The Beginning of Knowledge
by chuckofish
Annie Dillard died. She was a favorite of my youth.
“Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.” (The Writing Life)
But now I tend to think she is another of those women writers who became famous too soon, gathering accolades and awards, believing the praise. Eudora Welty praised Dillard in her NYT review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but Welty also admitted “not (knowing) what she’s talking about” at times and that her writing “leaves something to be desired.” That something was what Welty called “straight narrative,” the clarity of “point, direction, and shape”. Indeed.
I liked her because, like Thoreau and Buechner, she told us to pay attention to God’s creation. But paying attention is not enough. You have to know who to thank and, sadly, Dillard lost her faith along the way. I could go on, but it would probably be presumptuous. I am going to re-read some of her books and see what I think 30 years later.
By the way, I re-read Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry and it is terrific. I still highly recommend it.
Yesterday I read the last of the Psalms (150) in my Bible reading plan and I am on to Proverbs.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Amen.
