Total Eclipse

by Annie Dillard

What can we know, and what remains beyond our reach?

In 1979, Annie Dillard witnessed the solar eclipse in Yakima, Washington. In Total Eclipse this celestial event becomes a metaphysical reckoning. With lyrical precision and eerie clarity, Dillard unforgettably evokes the strangeness of the shifting sky and the psychic dislocation that descends with the shadow.

The quiet yet epic unravelling of the familiar becomes revelation: a rupture in time, a confrontation with mortality and a brush with the sublime. Juxtaposing the cosmic and the mundane, Total Eclipse meditates on the limits of perception and language, entering the surreal intensity of the phenomenon to emerge with the brief, blazing clarity offered by darkness.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Short Stories

32 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1989

About the author

Annie Dillard is an American author celebrated for her distinctive narrative voice in both fiction and nonfiction, as well as for her work in poetry, essays, literary criticism, novels, and memoir. She gained wide recognition with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a meditative exploration of nature and perception that received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and established her as a major literary figure. Raised in Pittsburgh, her formative years were marked by wide reading, close observation of the natural world, and a family environment that encouraged curiosity and wit, experiences later reflected in her memoir An American Childhood. She studied English, theology, and creative writing at Hollins College, where her academic engagement with writers such as Henry David Thoreau shaped her intellectual direction. Dillard’s work often blends spiritual inquiry, philosophy, and close attention to the physical world, drawing comparisons to writers such as Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson. Her books include Holy the Firm, Teaching a Stone to Talk, The Writing Life, For the Time Being, and the novels The Living and The Maytrees, the latter a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award. Alongside her writing career, she taught for more than two decades in the English department at Wesleyan University, influencing generations of students before retiring as Professor Emerita. Her work has been translated widely, adapted into other art forms, and honored with numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal, affirming her lasting impact on American letters.

Reviews

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

god this is creative nonfiction <3 i fear i have been a little starved for the good stuff this year (i have not been reading, which is my fault). there is a specific event experienced by author — in this case, the eclipse — expressed in the most delicious language (the metaphors,, the detail,, it's so evocative), with reverberations drawn out into more universal reflection.

i must again reiterate how beautiful some of these passages are — e.g. "you might drown in your own spittle, god knows, at any time; you might wake up dead in a small hotel, a cabbage head watching TV while snows pile up in the passes, watching TV while the chili peppers smile and the moon passes over the sun and nothing changes and nothing is learned because you have lost your bucket and shovel and no longer care." i got this pdf from eleanor so it came with her annotations and highlights, which was in itself also a joyful reading experience.

minus 1 star because there's a chunk in the middle (section iii) that i think becomes repetitive and could be edited out (alas, i am always looking for where to cut). but everything else hits so hard. kinda obsessed.

[Cass ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for school***

mediocre and way too many descriptions of other things and metaphors not relating to the eclipse.

[spacey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Story crept at a snail’s pace to its destination of *nowhere*.

[Tatiany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to write a 15 pages paper with a story using this as an example.
I ended up enjoying the writing and the recollection of the events that Dillard tell us about.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

'De geest wil dat de wereld zijn liefde beantwoordt, of zijn besef, zijn inzicht; de geest wil de hele wereld doorgronden, de hele eeuwigheid, tot God aan toe. Maar het lichaam, de sidekick van de geest, is al dik tevreden met een spiegelei.'

[Joy Shi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just so radical…. Thank you

[Alazne ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning was a little bit of a drag but towards the middle of the events leading to the eclipse really did a wonderful job of grabbing my attention till the end. I loved her detailed language and personification to our mundane rituals in being the key of living a non-adventurous and unfulfilled life. The true mysterious of life live under our nose, just our choice to look and find them.

[Serena S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while I read something that shakes me up, reminds me of the world’s glory, and makes me feel lucky to be alive. This is one of those times. Thank you, Annie Dillard.

[Jack Rousseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass. It had been like the death of someone, irrational, that sliding down the mountain pass and into the region of dread. It was like slipping into fever, or falling down that hole in sleep from which you wake yourself whimpering. We had crossed the mountains that day, and now we were in a strange place – a hotel in central Washington, in a town near Yakima. The eclipse we had traveled here to see would occur early in the next morning.

I lay in bed. My husband, Gary, was reading beside me. I lay in bed and looked at the painting on the hotel room wall. It was a print of a detailed and lifelike painting of a smiling clown’s head, made out of vegetables. It was a painting of the sort which you do not intend to look at, and which, alas, you never forget. Some tasteless fate presses it upon you; it becomes part of the complex interior junk you carry with you wherever you go. Two years have passed since the total eclipse of which I write. During those years I have forgotten, I assume, a great many things I wanted to remember – but I have not forgotten that clown painting or its lunatic setting in the old hotel. The clown was bald. Actually, he wore a clown’s tight rubber wig, painted white; this stretched over the top of his skull, which was a cabbage. His hair was bunches of baby carrots. Inset in his white clown makeup, and in his cabbage skull, were his small and laughing human eyes. The clown’s glance was like the glance of Rembrandt in some of the self-portraits: lively, knowing, deep, and loving. The crinkled shadows around his eyes were string beans. His eyebrows were parsley. Each of his ears was a broad bean. His thin, joyful lips were red chili peppers; between his lips were wet rows of human teeth and a suggestion of a real tongue. The clown print was framed in gilt and glassed.



Read the full text here: http://theessayexperiencefall2013.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2013/12/total-eclipse_annie-dillard.pdf

[Rachel Ledbetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This article was very interesting to me. I read this article the night before I viewed the 2017 eclipse. It was insightful to see how dramatic these events can be. Even though my personal viewing of the 2017 eclipse was no where near as extreme as Dillard's was, it is interesting to see how amazing eclipses can be. This story made me want to be able to view a total eclipse one day just as Dillard did.

[Kimmie78 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this for a college class, and it was horrible. I absolutely believe Dillard was high on something while writing this essay. It was all over the place. Her storyline was okay until she would veer off and rant in a tangent about something completely different. She did this several times. I had to make notes just to keep up. I knew there was no way I would be able to remember all the ridiculous details of this atrocious story.

[Dillon Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this article included a well-written, and detailed first-person account of a total eclipse, I did not find it all that interesting. I did enjoy the amount of detail that the author used, which allowed me to visualize the eclipse. However, I simply did not enjoy it given that I was reading about a total eclipse and not seeing it for myself.

[CORSAK fan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Hirsch for assigning this as reading.

Dillard personifies our daily rituals and explores what they mean to us in wonderful passages. I definitely needed to break my creative nonfiction hiatus with this and it did not disappoint.

I immediately associated this with the songs bathwater and little rituals by Luna Shadows.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure how I feel about all the God-talk, but otherwise it’s a lovely essay on the kind of education one receives from witnessing (and then contemplating) the sublime.

“The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God.”

[Cristina Mendoza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book I feel that she expresses something that we have all probably experienced. The rushing of thoughts and scenarios in a very short period and the narrating of a story like if you are talking to a friend, jumping from one topic to another but they all make sense. I want to see an eclipse now and feel the experience myself.

[Brett Callaway · Rating 3 out of 5]

This article was not that interesting to me. It is a personal account of an eclipse. She goes into great detail about the eclipse and what happened while it was going on. My experience with an eclipse was not as dramatic as hers.

[Jackson Quick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the privilege to read this before the 2017 total eclipse. Great narrative that shows with outstanding clarity the appeal and beauty of a solar eclipse. Would recommend to all, particularly those who have not had the opportunity to see an eclipse for themselves.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread. She's so fucking right.

"Seeing this black body was like seeing a mushroom cloud. The heart screeched. The meaning of the sight overwhelmed its fascination. It obliterating meaning itself. If you were to glance out one day and see a row of mushroom clouds rising on the horizon, you would know at once that what you were seeing, remarkable as it was, was intrinsically not worth remarking. No use running to tell anyone. Significant as it was, it did not matter a whit. For what is significance? It is significance for people. No people, no significance. This is all I have to tell you."

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this essay (didn’t listen to the cassette LOL) in the lead up the total eclipse this week. I didn’t witness totality so this was a nice substitute. This is an insightful reminder of experiencing a widespread event prior to social media and instant mass media.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Annie Dillard's writing gives me goosebumps. 'Nuf said.

[Kishor · Rating 3 out of 5]

partial_eclipse:total_eclipse::kissing_man:marrying_him

Good word spinning, not a lot of plot. That said, I very much want to experience a total solar eclipse now.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will stay with me.

[Amna Shariff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lowkey ass. Metaphors were fire though

[Martha Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.”

These days, I love to walk.

[Neko~chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read here: https://faculty.etsu.edu/odonnell/rea...

Annie Dillard is one of the best living essayists, it's not even close

[Olivia Case · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pacing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Style: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Setting: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Character: ⭐️⭐️
Theme: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little overwrought in spots, but the language is typically beautiful. Annie Dillard does indeed know how to write a personal essay.

[Frackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I looked at Gary. He was in the film. Everything was lost. He was a platinum print, a dead artist’s version of life. I saw on his skull the darkness of night mixed with the colors of day. My mind was going out; my eyes were receding the way galaxies recede to the rim of space. Gary was lighters away, gesturing inside a circle of darkness, down the wrong end of a telescope. He smiled as if he saw me; the stringy crinkles around his eyes moved. The sight of him, familiar and wrong, was something I was remembering from centuries hence, from the other side of death: yes, that is the way he used to look, when we were living. When it was our generation’s turn to be alive. I could not hear him; the wind was too loud. Behind him the sun was going. We had all started down a chute of time. At first it was pleasant; now there was no stopping it."

A long tangent that had really interesting moments. Reflective. Bored me for a lot of it, goes in total different directions randomly but very lyrical. Read in one sitting. Read for University.

[MaKenzie Bryant]

Total Eclipse tells the encounter of viewing a total Solar eclipse. I happened to read this article before viewing the 2017 Solar Eclipse and it was absolutely breathtaking. Reading about the total eclipse made me wish I had been able to view a total eclipse. I was, sadly, just out of line and only saw a partial eclipse but after reading her article I can imagine the amazing sight that a total eclipse was.