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Title: An American Childhood by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0-06-091518-8 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.57 (35 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Who knew Pittsburg could be so charming?
Comment: Only the luminous writing of someone as gifted as Annie Dillard could render the coal industry town of Pittsburg so charmingly. In this quintessentially American book, Dillard captures the pain of growing up. Born into family wealth, she led a privileged childhood among large homes, shady streets, very wealthy grandparents, private school - and a very close and loving family.
It's easy to sense that Dillard's mother was the primary force in her childhood, a woman of formidable interests and energies, questing curiosity, and the determination that her 3 daughters would not grow up as nothing more than the narrow-minded results of too much money and pampering. Dillard was certainly brilliant as a young child, focused and single-minded in her interest-du-jour; that her parents provided her the wherewithal to indulge her fascination with art, nature, music, and writing turns out to have been a gift to us all.
But Pittsburg? Yes, Annie Dillard makes it a place I just might look forward to visiting some day - and that, alone, is a testament to her powers.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Autobiographical Equivalent of "Seinfeld" ....
Comment: . . . because it fills up space but is really about nothing in particular. Not nearly as funny as "Seinfeld." So "interior that I felt I was party to a psychotherapy session.
Rating: 4
Summary: There's a glory in the mundane.
Comment: The furiously curious Annie Dillard! From her very earliest years she has a profound awareness of the mystery of life, nothing is without wonder, everything worthy of further scientific investigation. She HAS (she POSESSES) what Abraham Maslow called a "freshness of appreciation" meaning not only that nothing escapes her notice, but also that she tends to find some positive result out of all of her experiences. I find this to be an enviable trait.
The book, her childhood, takes place in Pittsburgh in the 1950's. She is afforded much freedom and affluence in her somewhat eccentric and hilarious family (her mother didn't like the taste of stamps, so she didn't lick stamps; she licked the corner of the envelope instead). Dillard wonderfully paints a picture of a world that is charged with wonder, and gives us a sense that this electrified world is not just hers, but also the world of the reader.
Her writing is best when describing her great love of nature. I could swear I HEARD the following sentence... "The waves disintegrated on the big beach; from the high cliff where our house stood, their breaking sounded like poured raw rice."
It's true that one has to be patient with Dillard's disconnected vignettes... there are diversions that seem to bust up the chronology of events, but overall, the book is great in that it makes the reader feel that perhaps they too have never lived an insignificant day.
She says: "...it is not you or I that is important, neither what sort we might be nor how we came to be each where we are. What is important is anyone's coming awake and discovering a place, finding in full orbit a spinning globe one can lean over, catch, and jump on. What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch - with an electric hiss and cry - this speckled mineral sphere, our present world."
She seems to be saying that there is a glory in the mundane.
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Title: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0060953020 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Growing Up by Russell Baker ISBN: 0452255503 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Teaching a Stone to Talk : Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0060915412 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0060919884 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 26 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0060915439 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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