| Date: 28 April 2011, 06:50
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Product Description:
In a town near Washington's Puget Sound, fishermen, loggers, surveyors, miners, farmers, shopkeepers, and others struggle to survive as the town is born, grows, and enjoys a financial boom. By the author of The Writing Life. 100,000 first printing. $125,000 ad/promo.
Amazon.com Review:
Listening to Lawrence Luckinbill read Annie Dillard's historical novel The Living takes a little getting used to. The very first sentence reveals a pronounced and distracting lisp, but don't let that dissuade you from continuing. Luckinbill's voice also exhibits a simple honesty, a gruffness that is perfectly suited to the steely pioneer spirit of Dillard's story. Surprisingly quickly, the vocal idiosyncrasy fades away, leaving only the emotional resonance of Luckenbill's obviously heartfelt connection to this powerful tale.
Dillard's finely crafted prose and Luckinbill's sincere voice carry you back to the early days of American expansion, into the truly Wild West and the stone-hard life these settlers would be forced to endure. "She had cried out to God all day and maybe all night, too, that he would lend her strength to bear affliction and go on. She was not aware that underneath she prayed another prayer as if to a power above God, or at least to his better nature, that he was finished with the worst of it." Of course, God isn't finished, and neither are these brave souls. Dillard opens their world slowly, stretching the horizon generation by generation, tethering the fate of one small family to that of the struggling town that they are helping to build and, ultimately, to the inexorable rise of the emerging nation. (Running time: six hours, four cassettes) --George Laney
Summary: Great novel
Rating: 5
This is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Spanning several generations of a family that settled in the Northwest, it is grand in scope -- chronological, geographical, and psychological. Moments are seared in my mind. An absolutely stunning achievement -- if only she had written another!
Summary: The Living
Rating: 5
If you're into plot and page-turners this book is not for you. However, if you love intricate detail, bottomless character portrayals, exquisite symbolism, depth and just lovely writing you'll want to read it more than once. Without a doubt, it belongs right up there with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath. It's about the courage it takes to keep on living, knowing that life gives no guarantees-- not now, or in the late 19th century in the Puget Sound area (the setting for the book).I cherish this book.
Summary: A rambling disappointment
Rating: 2
This book nearly defeated me. The Living was recommended to me as Michener-esque historical fiction about the settling of the Pacific Northwest. In fact, it was a rambling mish-mash of vignettes about several families settling an area that might have been the Pacific Northwest. There were several historical inaccuracies and errors concerning the region that made me question the depth the author researched the area.
Truly, this book could have used a better editor. The book is dull. Not because the author had nothing interesting to say, but because she was not able to say it effectively. The work is rife with long descriptive paragraphs ruined by non sequiturs and bad grammar that appear to have been an attempt at capturing the speech of the times. The overall effect was painfully slow-going book that I wish I had not bothered to finish.
As it happens, even the author agrees: I recently heard Ms. Dillard interviewed on the radio. She discussed how a company wanted to release The Living as a book on tape but needed to edit it for length. The author admitted that having been nearly cut in half the resultant work was better than the original.
The book is not wholly without merit. There are some interesting and evocative passages strewn amongst the dross. However, one who wants to learn about the Pacific Northwest would be better advised to look elsewhere.
Summary: A Lot of Words, Not Much Substance
Rating: 3
The writing style is slow, with long paragraphs of little meaningful content. There are gems, but they are few and buried. By the last couple of hundred pages, I found myself just reading a few words per paragraph, and didn't feel like I was missing anything. To the extent that it interestingly conveys information about characters and the historical setting, it could have done so much more engagingly.
Summary: One Great Book
Rating: 5
Annie Dillard wrote an amazing novel of western struggle in the late 1800's. This book was filled with conflict, vivid images, and a great plot. This book takes the reader to the northern part of Washington in the late 1800's. The book fallows many charcters through hardships, death, joy, and many generations of families. I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters pulled me into their world by the triangles that intangled their lives. This book deals a lot with death and imagetry that seems pull the reader into the charcters lives. Ada Fishburn the main character of the book sets the theme for the book. Her family moved to Whatcom, a providence in Washington to start a new life. The reader gets a sence of sadness from this charcter that seems to fallow to the other charaters that come together later in the book. I thought that this book gave a very historical point of view and also a faction view of what life might of been like in those trying times. I give this book five stars because I know that any intellectual reader will fall in love with this book and its many charcters. The only negitive thing I have to say about this book is that the reading is at a high level and may take a while to read. Besides that point I think that it is worth all the hard work.
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