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Summary: Dillard succeeds again
Review: This book changed my life. Anyone interested in trying to better understand their place on this planet should eat this book.
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Summary: The Importance of the Simple Things
Review: Annie Dillard's "For The Time Being" entangles the reader with scattered thoughts and fragmented narrations, but holds a solid relevance to life. It shares an experience, a wonder, and a vivid representation of the authors research towards the unknown. It truly captures the ideology of what our lives revolve around. We are matter, and in that matter we have a spirit. Dillard welcomes this thought in her pursuit to figure out what life is meant for in the time being. She is a little confusing, but her voice provokes the reader to stay interested in what she has to offer. The angle she approaches to allow the reader to understand how important the simple things in life are intrigues the reader. She elaborates on the importance to sit back and enjoy life before it slips away and a new generation will take over. Dillard captures a heartfelt piece of literature that should not be pushed aside, for it does envelope the reader in a life that is only here for the time being.
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Summary: A Real Step Up
Review: I've had this book in my hands since May, and still can't put it down after reading it several times through. I am an Annie Dillard fan, but not in love with everything she's written. Her attention to detail and her humor in this work is equal to or surpasses "Teaching A Stone To Talk" or "Pilgrim". Granted, it's a new style of writing, one that takes more time, but this is not a reason to quit trying, or to put others down for having the attention span to scale this mountain of thought. This is a daring work, an important work for those of us who have asked the hard questions in life and are not satisfied with what we've been handed so far. Give this book time and you'll be richly rewarded.
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Summary: A real disappointment
Review: Annie Dillard is a tremendous writer, but this book is a real step down from her usual work. Please be warned: For The Time Being contains none of the usual wit or attention to detail that Dillard fans have come to expect. I suspect the enthusiastic praise this book is garnering comes from readers who are such rabid fans that they'll like anything Dillard signs her name to.
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Summary: Worth the Effort!
Review: I have read this book twice and have barely scratched the surface of all it holds. The author presents many pictures and ideas that initially appear disconnected; it seemed like a sort of jigsaw puzzle, but when the picture was completed, it was beautiful and full of meaning. Annie Dillard asks the questions that have been on my mind, and as I read I became excited and enthralled. The questions are not easy ones; readers looking for simplistic answers will be disappointed. The thoughtful, contemplative reader will be rewarded. I know that I will reread this book many, many times.
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Summary: God's sword
Review: As a writer trapped in the box of the hortatory and homiletic by publishers' demands, I look upon Annie Dillard as something close to God -- both for what she says and the way she gets to say it. This book is pure metaphor. You can never quite grasp it, and in its elusiveness it transcends thought and moves to poetry. Damn, she's good. "Think I'll light a cigarette and think." What a way to live. I'll still take Holy the Firm over this, though. Never have searing holiness and outrage at God been so beautifully intermixed. Still, I'd throw away the best of most everyone else's work to read the worst of hers. What an intellectual and spiritual treasure.
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Summary: a poetic excursion into philosophical theology
Review: I teach philosophy but respect the power of poetry and the story to provoke philosophical wonderment. Dillard's seemingly disconnected vignettes ask us to weave together our own experiences of individuality and generality and contemplate the paradox of evil and God. I agree with many other reviewers that this takes time to read and, most importantly, to reflect upon. It is a hybrid of many literary styles and as such, annoys or confuses some readers. We are a culture steeped in action and accumulation, not in reflection, meditation. Dillard offers us a vehicle by which to plummet our own beliefs, dogmas and souls.
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Summary: Mindsticking Essays
Review: Dillard, who has an immense background in study and reflection, ranges across the writing of religious philosophers of many stripes. She weaves back and forth from visits to a hospital where a nurse scrubs newborns, to sand, to views of single deaths vs the death of many, to clouds as they were viewed on a single day in history, to chance meetings of individuals to... As musings on the meaning of human life, this reviewer found the essays most intriguing. Reader David Birney's rich voice flows with the rhythm of the essays. Basically a positive view of life, there is much to think about by someone without a politicized agenda.
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Summary: This is the book of my life.
Review: To all prospective readers: please ignore the one-star reviews written by the slack-jawed types who can't appreciate the depth and breadth of Annie Dillard's writing. Believe me, this book will change your life. At least, it changed mine. Never, never have I read such a passionate book. Yes, it's difficult, and yes, it takes more than a single reading to get it all, but my God, put down the latest best-seller and set to work on one of the best books ever written. I know, I know, that sounds like hyperbole. But I truly believe that, twenty, thirty years from now, For The Time Being will be known as one of the great books of the twentieth century. (Won't the slack-jawed, one-star reviewers feel silly?) Seriously, READ THIS BOOK.
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Summary: This book will feed your mind and soul.
Review: Annie Dillard deserves the Nobel Prize for this one. Her astonishing curiosity and stunning honesty are pure soul food. She is to the Universe what Doris Kearns Goodwin is to Baseball in "Wait Til Next Year." You will love this book--but I have one question for Annie--What's with the cigarettes?
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