Monday, August 18, 2008

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is overtly spiritual making most of her books degenerate into insane glossolalia-worthy gibberish. She connects utterly unrelated thing son the way to not ever making a point. But the stories are interesting if you don't mind skipping the pages of drivel. But in that jumble of deeply heartfelt dookie, are some wonderful turns of phrase. My example, For the Time Being Knopf books circa 1999.

"Later, if the boy saw a book left open on a bench, he spreads a prayer shawl to cover its open pages. In his world, people respected books. When a book wore out, they buried it like a person."

These two sentences make a cult of this boys thinking. The outside world disrespects books, possibly property, It symbolizes a disrespect for language, knowledge and maybe even the boy. Most importantly it isolates him and also gives him a ghostly seeming presence. It's very intriguing. If only she could carry a plot.

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