<![CDATA[For the Time Being]]>

false <![CDATA[For the Time Being]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166504399m/12532.jpg 12532 10 Over the last three decades, Annie Dillard has written about an uncommon number of things--predators and prose, astronomy and evolution, the miraculous survival of mangroves. Yet the sheer range of her interests can be deceptive. Whatever the subject, Dillard is always (as she wrote in Living by Fiction) practicing unlicensed metaphysics in a teacup, always asking the fundamental questions about life and death. And this epistemological interrogation continues in For the Time Being. Here Dillard alternates accounts of her own travels to China and Israel with ruminations on sand, clouds, obstetrics, and Hasidic thought. She also records the wanderings of paleontologist and spade-wielding spiritualist Teilhard de Chardin, whose itinerary (geographical and philosophical) has certain similarities to her own. But as she ties together these disparate threads with truly Emersonian eloquence, it becomes clear that God's presence--or absence--is at the heart of her book. There are, of course, facts aplenty here: the author is among our keenest living observers of the natural world (check out her soft-core account of two snails mating in chapter 7). But all roads lead Dillard back to God, who seems to be practicing a divine variant of benign neglect: <blockquote> God is no more cogitating which among us he plans to be born as bird-headed dwarfs or elephant men--or to kill by AIDS or kidney failure, heart disease, childhood leukemia, or sudden infant death syndrome--than he is pitching lightning bolts at pedestrians, triggering rock slides, or setting fires. The very least unlikely things for which God might be responsible are what insurers call "acts of God." </blockquote> Natural calamity is an old fascination of the author's, going clear back to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm. Here it allows her to make her strongest argument yet on behalf of the Almighty's laissez-faire policy--while suggesting that His immanence in fact depends on our belief. Yet even in her earnest pursuit of holiness, Dillard tends to hit the occasional speed bump. At one point she throws up her hands in exasperation and declares: "I don't know beans about God." This is hardly the stuff of an airtight theological argument, is it? But happily, Dillard possesses the same quality she ascribes to Teilhard, "a sort of anaerobic capacity to batten and thrive on paradox." So her contradictions are worth more to the reader than her consistencies. They enrich her narrative, yanking her back from the precipice of easy (or even moderately easy) belief. And Dillard's penchant for paradox ensures that For the Time Being--which aims, after all, to encompass God and all his works--always operates on a human, heartbreaking scale. --James Marcus 1140525 1999 For the Time Being total:837|5:398|4:257|3:142|2:32|1:8| 837 3516 1103 129 5 2 false false Wed Apr 18 03:27:19 -0700 2007 Wed Feb 13 08:07:16 -0800 2008
"The sight of a cleaned clay soldier upright in a museum case is unremarkable, and this is all that future generations will see. No one will display those men crushed beyond repair; no one will display their lose parts; no one w...more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 21 14:45:21 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 27 17:19:15 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 17:51:12 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 17:53:22 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Jul 03 09:21:41 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 09:51:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 20:08:28 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 20:23:03 -0700 2009 This is a book made up of fragments of history and philosophy, random facts about sand and clouds, and fractured narratives. But it is more than that, too, as Annie Dillard takes these broken elements and tries to weave them together. (You could think of it as a literary version of the Tibetan sand ...

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Dillard: There were no fo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Sep 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 08:59:48 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 07:29:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 15:18:21 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 15:19:44 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Jul 22 10:51:41 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 11:07:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 16 14:01:57 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 14:19:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 22 06:09:45 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 10 08:01:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 20:02:44 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 13:02:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 06:44:59 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 09:49:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 06 18:45:59 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 06 18:50:40 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 18 23:26:27 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 18 23:27:47 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Sep 19 21:05:31 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 22 22:38:20 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 19 21:04:29 -0700 2007
the problems, for me:
1. way too many quotes. at least half the book is quotes from other people.
2. both the quotes and her own th...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 20:36:16 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 20:49:15 -0700 2007 -We are only about three hundred gen...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Mar 26 06:57:40 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 16:41:06 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Aug 25 21:08:56 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 21:23:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jul 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 15:10:18 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 15:16:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=12532