a glance at the bookshelf these days.
I just finished a book (ergo–it’s late at night and I should be sleeping), instead, I want to give you my off-the-cuff take on said book. It’s by my favorite author, Annie Dillard. It’s her latest novel, actually, and I’ve put off reading it for a while because Dillards’ literary demesne is not actually the novel. She writes memoir, found poems, nonfiction narratives, with the kind of saturated, heart-stopping, trembling language that poets aspire to. And, in the novel, there’s no room for a page so dripping. We miss plot, character development. Not a bad novel, at all, The Maytrees is just not Dillard at her best. I have said it once, I will say it thousands more times– read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, For the TIme Being, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Conversations with Chinese Writers— read them all, and you will find Dillard in all of her superhuman brilliance.
What’s next on the bedside table? These few:
There is much, much more on the adventures of my new figure drawing class. And, on the crafty projects I’ve been up to & much-promised, greatly-anticipated pictures of the new apartment! In due time!
I’d have to say that Holy the Firm is better than all the Dillard books you listed. Also, The Maytrees is way better than Encounters with Chinese Writers.