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Summary: more excellence from one of the more interesting thinkers
Review: Annie Dillard had inhabited a place close by since PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK.Her observations about natute and God are quirky,interesting and lovely to read. I was once at a reading of hers'{in NYC} where a member of the audience asked her" Yes, but do you really believe in God?" Dillard responded with"of course I do ,honey, do you think this is Europe?"Her ability to bring faith and reason together is extremly rare in this time when it seems to be either fundamentalism or secular humanism.In these essays, she dleves into child deformities or birth defects{an extremely difficult chapter for me to read,by the way},Israel,death,the sky{clouds} and Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,Jesuit paleontologist,theologian and truly original thinker.{in a way you get the impression that Ms. Dillard finds him a kindred soul.}These are full bodied essays of a courageous thinker and believer, struggling with day to day belief while being filled with awe. A stunning collection by a superb writer and a good woman.
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Summary: for the time being
Review: For the Time Being by Annie Dillard is an oddity as far as modern literature is concerned. In a day when the only rule is there are no rules, Dillard takes every advantage of that in her book. Probing, asking, and speculating about God, death, and life is what the book is all about, but in an often obscure way. Without warning Dillard will spit out a random fact or change the subject on hand to something more jadded than the one before. None of this seems to make any sense until her final chapter where it all comes together with one natural motive. Dillard brings her points into perspective through examples of the unnoticed, such as the short lives of clouds, or tragic and strange birth defects, never ceasing to illude her underlying theme that now is our time for being. By examining her own experiences and the sometimes odd experiences of others, Dillard constructs an awe inspiring book digging into some of the deepest questions of man about life and death, and the existence of God. I believe this book to be a treat for anyone who reads it and I recomend it to everyone and anyone. If I were to describe Dillard's work in one word the most appropriate word would be melting-pot. Dillard combines several ingredients (none of which seem to have anything in common with the other) and creates a delicious and enlightening peice of literature, surely filling to any reader.
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Summary: not a light read
Review: What i respect most about this work of Ms. Dillard is that she doesn't claim to know the answers to her questions, but she is asking them. This book made me think, laugh aloud and squirm uncomfortably in my seat. In today's black and white, commercial world, this book is like a breath of fresh air. There are answers to her questions, and this book gives an impetus to try to find them.
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Summary: If you are reeling from unexplicable tragedy, read this
Review: This is probably Dillard's most difficult prose book, both in subject matter and style. It will take you several chapters to -- as musicians say -- catch her riff. She is asking why God would allow horrors to exist. To a nation stunned by the horror at the World Trade Center, this is a gut question. Dillard has no easy answers, but her journey looking for an answer is immensely helpful for those of us who lack her reed-like sensitivity. She looks at the same problem as does Ecclesiastes in the Bible -- why do bad things happen to good people -- and comes up with a similar answer that there is no simple why. Dillard's range of knowledge is breathtaking, but it's the way she weaves things together that makes pure magic. If you are confused and saddened, this book will help you deal with the right questions. It's not a self-help book, it's a mix of Job and Ecclesiastes keening at the sky: "WHY!?"
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Summary: Awesome taken apart makes "A we so me"
Review: Annie D. does it again and gives us a work of the illumined heart - an awesome witness for the bird's-eye view of the snail's eye view - and in her unique way of always unearthing facts that shake the foundation pillars that our beliefs have erected to the heavens, above and below. When Aunt Annie writes, we feel the cosmos move in us. By her life in the writing - "In the beginning was the Word" - universe means uni-verse, "one song", a we - interconnected and experienced (the butterfly effect) - so me. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. As it is in heaven, so it manifest on earth: As within, so without. This personal narrative surveys a panorama of our world, past and present posing questions about God, natural evil and individual existence. Personal meanderings by the author with diverse topics such as the natural history of sand, the different types of clouds, visiting an obstetrical ward, and the story of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit paleontologist digging in the desert of China. Filled with information and Dillard's relentless curiosity. Compassionate, informative, enthralling, always suprising, For The Time Being shows one of our most original writers - her breadth of knowledge matched by keen powers of observation, all of it informing her relentless curiosity - in the fullness of her powers.
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Summary: The Mystery
Review: For the Time Being is one of my favorite books. Annie Dillard, as always, is taking on the Big questions. She's asking the questions that we all have to ask (whether we realize it or not), and she does so in the most honest, most innovative, and most insightful ways possible. In For the Time Being, Dillard is exploring the problem of evil. She discusses such horrors as birth defects, torture, and mass murders, and she cries out to God, "What's with all the bird-headed dwarfs!" She's referring to a debilitating birth defect. She's asking how does God allow such atrocities? Is there a God if this type of world exists? Dillard reviews the traditional arguments about the problem of evil. Her conclusion: "I don't know beans about God." She quotes Augustine, "We're talking about God. What wonder is it you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God." But though she doesn't understand God, she still does decide to live in a universe for love. Love (=God) is still worth living for, and that's her message, I think. Delve into the mystery that is God and that is love. I can't do justice to this book. It is one of those that I love a bit too much. Just read it. It's an experience like no other.
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Summary: How does she DO this stuff?
Review: I wish I could THINK like Annie Dillard does, let alone WRITE like she does. How does she do it?
The great theological question of God's existence seems to be at the heart of everything she writes about, whether it's bugs or babies, glaciers or galaxies, politics or polecats, leaf mold or love letters. She takes such great risks with her writing, letting the subject matter soar on the finest of threads way out into space, far from the central point at which she began - but then, just when you think she's truly gone off course and over into some abyss from which she'll never return, she finds her way home within the writing and ends up with a gorgeous piece of writing that hangs perfectly together. I ask again: how does she do this?
I know, actually: She's a whole lot brighter than most of the rest of us, and thank God she uses her vast curiosity and even more vast intelligence to share her thoughts with us as she ruminates on the eternal questions of God, Life, Death, and the Human Predicament.
Essentially a collection of loosely woven disparate essays, For the Time Being, like all of Dillard's books, is written with lyricism, erudition, intelligence, and humor. If you like her other books, don't miss this one.
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Summary: Quick delivery, excellent condition
Review: The book arrived in excellent condition four days after I placed my order. Thank you!
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Summary: A strange book but fascinating none the less...
Review: Dillard weaves a web of mystery, both of spiritual and ecological things. She does not hide her deep knowledge of the "other realm" yet she does not preach "earth worship". Her writing style is definetly artistic and somewhat back and forth but if you stick with her your patience will be rewarded.
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Summary: the best of Dillard
Review: I have and am unfamilial with such as "book reviews" and am somewhat suspicious of opinions written or not written by others of questionable value, but Dillard has outdone Dillard in my opinion in this book. But if you are "squemish" about questioning who and why you or we are, try a book of lesser reason to ponder. Each page provokes thaught, and contemplation.
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