There's something quite irritating about Annie Dillard. Irritating, but not infuriating. Perhaps you were overly influenced by W.D.'s review or perhaps it's the picture of her, brimming in a kind of all-American self-assurance that makes you slightly nauseous. Can't put my finger on it, to be honest, but it does seem like a pose, a mish-mash of quotes that are likely to appeal to those who like to convince themselves they're off the beaten track, "spiritual" but not religious.
At all steps it is worth asking whether the disliking of an author is really just a reflection of some deeply buried, irrational animosity (to women, to white people. No, in my case I don't think that's the case).
But, what I liked from the book:
Dated clouds. A child's fist is first closed, as if it wants to tightly hold on or possess the world; the old man's hands, his final gesture, are flat, open, on the verge of letting go.
"What can poor mortals say about clouds?" While people describe them they disappear.
T. de Chardin: "More than 3,000 years before our era, people were living there who played with dice like our own, fished with hooks like ours, and wrote in characters we can't read."
That is a nice thought: how similar we are to our ancestors and yet, at the same time, how distant!
Solutrean yellow blades:
"To any human on earth, the sight of one of these means someone thought of making, and made, this difficult, impossible, beautiful thing."
"The religious idea sooner or later challenges the individual."
"He [God] shows an edge of himself to souls."
Then there is this strange line which, perhaps, gets to the heart of your unease:
"Were these two men (De Chardin and Bonhoeffer) especially dense, that they spent years learning what every kid already knows, that life here is all there is?"
A. Dillard always seems to write as if she knows what God is, as if she were at the centre of the world, or from the belief that she was profoundly aware of realities that other people hadn't yet fathomed. And there's almost this child-like fascination with numbers. I, for one, was decidedly underwhelmed by it all.
A line by Augustine from the same book has it:
"If you do understand, then it is not God."
At all steps it is worth asking whether the disliking of an author is really just a reflection of some deeply buried, irrational animosity (to women, to white people. No, in my case I don't think that's the case).
But, what I liked from the book:
Dated clouds. A child's fist is first closed, as if it wants to tightly hold on or possess the world; the old man's hands, his final gesture, are flat, open, on the verge of letting go.
"What can poor mortals say about clouds?" While people describe them they disappear.
T. de Chardin: "More than 3,000 years before our era, people were living there who played with dice like our own, fished with hooks like ours, and wrote in characters we can't read."
That is a nice thought: how similar we are to our ancestors and yet, at the same time, how distant!
Solutrean yellow blades:
"To any human on earth, the sight of one of these means someone thought of making, and made, this difficult, impossible, beautiful thing."
"The religious idea sooner or later challenges the individual."
"He [God] shows an edge of himself to souls."
Then there is this strange line which, perhaps, gets to the heart of your unease:
"Were these two men (De Chardin and Bonhoeffer) especially dense, that they spent years learning what every kid already knows, that life here is all there is?"
A. Dillard always seems to write as if she knows what God is, as if she were at the centre of the world, or from the belief that she was profoundly aware of realities that other people hadn't yet fathomed. And there's almost this child-like fascination with numbers. I, for one, was decidedly underwhelmed by it all.
A line by Augustine from the same book has it:
"If you do understand, then it is not God."
2 comments:
'Solutrion yellow': please explain. Haven't read A. Dillard, and nothing you say about her encourages me to do so!
C,
something like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean
(I know, easy option, but that's all I know about it as well!).
Yes, Dillard is a waste of time, in my opinion. Nice review of the new biography of De quincey in the Guardian (in case you missed it).
Started a book by Regina Ullman (love the name). Very mysterious. Or maybe my head isn't too clear nowadays! Not quite sure what to make of it.
Orr?
Will you be voting this summer? In or out?
Salams,
b.
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