Rating: 
Summary: A Discursive Disappointment
Review: Professional and personal reviews had prepared me for some insight into matters commonly called "weighty." Ms. Dillard's text contravened these expectations. Her lambent tone [shading to exasperation far too frequently], the allusions that are both too long and too brief, and the attempt to balance polarities [agnosticism and belief] make for a unrewarding text. Readers interested in the dark night of the soul and some remedies for the angst it produces should consult all of Ernest Becker's, "The Denial of Death," and not just the snippets Ms. Dillard presents. You'll be treated to a cohesive and demanding inquiry into substantial topics nicely adumbrated.It's always a disappointment when authors reach beyond their metier: "Pilgrim" is a wonderful exploration of nature's paradoxes. This present text can only make one wonder what personal daimon is driving Ms. Dillard.
Rating: 
Summary: A qualified "uh...."
Review: I wanted to love this book. I wanted to love it as much as I have loved and been fascinated by "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" and "Teaching a Stone to Talk," and especially "Holy the Firm." But, sadly, halfway through I was so completely lost, I put it down, and have yet to pick it up again. I don't mind waiting for the other shoe to drop--I appreciate a good set-up--but criminy, I've got a limit! "Impressionistic Theology" is pretty much the tag one can hang on this. But I wouldn't have minded if the focus was clearer. I'll try again, I promise. But for now, I think I'll curl up with something a bit less esoteric. Sorry...
Rating: 
Summary: there is, after all, Annie Dillard
Review: I am an admirer of Ms. Dillard's writing and "For the Time Being" may be the best of it so far. I don't know if she is wittingly or unwittingly a theologian, but in this work she is writing theology and doing it better than what we are generally offered under that job description. (Thank God she was not hidden by the booksellers in the category of religion where no serious reader browses these days.) She has written a theology, of a sort, that is impressionistic. We won't have systems of theology, as we once did, we can't get our arms around enough of the mountain to do that, but this book shows us that the pieces are disturbing, beautiful and mysteriously meaningful as we find them. Annie Dillard has given us a work in which the parts are rendered with beauty and are often painful in the questions they raise but when given the whole we are left with the impression that we have read something rare and true. When I finished the book I was left scratching my head, reading again, not knowing more about god, man and the universe than before, but I knew in the terrible and beautiful vision she has given that I -- we --are not alone in all of this mystery, there is, after all, Annie Dillard.
Rating:
Summary: Every sentence perfectly crafted.
Review: I envy the perfection of Dillard's sentences. This book is an intricate braid of beauty and horror, simplicity and paradox. It is a book of faith. Her references to Chardin, his work and his philosophy, were of particular interest. It is good to know that people still consider him relevant. When I read the first reviews of this book, I was afraid that Dillard had gone mushy New Age. Not at all. The book is spiritual without being sappy or sentimental. It demands much of its readers.
Rating:
Summary: same old questions - much worse answers
Review: If you're a person who asks the "big" questions of life (Why are we here? What's the meaning of life?) don't look here for answers. Ms. Dillard asks the same questions she's been asking publically since "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," but with much less satisfying results. In "Pilgrim" she explored the territory - attempting to find her own answers - in "For the Time Being" she is content to mostly quote the "answers" others have found. And she does a poor job of assembling those answers. Mainly, she confuses the reader (at least she confused me) - you wonder where she's going with all the disjointed, disconnected "facts" she tosses out. And at the end - if you're like me - you still wonder she's going. I would suggest, instead of reading this book, just read "Pilgrim" again.
Rating:
Summary: I came away from the book trembling...
Review: and surprised at myself. How could I, a person who so prides herself on analytical intellegence, stauch agnosticism and literary detachment, be so moved? The answer, dear prosepective reader, was EMPATHY. Although Dillard presents her ideas in what many have judged to be a disjointed format, they act as a constantly unravelling mystery which one is forced to ingest in small doses, to savor each in its depth of detail. More importantly, she lives in awe of life, of beauty, of contradiction. She seems to sail mind-long through the labyrinth of information we float in, weaves her astonishment into a trasmittable signal and leaves the reader trailing in her wake... gasping. She celebrates the enigmas of this random, uncomfortable, uncertain existence. I doubt I shall ever have Mz. Dillard's ability to make those feelings deepest and dearest to me into communicable phrase, but as for the sense of awe and wonder, she (along with M Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ?) has found a contemporary in me.
Rating:
Summary: More trash from Dillard
Review: Once again she comes through with some piece based on the hallucinations she experiences. Another piece of trash from Dillard as far as I am concerned.
Rating: 
Summary: Dead Milkmen?
Review: You either love her or you hate her, and I love her. Welcome back to your home, Annie! We've missed you. It's been a long time since Teaching A Stone to Talk. "For the Time Being" is the title of a long poem by W. H. Auden, conceived way back before television . .
Rating:
Summary: Truly extraordinary
Review: I haven't read much Dillard, but now I plan to read much more. She writes like no other writer, and FOR THE TIME BEING will alternately amuse and terrify you. This is a weird, brilliant book, but more than that, it's a very human book, focused on the things that really matter: who we are and the meaning of our lives. The big themes are putty in her hands, and somehow she creates a page-turner out of some very difficult material. This is the kind of book you can read in a night or savor one paragraph at a time. Truly, truly extraordinary.
Rating: 
Summary: shame on you
Review: Your cut from Wendy Lesser's review in the NY Times review of books is a ludicrous and shameful distortion of what was a largely negative review.
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