Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Maytrees

3.49 of 5 stars 3.49 · rating details · 3,057 ratings · 761 reviews

Toby Maytree first sees Lou Bigelow on her bicycle in postwar Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her laughter and loveliness catch his breath. Maytree is a Provincetown native, an educated poet of thirty. As he courts Lou, just out of college, her stillness draws him. Hands-off, he hides his serious wooing, and idly shows her his poems.

In spare, elegant prose, Dillard traces the...more

Hardcover, 216 pages

Published June 12th 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 2007)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

New England Books

109th out of 368 books — 146 voters

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007

48th out of 100 books — 31 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 18, 2007 Donald rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in love

Shelves: generalcrankiness

I got myself in a snit over the review in the NY Times Book Review and sent the editor the following:

To the Editor:

Certainly Annie Dillard’s new novel, The Maytrees, deserved a more perceptive — indeed, a more proficient — reader than Ms. Reed (July 29). One wonders if she has ever considered the punning irony of her name, as she managed to stumble upon the key sentences of the novel under review, failed to recognize their import, and then admitted in print to being unable to parse them.

“Then t...more

24 likes · like · see review

Jul 07, 2011 Kendall rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's hard to know what to make of this book; you can let yourself to be taken in by its beautiful prose and wallow in its lyricism; or to delight in the precise, glowing descriptions of landscapes and seascapes and emotional states-of-mind. But if you're into creating writing, perhaps not as a course but you have internalized its rules from reading too much genre, you may be angry that Dillard breaks all the rules: she mostly tells rather than shows (never mind that the telling is luminous). And...more

14 likes · like · see review

Feb 10, 2008 Skylar Burris rated it 1 of 5 stars

"Why surprise?" "Is all fair?" "Is love blind?" "Why sadder but wiser?" "What else could wisdom be?" These are some of Annie Dillard's profound questions in Maytrees. Here are some of mine: What is pomposity? Why care? Are big words better than more appropriate small words? Whither quotation marks? Will you ever stop asking short, choppy questions and tell a readable story?

While I recognized a few short flashes of genius in the writing (some touches of real beauty, occasional moments of poetry,...more

11 likes · like · see review

Jan 23, 2008 Sean rated it 5 of 5 stars

I live in awe of Annie Dillard's writing. While devouring much of her nonfiction, I consistently found my curiosity piqued at the one solitary novel (The Living) listed in the bibliography included in the front matter of each book I read. Last year I decided to satisfy that curiosity when I discovered a copy of The Living in a Vermont used bookstore. I was excited! How would Annie's writing style translate in fiction? I eagerly dove in and unfortunately was quickly disappointed. It's not that t...more I live in awe of Annie Dillard's writing. While devouring much of her nonfiction, I consistently found my curiosity piqued at the one solitary novel (The Living) listed in the bibliography included in the front matter of each book I read. Last year I decided to satisfy that curiosity when I discovered a copy of The Living in a Vermont used bookstore. I was excited! How would Annie's writing style translate in fiction? I eagerly dove in and unfortunately was quickly disappointed. It's not that the writing was technically bad; it's more that I found myself desperately missing the poetry in Annie's nonfiction prose. How each short paragraph carries so much meaning, and the beauty in how she words what otherwise might be only a common phrase. I don't doubt that The Living is accurate historical fiction, but the story is just not that compelling. I struggled through about half of it before giving up. I then cleansed my reading palate by reading another of Annie's nonfiction gems.
Not surprisingly then, when I heard that Annie had a new book out and it was fiction, my reaction was rather subdued. Why fiction? Why not more of her rich yet airy stripped-down nonfiction prose? Nonetheless, I investigated the matter, and was at least pleased to find that The Maytrees was a much thinner volume than The Living. That way if I didn't like it, at least I might actually be able to say that I finished this one.
Well, what can I say? The book is a work of a truly great writer at the top of her game. It contains the best elements of her nonfiction writing seamlessly woven into a finely textured story of love and life. Of course nature plays a role, almost as a character unto itself, but never as the direct focal point, as it sometimes does in her nonfiction. Instead, she uses nature to truly connect her characters to their environment, making them seem that much more believable and realistic. It is an intensely human story, that exhibits the depth of knowledge and feeling that Annie has clearly absorbed through years of living and writing.
It has occurred to me before that maybe Annie's writing isn't for everyone. But for me, there are few writers who excel more in their command of the English language, and their ability to say so much in so few words, and so beautifully.
(less)

9 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2009 Zinta rated it 5 of 5 stars

It was long ago that I bought the book, on a long, lone roadtrip southwest, in a favorite bookstore alongside the Rockies. I held it, carried it, kept it on my coffeetable, my nightstand, prolonging the sweet anticipation, knowing the coming reward. I have been (no hyperbole) in awe of Annie Dillard from the first encounter, decades ago, with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (winning Dillard the Pulitzer Prize). Finally, oh finally, picking up what I expect may be her final novel (I heard her interview o...more

10 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2008 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Annie Dillard is simply the best living creative non-fiction writer. She has the rare ability to put common experiences and abstract emotions into words, and the structure and beauty of her sentences are pretty well unrivaled. If you don’t believe me, pick up An American Childhood or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – both books about everyday experiences that Dillard makes wondrous. Over the years, I think I’ve read every nonfiction book she’s written.

Still, can she write fiction? The Maytrees is her s...more Annie Dillard is simply the best living creative non-fiction writer. She has the rare ability to put common experiences and abstract emotions into words, and the structure and beauty of her sentences are pretty well unrivaled. If you don’t believe me, pick up An American Childhood or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – both books about everyday experiences that Dillard makes wondrous. Over the years, I think I’ve read every nonfiction book she’s written.

Still, can she write fiction? The Maytrees is her second fictive effort after The Living and the only novel by Dillard that I’ve read. It follows a couple who lives on Cape Cod through the 50 years of their relationship and explores how and why people love. The couple has a child, the man runs away with another woman, the other woman dies, the man comes back. Nothing revolutionary plot-wise.

First, let me say I liked it. The description of Provincetown is lovely and Dillard does what she does best: dissects little moments and little thoughts and puts words to feelings that we’ve never been able to find words for. Her sentences are as lovely as always and the story almost has the feel of a long poem.

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that fiction isn’t Dillard’s strong suit. The largest problem I had involved simply understanding the story – much more attention is put toward how things are going on instead of what’s going on. There were many passages I had to read twice just to get the logistics of what was happening, and I don’t think Dillard meant for it to be confusing. There were several places were the numbers simply didn’t work (the main character’s age is wrong in several places, for instance, which immediately throws me out the reality of the world she’s created) and there were several places that didn’t make sense for hundreds of places (one passage in the first ten pages makes you think that a character is murdered, when in fact she dies of old age 200 pages later) and again, these confusing bits of writing didn’t seem to be there on purpose.

In the end, if you’re an Annie Dillard fanatic, this is worth picking up, just to be in awe of some of her sentences and to read her descriptions of the New England Coast. If you haven’t read much Dillard, I might skip this one in favor of one of her nonfiction books – although it isn’t unenjoyable, it does show that Dillard is much better at exploring our own world than at creating her own.
(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Feb 10, 2008 El rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, yinzers-n-at

In post-war Cape Cod Toby Maytree meets Lou Bigelow and falls in love. They create a life and family, surrounded by friends and adoration for one another. They are a well-educated, well-read, talented couple who do not live to make money but who want to know the full meaning of "love" in all aspects.

It almost sounds hokey.

But Toby ultimately finds what he is looking for outside of Lou and what they have created is torn apart. Their lives and their feelings for each other ebb like the flow of wat...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jun 21, 2007 Ellen McGinnis rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book has gotten a lot of good reviews, but I was a little disappointed. I have not read any other books by Annie Dillard - her writing is poetic - maybe too poetic. Sometimes it was just confusing, a bit too "stream-of-consciousness". I became a bit detached - observing myself reading the book, instead of enjoying the book.

That said, it is a pretty good story, a quick read, and I liked it enough to recommend it as a beach read or something to take on a plane or train to pass 3-4 hours.

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 31, 2008 Charis rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Dillard lovers.

Good and strange. I felt a bit cheated by Annie. The book is strangely 'ungrounded' - snippets and particles of tangible story throughout, but somehow lacking any GLUE, anything to make my heart move. I can't critique the content or the language - as usual her language is almost separate FROM her writing - it is as though she uses words and language in and of themselves and doesn't always concern herself with where it leads or what they do.
The analogy that keeps coming to my mind is a brilliant...more

7 likes · like · see review

Aug 06, 2007 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ugh...Dillard says she's not going to write another book as this is, in her opinion, the best work she's ever produced. She cut the manuscript back from 1000+ pages to its present form, which is way too choppy and terse for my liking. This could have been an interesting story about how love changes as people change but the writing made it hard to focus on the narrative and characters!

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 08, 2011 Charles rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Maytrees is a curious book.

The storyline is sparse, but it is only a gossamer vehicle for the prose, the grandiloquence of language. I was not bothered by the non-linearity of the narrative, but, I was, at times, annoyed by the inconsistencies of the timeline. Her sentences were staccato, ranging from the caliginous to the nacreous to the opaque. I was not bothered by the vocabulary, although vast, but I was by some of the unusual (?wrong) usage. She is, incontrovertibly, an unrequited and...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 12, 2008 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometime last fall, I read a review of this book in which the reviewer criticized Dillard's arcane and at times unintelligable syntax. I remember the reviewer essentially quoting an entire paragraph, then writing "What does this mean?" I began this book committed to proving the reviewer wrong. At first, I was worried. Too many passages were bewildering, vague, and opaque. But as I got going, I began to appreciate Dillard's willingness to leave things unexplained, to let some phrases and sentence...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jul 07, 2008 Cat rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really love Annie Dillard. I cannot express how "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" shook my world, only to say that I refuse to let anyone borrow my worn paperback copy not because I'm worried about not getting it back, but because I am so mortified by some of the 18-year-old thoughts I scribbled in the margins the first time read it. That's how bad it is.

So, it's hard to express my level of disappointment with "The Maytrees." It's a book that is far to contemplative to be fiction, let alone a story ab...more

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 10, 2008 Lucy rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those with a liberal view about marriage

For a book about love, it's kind of a downer. There are too many exquisite lines to put this into a "waste of time" category, but as a whole, I can't claim this to be a favorite.

What I enjoyed was Dillard's ability to put a unique feel to common experiences. For instance, when Maytree looked at his wife, she wrote, "After their first year or so, Lou's beauty no longer surprised him. He never stopped looking, because her face was his eyes' home."

Or.
"That he did not possess her childhood drove him...more For a book about love, it's kind of a downer. There are too many exquisite lines to put this into a "waste of time" category, but as a whole, I can't claim this to be a favorite.

What I enjoyed was Dillard's ability to put a unique feel to common experiences. For instance, when Maytree looked at his wife, she wrote, "After their first year or so, Lou's beauty no longer surprised him. He never stopped looking, because her face was his eyes' home."

Or.
"That he did not possess her childhood drove him wild. Who was this impostor she sang with in college -- how dare he?"

Here's a good one:
"A woman's forgiveness weakened a man's arms and back. So did its sob sister, pity. It would not stand up to fight. Who could prevail against it?"

This one is my favorite:
"Often she missed infant Petie now gone -- his random gapes, his bizarre buttocks. How besotted they gazed at each other nose-on-nose. He fit her arms as if they two had invented how to carry a baby.....She imagined joining picnic tables outside by the beach and setting them for 22 Peties and Petes, or 122, or however greedy she was that day and however divisible Pete. Together the sons at every age and size -- scented with diaper, formula on rubber nipples, bike grease, wax crayon...waited for dinner. Who else knew what each liked? It was a hell of a long table. She gave herself a minute to watch them -- Petie after Petie barefoot near his future self and past. They pinched and teased or shoved one another. What mother would not want to see her kids again?"

Now normally I do not give a lot of quotes for a book review. I can't really explain why I did with this particular book, other than I liked these individual lines better than the book as a whole. I confess that I've always had a slight prejudice against east coasters. I don't know exactly why. Again, I like almost all of the individuals I've met, but as a whole, there is a superiority they perceive in themselves in regards to their intellect, experience and perspective that I find irritating. These characters and their beach front way of life irritated me. Their attitudes towards marriage, parenting, etc. frustrated me. I don't know if it was the author's own bias that tainted them, or if it really was isolated to these particular characters, but the choices they made did not match the consequences I felt each choice deserved.

But who am I to say what should befall the fallen? All I can say is I felt unsatisfied at the end. And a little bit like none of it mattered.

Wow. This was a really bad book review. Sorry.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

May 05, 2008 Shaindel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: writers, fans of Dillard, fans of love

I *just* finished reading this book, and I'm sure I've got to let it resonate a bit. First, let me say, this is an important book to read. Annie Dillard is doing something really interesting here, but I'm not sure quite what it is--which is part of the quiet and beauty of the novel.

There is one plot twist at the beginning (which I won't give away), but I think it was a brave direction for Dillard to take. At some times, I liked the "distance" from the characters. They live in their heads, and we...more

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 02, 2007 Nate Dean rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: philosophers, bookworms

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who bothered to look up pauciloquy on page 70, and was bothered to note that this $110.00 word meaning "brevity of speech" was not only archaic (as of 1913) and misspelled (Dillard spells it "pauciloquoy"), but also not as good a word choice as "terseness" IMHO. Not only does this word describe Lou's character to a T, but also describes the writing style in this book that pretends to be a poem, but happily is not.

So the book is a bit decadent in word choice and met...more

2 likes · like · see review

Sep 09, 2007 Alicia rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard is a stunning work of fiction, following a couple through their life, both together and apart. I like these kind of novels, where quiet, profound moments lead toward something greater than it's parts.

The author's use of language takes your breath away. She is a truly gifted novel who packs a whole lot of impact into a tiny novel. The sheer depth of this novel is astounding. Absolutely lovely novel.

Lou Bigelow and Toby Maytree marry and create a life in Cape Code, be...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 18, 2007 Karima rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: ponderers/wordsmiths

that pauciloquy means "brevity of speech."

from James Davidson (read his full review at amazon.com. It's terrific.)

Annie does have a way with words. And maybe it's just me, but for some of the words--words like: halyard, pauciloquoys, culch, mesoglea, spicules, and littoral--I had to have the American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition, faithfully by my side to refer to rather frequently. What good fortune for me then that Annie Dillard, so I noticed, also just happened to be on that dictionary'...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 13, 2007 Patrick O'Connell rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book I will remember. That said, the first third of the book was a bit of slog, and I do have a few complaints. But all-in-all it's a beautiful story.

It's an introspective and consuming look into life, love and death.

It seems to me that we learn about the characters in a novel via three vehicles; what they do, what they say, and what they think. This book leans heavily on the latter. From what I know about Annie Dillard (an introspective recluse), this is not a surprise.

Despite my high...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 07, 2008 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

This books really surprised me. I don't want to give it away, but I found the Lou character to be a bit unrealistic. The descriptions of the Cape and Provincetwon were vivid and beautiful, but I thought the book was a bit too slow moving for me. The writing was really thick in terms of vocabulary and meaning. I could see and English professor using just one page of this book for an entire class.

I liked 2 quotes so much I wrote them down

"Her face was his eyes' home" and "He never really loved he...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 17, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I've been enamored of Annie Dillard since reading Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek. Her body of work is primarily non-fiction, so I grabbed this quickly to see how she would handle fiction.

On one level I was disappointed -- the characters are so eccentric and quirky, and the narrative so sparse and staccato, that I was put off.

Yet her language is so exquisite that I was captivated, and as I reflected back on the story, I found it more interesting.

Annie Dillard must collect words the way some people mig...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 26, 2008 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have loved Dillard's nonfiction, so when I saw this little book of fiction, published in 2007, I snapped it up. It's a difficult book to describe. Elegant. Evocative. Quiet. Poetic. NOT a page turner. Sometimes, however, that is okay. This is definitely a book to read rather than listen to, as you have to go slowly to soak up all the beautiful imagery.

The plot involves a young couple, the eponymous Maytrees. Dillard follows their courtship and the early days of their marriage, which is shatte...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 03, 2013 Mike Owens rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Maytrees, set in the 1940s, evolves in the sands of Cape Cod Bay. The story and the characters are intimately linked with those sands, and the seasons and the sea set the rhythms of events. The narrative spans a period of some thirty years.
Dillard explores three main themes: love, age and death. Her characters, as they move in and out of relationships question the very nature (and necessity) of love. What becomes of it after the initial period of infatuation, some 18 months at best? Does it...more

like · see review

Feb 13, 2013 Greg Morrison rated it 2 of 5 stars

Towards the conclusion of Annie Dillard's novel, The Maytrees, a character contemplates writing a book-length poem. He chooses "There Will Be a Sea Battle Tomorrow" for his title. Dillard points out that he's referencing Aristotle's problem - basically, how true are statements about the future? Is the battle fought tomorrow or not? Is either statement true, until the event actually occurs? Is Schrödinger's cat alive or dead? What's going on inside that black box?

The whole book goes on like this....more Towards the conclusion of Annie Dillard's novel, The Maytrees, a character contemplates writing a book-length poem. He chooses "There Will Be a Sea Battle Tomorrow" for his title. Dillard points out that he's referencing Aristotle's problem - basically, how true are statements about the future? Is the battle fought tomorrow or not? Is either statement true, until the event actually occurs? Is Schrödinger's cat alive or dead? What's going on inside that black box?

The whole book goes on like this. Dillard strands her novel with taut, practical people, immersed in crafts like carpentry, fishing, housecare, childrearing. Then she cuts at them, with hard turns of fate and the inevitable shambles of old age. Then she wonders, is there anything left inside? After people grow up (and after the century grows up), is there anything left of what we used to be? After they're scoured and pulled at and they fall down stairs, what is left to hold them together in all the broken spots?

She writes these winnowings in precise, deliberate prose - preferring a technical word to a commonplace description, preferring archaic or obsolete latinisms to domesticated, well-handled words. Too often her words stepped forth from their place as character development, description, or irony, and said to me, "Pay attention: you are reading a closely-written and highly poetic novel, which thinks about the nature of being." This becomes tiresome.

Often she writes in the same key as Marilynne Robinson, hitting some notes of beauty in placid daily life. The passages where Maytree wanders the dunes, or when people find their way on land by star-reckoning, come to mind. The constellations, in particular Orion, are very important to these characters, living on Cape Cod. At times like this, the novel sinks into the characters' world, so that we must accept its logic, as readers, but are all the while reminded of its strangeness. I don't know how to bait eel-traps with horseshoe crabs, for instance.

But then there's sentences like "Awareness was a braided river. It slid down time in drops or torrents." Or, "Under tires dry snow yelped." Or, "Now in compassion they bore, between them, their solitudes each the size of the raveled globe." These are meant to be deliberate, careful & quiet - so close to the lyric style in poetry that it's hard to remember why they're not. But throughout this book I thought of a stray comment in Kingsley Amis' novel The Green Man. Maurice is reading a modern novel, which is so clotted with fanciful description that he gets nothing out of it. Finally he puts it down in exasperation, thinking of those "barbaric" works of art where every inch of a piece of wood must be worked over, infested with decoration.

Nowhere did I think that the story was standing still to no purpose, or that Dillard was just delighting in her own powers to crystallize (cf. Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone). But I did keep thinking that perhaps this book was not written for me. Dillard seems to be looking forward to the next hack, tear, or misapprehension she can inflict on her creations. Not, thankfully, for the shock value or the "realness" - but so she can send them on thinking about how precious everything is, and how their lives are at once in sync with the stars and meaningless compared to them, etc. She can't hardly wait for her characters to get old, develop weeping bed sores and cracked bones slowly mending, so she can send them off into the ether of her philosophical speculations. Also, most of these philosophical digressions boil down to, "Man, doesn't science disillusion you? Doesn't life seem pretty pointless when you think about how you're going to die?" Which doesn't help.

The opening chapters are sweet & have a direct pleasure to them. But even then, these characters seem like very old people, dressed up in shorts and tank tops and swim suits, larking around the sand dunes. She describes the freshness of a first date, where a young girl strains to get up a sandhill because her feet slip back half as far as they've gotten. But then this is echoed, pitifully, when her estranged husband has the same problem, in his frailty. The cumulative effect of these links (and there are many - big empty holes, the red-eyed vireo, etc.) implies that beauty is precious, that we front the world always with our frailties and our limited view of it.

But this thinning stringency saps the Maytrees of independence. They never quite came alive for me. I was interested to read on here that Annie Dillard edited this book down to its present 216 pages (my edition) from over 1,000 pages. It shows. Editing demands ruthlessness. This is a book concerned with showing that the author is utterly indifferent, that her characters are not some soppy knot of emotion, but a carefully constructed arrangement of beauties, like a constellation. But do the stars in a constellation care what we call them?(less)

like · see review

Nov 02, 2012 Zoe Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

Annie Dillard is definitely an acquired taste, but I think I'm beginning to acquire it. Having loved Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a memoir written when she was quite young, I read this novel on the advice of a long time friend. And though it exasperated me from time to time, I learned to relax and enjoy its eccentricities.

The exasperation: Dillard's too fond of obscure words (like thigmotropic and pauciloquy - yes, I had to look them up, too ). But to be fair, her main characters are fanatic, well-...more Annie Dillard is definitely an acquired taste, but I think I'm beginning to acquire it. Having loved Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a memoir written when she was quite young, I read this novel on the advice of a long time friend. And though it exasperated me from time to time, I learned to relax and enjoy its eccentricities.

The exasperation: Dillard's too fond of obscure words (like thigmotropic and pauciloquy - yes, I had to look them up, too ). But to be fair, her main characters are fanatic, well-educated readers so such vocabulary kind of works. And then there's the lack of a driving plot. I had to settle down to a slow unfolding of complex characters – Lou, an independent, beautiful, calm woman, who "found dignity overrated" and whose self-possessed ability to love expands to encompass all kinds of oddballs and people in need. It's that ability to give everyone succor, to believe the best about them when maybe they don't deserve it, that unnerves her loving husband, Toby Maytree. A published author of long poems which include lighthouses as metaphors for Aristolelian and Platonic love, Maytree is also a tool guy who moves houses for a living. And then there's Deary - an earthier, undiscriminating friend, a seeming bohemian who can tell you that starlight on sand is "more peppery" than moonlight, and that injuries are just ways to "learn how that patch of you feels." Lou's love of loving is tested to its limits in this oddly disjointed, head-trippy love story. And that's what caught me.

That and the language. Yes, there are those annoying dictionary words, and French terms like "en plein air" instead of simply "outdoors," and oddly European sounding sentence structures. ("These bits deployed before his gaze as football fans after the last kick swarm.") But, oh the wonderful strong verbs everywhere, the descriptions that root the book in its Cape Cod setting - the dunes as the "sloping shore of mineral silence" or a succinctly delicious moment enjoying sunset on the steps of an old shack overlooking sea and sand. "Its deck was pine planks with popped knots…Lou could use a seat, so it was she who left him to sit on the first shack step, elbows two steps up. The sun was out and every second the sky's hues perished with no fuss." Not just rain falling, but "rain fallstreaks." Two sentence character descriptions, fully fleshed out - an aging, cynical, world-weary serial wife who'd "run through 6 husbands like a brochette" who's wearing "amber drop earrings that suggested her ears were draining." Or the East coast use of slightly dated, vaguely Britishy terms like "helacious," "brickish, " and "larky." (Don't worry; you'd get them in context.) The working in of great quotes, like one from Robert Louis Stevenson, that "marriage is a sort of friendship recognized by the police."

But mostly, I just liked being around these people, living their relaxed,bohemian, intellectual life. Maybe Maytree's departure could have been better motivated. Maybe the transformation of bohemian Deary into a version of her mother is a stretch. Maybe Lou's discovery early on that she "liked loving, renounced being loved" is a romantic notion I've never seen in a real woman. But I'm pretty good at willing suspension of disbelief; strict adherence to realism is only marginally important to me. As I've said before on Goodreads, I like a slightly heightened reality in books, a vision of what life might be like if I hung out with very bright, odd, lovable people who made very different choices than I did. And these two, and their extended clan of kindly eccentrics, definitely meet that criterion.
(less)

like · see review

Jul 25, 2011 Gretchen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is quite good in some ways and quite flawed in others. First of all, it should be read twice. The first time through you are getting the lay of the land, so to speak – discerning how you should read it. Dillard is a poet, and that’s evident in this book. The story is in service to the style, rather than the style being in service to the story. One person in my book group said it’s about different ways to love, and that observation does shed light on the book. Another said it is analogo...more

like · see review

Jan 14, 2011 Jim Ament rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

From my blog: http://www.jamesrament.com/book-revie...

The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard (1945-), published in 2007

I'll start with a confession, actually two: First, Annie Dillard is one of those authors that reinforces the fact that sometimes I prefer books to people. I can become engrossed in her writing—contemplating difficult sentences or paragraphs over and over, wondering where meaning is found for us mortals—without a care for humanity at large while doing so. Reading her work is a form of me...more

like · see review

Jan 09, 2011 Margaret rated it 4 of 5 stars

I first heard about Annie Dillard's The Maytrees nearly three years ago when it was a PEN/Faulkner finalist. At the May 2008 award ceremony, an audible sigh of disappointment came from the audience when it was announced that Dillard was not able to attend the event. Susan Richards Shreve did the honors of reading a passage, and, in my opinion, it was the finest writing we heard that evening. Since then I've had it on my to-read list; at some point I picked up a remaindered copy. Finally, during...more

like · see review

Nov 17, 2010 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Is Dillard the Miles Davis of writing? She can tell a good story and she creates phrases that take your breath away, but her style, especially in this book, is an acquired taste--which is how I feel about Davis (and dark beer, Pedro Almodovar films and exercise). This family tale is told in a filmy, poetic, half-sentence style, which is hard to follow for a while, leaving me feeling tepid about the story. But my nodding head jerked awake when THE STORY got interesting (around page 60ish). As the...more

like · see review

Dec 30, 2009 Deidre rated it 4 of 5 stars

Annie Dillard. The Maytrees. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

After reading the book, I searched for the New York Times Book Review to see what the reviewer had to say about Dillard. In the past, I’ve not cared for her writing, and so I’m glad I didn’t read it before finishing the book, because words like “pompous” and “redundant” might have frightened me off. (Although, overall, the reviewer liked the book.)

Someone on NPR interviewed her – Scott Simon, I think - and I was sucked in by t...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Missoula Book Club: Book p/u or drop off	3	4	Apr 16, 2013 08:35pm
too pretentious for herself	15	100	Jun 02, 2012 03:22pm

combine
Other Editions (16)

More editions...

Genres

Book Club

13 users

Novels

11 users

Literature

11 users

Literary Fiction

6 users

Adult Fiction

6 users

Contemporary

5 users

Literature > American

4 users

Adult

4 users

Marriage

4 users

Relationships

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Annie Dillard

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Maytrees

6 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Maytrees

“Love so sprang at her, she honestly thought no one had ever looked into it. Where was it in literature? Someone would have written something. She must not have recognized it. Time to read everything again.” — 7 people liked it

“Under her high brows, she eyed him straight on and straight across. She had gone to girls' schools, he recalled later. Those girls looked straight at you.” — 4 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Maytrees
avg rating	preview: The Maytrees Goodreads rating: 3.49 (3057 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://gr-assets.com/book/show/12533.The_Maytrees?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266450634l/12533.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://gr-assets.com/book/show/12533.The_Maytrees?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Maytrees by Annie Dillard[/url]

The Maytrees

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website