More Than Just a Summer Fling

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	• The Maytrees: A Novel Annie Dillard HarperCollins, 2007 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 52 reviews view larger image
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Sacred Ground

With The Maytrees Annie Dillard has written what is something like scripture for our times. Poetic as any psalm, she traces through Lou Bigelow Maytree a life well lived. For Lou the very dunes she walks over are sacred ground; she never loses faith in people, in love. Who knows what choices one would make in the face of this or that disappointment? Here is a person who makes the kind of choices one hopes one would make in life.
If you've spent any time on Cape Cod you know the characters and scene are truly drawn. However, the language of this book is spectacular: images drawn from philosophy, art, literature. I kept thinking as I read, this beats Rogets Thesaurus all hollow! One feels the need to look up words and references. This novel must be sipped slowly like the finest wine.

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More Than Just a Summer Fling

Although the backdrop of this fine book is on the sandy dunes of Cape Cod, this is not a casual affair for beach reading chick lit lovers. This is a sensuous romance for those who seek the crashing waves of human experience to the lust for shallows who's water soon becomes stagnant. This Steinbeckian-of-sorts novel embraces a cast of coastal dwelling bohemians who despite their simple lifestyle of reading, poetry, and painting find themselves struggling with the intellectual complexities of love, marriage, and relationships. Sometimes these struggles seemed so consuming that life seemingly passes them by, only to find that age put a new spin on the whole endeavor. At times this caused me to become impatient with the characters and was even angered by both their audacity and their naivete which bordered the unrealistic. It was the fine writing that kept me reading rather than the actual storyline. If you are OK with that, then this is a great novel for you. Do know that the story spans quite some time and although much is left unanswered, there is an ending that offers some closure, but still leaves much open for individual interpretation. Perhaps, as the saying goes, the journey is more important than the destination. It did take some time after reading this book to digest it all and draw conclusions. This was not a cheap date. Although it is a short book, one needs a desire to invest some time into it. This book is satisfying to readers who prefer the subtle seduction being provoked with thought and emotion rather than being raped by drama and sensationalism.

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Glad You're Back!

Annie Dillard is a remarkable writer. Her second novel, Maytrees, immediately engages primarily because of the language. There is no describing her ability to close in on an idea or a landscape or a person. Lou and Maytree remain remote and intimate at the same time, both to each other and to the reader. Attaching this novel to a particular genre is difficult. It doesn't matter. It is a terrific read!

Chew Slowly

This book is a fine meal you've never had before. But be careful; every paragraph contains a small sliver of bone, a sentence so finely wrought that it needs to be chewed slowly before swallowing. Take your time.

The taste is a little hard to get used to at first, but becomes more and more palatable until you can see that Ms. Dillard is up to her old tricks, playing with syllables and sentences, and having a great time while doing so. She's been collecting these sentences since "For The Time Being", maybe before that, so they've been tumbling around, losing extra words, becoming harder, smaller. Some of these sentences are downright funny; some rise to be some of Dillard's most poetic ever written. All build a story that rises and falls and returns.

All in all, a fine meal, one I will no doubt return to again and again to see what I missed the first time. This work stands alongside her other books and fits.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11

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