cow being butchered for a feast of which I partook. After its throat was cut you hear it trying to breathe. In the words of David Helfcott, "It's a mystery."
"Teaching a Stone to talk" - Back to the airy-fairy. Ms. Dillard apparently is at home with someone who is LITERALLY attempting to do the title task. Oh well ... any excuse for vague and flowery prose in the service of enigmatic observation
"On a Hill Far Away" - a tinker creek "story." Is Ms. Dillard still a Jesus-squeezer?(no - she dumped Catholicism a while ago, after having become an adult convert) A la Mary Carr/Karr(?) ... Emotionally wobbly ... married three times.
"Total Eclipse" - while AD's description of the physical manifestations of totality are piercingly acute and wondrous, she goes predictably bat-bleep nutty with all the "spiritual/emotional" stuff she attaches to the experience. She gets a bit biblical too ... ick!
"Lenses" - microscopes and telescopes.
"Life on the Rocks: The Galapagos - I liked this one. Ms. Dillard continues to veer from fairly straightforward to out-of-control and I prefer the former.
"A Field of Silence" = back to airy-fairy land with the somewhat incoherent(to me) and flaky-prosed Ms. Dillard. More of her religiosity and other related craziness. God ... angels ... One is reminded of Faulkner. That man has a LOT to answer for!
"God in the Doorway" - Poor Annie = uber-sensitive girl. Miss White was crazy - no need to apologize! Where's the good sense? Once again I'm reminded of the guy in the Alaskan bush in the school bus = "Into the Wild" another personality in extremis.
Last night's two readings were good examples of the up-and-down nature of this book for me. "Mirages" had some interesting descriptive language, but overall the verbal/spiritual fireworks were just ... too ... much. The next bit, "Sojourner," an essay about mangroves, was much better(for me).
Finished up last night with "Aces and Eights," one of the best essays in this collection. Though AD did at times lapse into her trademark arch over-intellectualism, the story was actually a bit moving at the end. Oh that writing! When it's good it's very good and when it's bad(fussy-prissy, over-sensitive, over-precious - metonymic! catenary! - over self-aware) its annoying to the opoint of resentment on my part. Keeps referring to her daughter(I assume) as "the child" - WHY? so ... to be positive I say that Annie Dillard deserves credit for trying to write in a way that's true to her vision of the world. She tries to "tell it true." Oh yeah, she is/was a smoker too - UGH! Not a good sign ...
- 3.5* rounds down to 3*
"Chapter " 2("An Expedition to the Pole") Meanders for many pages between the author's experiences as a spiritual seeker in a local Catholic church(definitely NOT a cathedral) and piecemeal investigations of the history of polar explorations. Then she attempts a dream-like synthesis of the two. I have no idea what she's talking about. Oh well ...
"In the Jungle" - a short piece set in Ecuador. AD must have take a nature tour there. Sounds nice. So ... it's no good hoping that the next story will NOT be over-written and NOT airy-fairy. Best to relax, accept and enjoy the good stuff.
"The Deer at Providencia" - Still in Ecuador and contemplating the unsolvable - suffering and death. Good stuff. In. Africa I watched a cow being butchered for a feast of which I partook. After its throat was cut you hear it trying to breathe. In the words of David Helfcott, "It's a mystery."
"Teaching a Stone to talk" - Back to the airy-fairy. Ms. Dillard apparently is at home with someone who is LITERALLY attempting to do the title task. Oh well ... any excuse for vague and flowery prose in the service of enigmatic observation
"On a Hill Far Away" - a tinker creek "story." Is Ms. Dillard still a Jesus-squeezer?(no - she dumped Catholicism a while ago, after having become an adult convert) A la Mary Carr/Karr(?) ... Emotionally wobbly ... married three times.
"Total Eclipse" - while AD's description of the physical manifestations of totality are piercingly acute and wondrous, she goes predictably bat-bleep nutty with all the "spiritual/emotional" stuff she attaches to the experience. She gets a bit biblical too ... ick!
"Lenses" - microscopes and telescopes.
"Life on the Rocks: The Galapagos - I liked this one. Ms. Dillard continues to veer from fairly straightforward to out-of-control and I prefer the former.
"A Field of Silence" = back to airy-fairy land with the somewhat incoherent(to me) and flaky-prosed Ms. Dillard. More of her religiosity and other related craziness. God ... angels ... One is reminded of Faulkner. That man has a LOT to answer for!
"God in the Doorway" - Poor Annie = uber-sensitive girl. Miss White was crazy - no need to apologize! Where's the good sense? Once again I'm reminded of the guy in the Alaskan bush in the school bus = "Into the Wild" another personality in extremis.
Last night's two readings were good examples of the up-and-down nature of this book for me. "Mirages" had some interesting descriptive language, but overall the verbal/spiritual fireworks were just ... too ... much. The next bit, "Sojourner," an essay about mangroves, was much better(for me).
Finished up last night with "Aces and Eights," one of the best essays in this collection. Though AD did at times lapse into her trademark arch over-intellectualism, the story was actually a bit moving at the end. Oh that writing! When it's good it's very good and when it's bad(fussy-prissy, over-sensitive, over-precious - metonymic! catenary! - over self-aware) its annoying to the opoint of resentment on my part. Keeps referring to her daughter(I assume) as "the child" - WHY? so ... to be positive I say that Annie Dillard deserves credit for trying to write in a way that's true to her vision of the world. She tries to "tell it true." Oh yeah, she is/was a smoker too - UGH! Not a good sign ...
- 3.5* rounds down to 3*
April 24, 2014
The book is uneven. More often than not, I don’t know what is being said or why. Words and sentences are presented with little or no meaning. Stories jump around and I miss their line.
And yet, there’s always enough to keep me going. When Dillard encountered a weasel unexpectedly, she writes that “our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key.” It’s “face was fierce, small and pointed as a lizard’s; he would have made a good arrowhead,” she observes. Reflecting on its life, she says that “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons.” In another story, at a church where there was the custom of saying “peace be with you” to those nearby in the pew, the proper response was the same, “peace be with you.” Sitting next to two “teen-aged lugs,” Dillard said, “peace be with you,” and one of the lugs replied, “Yeah.” On a hilltop near Yakima, Washington, Dillard spots Crab Nebula, and comments that “It expands at the rate of seventy million miles a day. It is interesting to look through binoculars at something expanding seventy million miles a day. It does not budge.”
Or, Dillard taps into a nice image of mystery. Walking by a field, she remarked to her friend that “’There are angels in those fields.’ Angels!...I have rarely been so surprised at something I’ve said. Angels! What are angels? I had never thought of angels, in any way at all.” Thinking about it a bit, she writes, “My impression now of those fields is of thousands of spirits – spirits trapped, perhaps, by my refusal to call them more fully, or by the paralysis of my own spirit at that time – thousands of spirits, angels in fact, almost discernible to the eye, and whirling. If pressed I would say they were three or four feet from the ground.” That’s enough for most people to keep their distance. Dillard senses and shows what most of us do not see. And that’s a good thing.
And yet, there’s always enough to keep me going. When Dillard encountered a weasel unexpectedly, she writes that “our eyes locked, and someone threw away the key.” It’s “face was fierce, small and pointed as a lizard’s; he would have made a good arrowhead,” she observes. Reflecting on its life, she says that “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons.” In another story, at a church where there was the custom of saying “peace be with you” to those nearby in the pew, the proper response was the same, “peace be with you.” Sitting next to two “teen-aged lugs,” Dillard said, “peace be with you,” and one of the lugs replied, “Yeah.” On a hilltop near Yakima, Washington, Dillard spots Crab Nebula, and comments that “It expands at the rate of seventy million miles a day. It is interesting to look through binoculars at something expanding seventy million miles a day. It does not budge.”
Or, Dillard taps into a nice image of mystery. Walking by a field, she remarked to her friend that “’There are angels in those fields.’ Angels!...I have rarely been so surprised at something I’ve said. Angels! What are angels? I had never thought of angels, in any way at all.” Thinking about it a bit, she writes, “My impression now of those fields is of thousands of spirits – spirits trapped, perhaps, by my refusal to call them more fully, or by the paralysis of my own spirit at that time – thousands of spirits, angels in fact, almost discernible to the eye, and whirling. If pressed I would say they were three or four feet from the ground.” That’s enough for most people to keep their distance. Dillard senses and shows what most of us do not see. And that’s a good thing.
November 28, 2022
I have definitely read this book before, but I have apparently not written about it before. It is a short book, and this time I listen to the audible version of the summary of this book is, it is a HOOT! It is like when you are having a random conversation with yourself and just, following the winding of your memory down the path that is both familiar and newly discovered. Annie Dillard hops and skips around and you never know where she is going to land. She is lucid and she is mysterious.
December 21, 2024
What a beautiful incredible book. It was a little hard for me to read because I am not used to reading essays, or just extended versions of people’s personal opinions and stories in general, and I feel lucky to have started with this as Annie Dillard is a very interesting and qualified person for sharing wisdom and stories.
I absolutely loved the mix of historical and scientific snippets highlighting her personal experiences. She truly visualizes magic in the world around her like a child does (but also this should not be limited to children, it just often is not prioritized and practiced in adult life) and this allows her to draw beautiful connections between things.
An expedition to the pole is a shining star of an essay, it’s dense but rewarding: educational, comical, insightful. I want to put a quote for this one but it just has to be read, each insight and excerpt builds upon the next to the end and cumulates in a vibrant visualization and show of Annie Dillards magical imagination. There are a lot of little Easter eggs and hidden references within that essay, which rewards repeated reading. Even though it is incredibly specific with the characters at her church and expedition stories, it is relatable and universal. I feel as if I am on the floe with her, singing and playing the triangle and eating frozen Girl Scout cookies.
In the jungle and life on the rocks have such in depth descriptions of nature, which sometimes can be a little dense but if you take the time to read them they can really transport you to the scene.
Lenses was one of my favorites, especially as someone studying microbiology. I love how she makes science sound so magical. What a fascinating description of her too strong bulb creating a mini apocalypse in each drop of water. And she has the same unempathetic tone of observing suffering in organisms that she does in the Deer of Providencia. Which is honestly refreshing. I feel as the society we live in is constantly imposing suffering upon animals, it is almost crocodile tears if after just being exposed to it being sad about it. I think a true participant of society is at least aware of the mass suffering it imposes to eat meat, but also just live with a high standard of living in a highly consuming society in general. There was also some interesting gender stuff going on it that story too that I don’t feel like there was really a conclusion to. Of course empathy is incredibly important and arguably should even be practiced in a world where it is almost purposefully eliminated to allow for the type of living that we do - but there is a level of awareness to first understand the mass suffering underlying everyday processes that may come with an initial numbness. Maybe I’m reading too much into it and she didn’t share her emotions in an attempt to allow the reader to experience these situations with her without her feelings impacting how we would feel about the situation.
Total eclipse!!! What a surreal and magical way to describe this experience - I’ve never seen one but after reading this I will be sure to before I die. I’ve never thought of it as a horrifying experience. I felt the same about Mirages and the Galapagos story. She describes things so beautifully I either need to go see it myself or develop her way of thinking so I can create those magical moments for myself.
Aces and eights, what a loving story that happens to be incredibly relatable to the human experience. The sensation of wanting to remember a moment, and particularly imagining a present or future moment in memory form as if it was something in the past. Willing yourself to remember it, knowing that it will be different, sweeter to look back on. Also the feeling of a weekend, a time that can be so short but such a significant section for a memory. How Friday night feels so open to possibility, Saturday being a full day of rest as a whole chunk in the middle and Sunday as a conclusion. I like how the relationship between her and the child is undefined. Their connection was truly beautiful, I loved the scene where Annie knew exactly what was going on in the child’s head when she was imagining her own future and having a husband and kids. I also liked the description of Mr. Very and for him (and his type) to immortalized in an honest and empathetic light.
Lastly living like weasels, man what a perfect essay. I don’t even have words to write about it here because if you know me well you already know why this is important and if you don’t just ask.
I absolutely loved the mix of historical and scientific snippets highlighting her personal experiences. She truly visualizes magic in the world around her like a child does (but also this should not be limited to children, it just often is not prioritized and practiced in adult life) and this allows her to draw beautiful connections between things.
An expedition to the pole is a shining star of an essay, it’s dense but rewarding: educational, comical, insightful. I want to put a quote for this one but it just has to be read, each insight and excerpt builds upon the next to the end and cumulates in a vibrant visualization and show of Annie Dillards magical imagination. There are a lot of little Easter eggs and hidden references within that essay, which rewards repeated reading. Even though it is incredibly specific with the characters at her church and expedition stories, it is relatable and universal. I feel as if I am on the floe with her, singing and playing the triangle and eating frozen Girl Scout cookies.
In the jungle and life on the rocks have such in depth descriptions of nature, which sometimes can be a little dense but if you take the time to read them they can really transport you to the scene.
Lenses was one of my favorites, especially as someone studying microbiology. I love how she makes science sound so magical. What a fascinating description of her too strong bulb creating a mini apocalypse in each drop of water. And she has the same unempathetic tone of observing suffering in organisms that she does in the Deer of Providencia. Which is honestly refreshing. I feel as the society we live in is constantly imposing suffering upon animals, it is almost crocodile tears if after just being exposed to it being sad about it. I think a true participant of society is at least aware of the mass suffering it imposes to eat meat, but also just live with a high standard of living in a highly consuming society in general. There was also some interesting gender stuff going on it that story too that I don’t feel like there was really a conclusion to. Of course empathy is incredibly important and arguably should even be practiced in a world where it is almost purposefully eliminated to allow for the type of living that we do - but there is a level of awareness to first understand the mass suffering underlying everyday processes that may come with an initial numbness. Maybe I’m reading too much into it and she didn’t share her emotions in an attempt to allow the reader to experience these situations with her without her feelings impacting how we would feel about the situation.
Total eclipse!!! What a surreal and magical way to describe this experience - I’ve never seen one but after reading this I will be sure to before I die. I’ve never thought of it as a horrifying experience. I felt the same about Mirages and the Galapagos story. She describes things so beautifully I either need to go see it myself or develop her way of thinking so I can create those magical moments for myself.
Aces and eights, what a loving story that happens to be incredibly relatable to the human experience. The sensation of wanting to remember a moment, and particularly imagining a present or future moment in memory form as if it was something in the past. Willing yourself to remember it, knowing that it will be different, sweeter to look back on. Also the feeling of a weekend, a time that can be so short but such a significant section for a memory. How Friday night feels so open to possibility, Saturday being a full day of rest as a whole chunk in the middle and Sunday as a conclusion. I like how the relationship between her and the child is undefined. Their connection was truly beautiful, I loved the scene where Annie knew exactly what was going on in the child’s head when she was imagining her own future and having a husband and kids. I also liked the description of Mr. Very and for him (and his type) to immortalized in an honest and empathetic light.
Lastly living like weasels, man what a perfect essay. I don’t even have words to write about it here because if you know me well you already know why this is important and if you don’t just ask.
May 24, 2024
There are pockets of Appalachia that still lie green and unchanged from the versions of them that Dillard walked through decades ago—maybe less silent, or maybe more overgrown, the way time tends to make things. I drove up to Tinker Creek one night, curious, book in hand, but it was just water in the dark. I guess the rustle of leaves could’ve been a weasel, on guard, poised to bite at the neck, only it just as easily could’ve been a gust of mountain air, or nothing at all.
I’ll have to return when the sky is bluer and the plants and fauna more awake, when I read PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK; when else will I get the chance?
I read this off a footnote from a Ted Chiang story (Hell is the Absence of God) about angels and the fear-strike of faith. Dillard has a beautiful way of looking at nature or humanity, or more often the interplay between them, and pulling a resonant thread from it. Some of her prose is gorgeous. Her treatment of faith works for me as well as I hoped it would. But other times her attempts at cleverness feel too assertive, the “moral[s] of the story” a bit too clean to be genuinely thought-provoking. I can’t quite tell if I like her work, but I care enough to find out, which I think is enough.
I’ll have to return when the sky is bluer and the plants and fauna more awake, when I read PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK; when else will I get the chance?
I read this off a footnote from a Ted Chiang story (Hell is the Absence of God) about angels and the fear-strike of faith. Dillard has a beautiful way of looking at nature or humanity, or more often the interplay between them, and pulling a resonant thread from it. Some of her prose is gorgeous. Her treatment of faith works for me as well as I hoped it would. But other times her attempts at cleverness feel too assertive, the “moral[s] of the story” a bit too clean to be genuinely thought-provoking. I can’t quite tell if I like her work, but I care enough to find out, which I think is enough.
September 18, 2023
Erm, I think I'm probably in the minority here but honestly, Annie Dillard is so overrated!!
I've been hearing amazing things about her writing over the years and decided to plunge in with this one. It was bad! There is probably more mention of god and religion than there is about the natural world!
Admittedly she can be poetic at times, but the writing is also overly flowery, disjointed, repetitive and plain annoying in some instances. The story about the eclipse sounded like fiction it was that embellished.
So I've tried, and I didn't like. No thanks Dillard, you're not my cup of tea.
Off to the community book exchange.
I've been hearing amazing things about her writing over the years and decided to plunge in with this one. It was bad! There is probably more mention of god and religion than there is about the natural world!
Admittedly she can be poetic at times, but the writing is also overly flowery, disjointed, repetitive and plain annoying in some instances. The story about the eclipse sounded like fiction it was that embellished.
So I've tried, and I didn't like. No thanks Dillard, you're not my cup of tea.
Off to the community book exchange.
January 1, 2021
Loved this! She writes how I wish I could write. Kind of reminded me of a mix between Patti Smith and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Definitely some convoluted storytelling and an overall melancholy tone but I found each essay striking.
Lots of themes of nature, God and creation, the purpose of humanity, etc.
Definitely some convoluted storytelling and an overall melancholy tone but I found each essay striking.
Lots of themes of nature, God and creation, the purpose of humanity, etc.
April 28, 2023
Excellent collection of essays.
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