In Progress: THE LIVING

(127/397): Every sentence of Annie Dillard’s THE LIVING – a beautiful novel brimming with characters I can’t help but love (even the ones designed to be loathed) – could be an opening sentence: she is the conductor of a world-class orchestra possessed of such remarkable powers of nuance and color that THE LIVING becomes not just a great work of art, but a transcendant one.

While I could ramble on about her poet’s sense of rhythm and lyricism, it’s the dark side of that poetry that makes THE...