I drool. I lust after. I am smitten by the picture painted in Dillard's The Writing Life.
I can't help it, I'm jealous. The green monster has grabbed a hold of me and now I will be forever haunted by this jealousy of a writing life such as the one described in this book. The joys, the tortures, all of it. However, the book leaves me wondering whether or not I have the stomach...or the freedom for it.
It took me a while to learn Dillard's rhythm, and it took me awhile to understand where she was going with her extended metaphors (i.e. the inchworm) but once I fell into her rhythm, I couldn't pull myself away. Even from the beginning of the book, while I was still trying to decipher the writing and the meaning behind the writing, Dillard struck me with thoughts that resonated. She speaks of the sense of freedom that a writer can be afforded. But she speaks of this freedom as more of a deterrent than an attraction to the writing life. She says, "The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever...Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality." This is often how I feel as a mother. Because, who cares (except me) if I get the dishes done or make the beds or finish the laundry? Who cares if my kids wear matching socks or eat a pop tart for breakfast? No one. Except me and my small tribe...and I care disproportionately more than even they. They say life doesn't occur within a vacuum. I beg to differ...it seems both parenting and writing do. It is a difficult trick to learn to embrace and not abhor the vacuum.
I can't help ask, how exactly does one read as a writer? I know I still am not doing so. I have a tendency to interact with the book, have conversations with it. It is difficult for me to understand the craft within the pages, difficult for me to extract it in a way that I can articulate. The "work" of the writing is not always clear to me. I am not sure if it is because I don't have the proper vocabulary, or I am not sensitive enough to the actual craft. I, in retrospect, have thus far read as a reader. I am finding it difficult to switch gears. I will attempt to do so, however.
At first, I thought The Writing Life was like a diary or journal. If I look only at individual excerpts, it is easy to make this mistake. When the book is taken as a whole, and as I allow myself to be drawn into Dillard's cabin, I realize there is much more than journal entries here. At times I am confused. At times the entries seem fractured and abstract. Her analogies are always interesting, but sometimes weird. But through the quirky rendition of the reality of a writing life, the bare truth is left on the page for me to swallow. She is at times funny(I have little "Ha!'s scattered throughout my margins), sad, satirical, ironic, beautiful, pointed, and harsh. In such a small amount of space, condensation is necessary yet invisible to the naked eye. (How does she do that?) The work is not simply a straight, linear narrative (that is probably what I would have done). It is infused with passages of metaphor and analogy and imagery. She is a story-teller and an advice-giver. Her images are beautiful even as she describes the difficulties inherent in a writing life.
Her words and thoughts are often simple yet profound: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." This is now my new refrain for life! The more I think of it, the more treasures are to be found within these pages than I thought. Removed from it slightly as I try to reflect upon the work, I realize how much I adore this small book that booms big in my breast.
Annie Dillard takes a comfortable, almost conversational tone. I feel like I was almost listening to her tell me the stories rather than reading her book. I don't believe I have ever felt that way after reading a book, but it is not unpleasant. Her dry humor makes me literally laugh out loud. Her love-hate relationship with her career is exhausting to read about (yet alone, embrace) and is made evident through her sardonic, deprecating moments: "Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper."
Dillard uses repetition throughout her book as well. It is a subtle repetition though, a repetition of ideas rather than particular phrases. The sprinkling of this repetition gave me the sense of deja vu or the feeling that I had "heard that before." I felt this lent a sense of credence to her words. This is something I will definitely try to steal for my own writing.
Jealous of her various studies, consisting of cabins on islands and crazy small rooms in dark buildings. Jealous of her solitude, the time she called her own. Jealous of her devotion, her desire, her fire. She makes me wish I were not only a writer...she makes me wish I were her. I am stuck home, with Time being dictated by the small and large tyrants I call my family. I am afraid that perhaps I do not have the freedom of lifestyle to be a successful writer. The thought unnerves and depresses me so I will try to rid myself of it. But doubt is a strong alligator to wrestle with. Is this what Dillard means when she says, "aim for the chopping block?"
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