For the Time Being

Rating:
Summary: Old woman rambling
Review: I think the Annie Dillard name is the sole reason for this "book" being published. I write the word "book" in quotes because to call this a book is more than a bit of a stretch. To me it reads like an old, senile person rambling nearly incoherently about things her mind has lost the ability to grasp for longer than a sentence or two. I can see only one very general theme come out of this - that people are a product of the earth. Why does it take 200+ pages to relate that no-longer-new theme? And relating the theme is all the book does - no explanation, no analysis of the theme, nothing beyond merely stating it in a very long-winded and oblique way. I hate to be so critical of this work, but I hope to save others the trouble of buying and reading this incoherent mess.

Rating:
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.

Rating:
Summary: A hopeful message
Review: Like her 1974 book Pilgrim at Pinker Creek, Annie Dillard's For The Time Being also grapples with the issues of mortality and God's indifference to suffering. Its unconventional structure switches between several themes including Hasidism, birth, birth defects, clouds, sand, the Chinese emperor Qin, burial, Teilhard de Chardin, and a visit to Israel.

Instead of being disjointed, many interconnections emerge from this eclectic mix, and the cumulative effect of the book is greater than the sum of the parts. Over the last few decades, the author has developed an ironic stance that often euphemistically understates tragedy, and she revels in paradox, but neither obscures her message.

In the last chapter, the sometimes bleak subject matter finishes with an uplifting conclusion based on the Hasidic notion of sanctifying the world through becoming immersed in everyday life. Referring to Martin Buber, we are all entrusted and allotted an area of the planet to redeem.

For The Time Being is full of strangeness and otherness, and rarely resorts to the prosaic. Unlike most other books, it calls to be re-read, and ? depending on your perspective on life ? it may be worth buying.


Rating:
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!?"