CBR15 BINGO: (Bodies, Bodies Bodies square. Deals with the process of aging and death)
Annie Dillard’s writing is gorgeous, layered and poetic. I read The Living years and years ago and still, when asked what my favorite books of all time are, it is on the top of that list. I can only remember basic points about the plot but I remember, very vividly, how reading that book made me feel.
This is Dillard’s only other work of fiction and, while set in a different time and place in history from The Living, it reminded me of how I felt reading her only other work of fiction. Dillard has a way of pulling back all of the layers of the human experience down to the bone and gristle. Her characters are uniquely individual yet somehow recognizable. They generally inhabit a vivid natural landscape that both draws and repels them.
Lou and Toby meet in post-war Provincetown Massachusetts, fall in love and marry. They live a bohemian life in a fishing shack that Toby inherited from his father. They make do with few possessions and, somehow, with very little in the way of employment. A young couple in a carefree whirlwind of artists, writers, and philosophers that had a definite Kerouac/Ginsberg vibe. The world here is definitely privileged, educated, and WASP-y New England. Folks may be living rough on the beaches of Cape Cope, but most are a trust fund away from living a very different life.
If you can get past the rampant privilege here, it is, simply, a story that follows a relationship from courting to marriage, from parenthood to divorce, and ultimately to death. Dillard writes about the passage of time from a youth full of possibilities to the eventual winding down of our bodies. It’s about love and betrayal, forgiveness and acceptance. And, if we are fortunate enough to do so, the choices we make about how we want to live our lives.