Annie Dillard Reader, An

Rating:
Summary: Indispensable
Review: You have read all of Annie's books. Some more than once. Still, this is a good book for you. It's a little heavy but worth putting in your briefcase and lugging around. Who ever said that beauty comes without effort? So you have the book with you and now if you find yourself in a deserted island, or stranded in the Canadian wilderness in the middle of winter, you are safe. When your soul aches, there is comfort. As you walk to catch the evening train after another day of struggle, the very weight of the book lightens your step. On the train ride home you open it at random and, slowly, light filters in. Sometimes, you soar and loop the air and land gingerly, as if nothing had happened. You read other books. You have to. Still, you carry this book in addition to. You carry it like what? A spare tire? An extra oxygen tank? Maybe. A soft wool blanket. To throw over your heart when it starts getting cold. It's not just little pieces of remembered joy all bound in one. It's that she picked these writings herself and in so doing created something new. There is also this: you can see how The Living was born, see it also reduced to its essence. You see also the works as one work, one life, one life span. So structured, images and themes, recur and bounce, blend and bifurcate, a symphony, a palette, a Fourth of July firework bursting into a million stars, against the dark night sky.