Friday, January 23, 2009

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

My friend Elizabeth gave me this book for Christmas, which was brave of her because most people don’t, knowing how many books I buy for myself. I’m so pleased Lizzie took the chance, even though she was concerned that it was “too hetero” for me. But I loved this book in so many ways.

Annie Dillard is often referred to as a writer’s writer. When I did my Masters in Writing at UTS, her book, The Writer’s Life, was almost a set text. But, interestingly, the thing I most remember about that book was that she asks over and over “Why are we reading?”

Ostensibly this is the tale of a long and not always conventional marriage. There are important friends, children and lives lived not in the pursuit of the material, but with an awareness of the mind, emotion, even spirituality. It is inspiring in its understated themes of loyalty, the importance of friendship and the rejection of bitterness and revenge in the fulfilled life.

When I read the first couple of pages, I felt the task was going to be too much. To understand, to really follow her, I would have to concentrate on every single word, to check back and forth to grasp the thread, to ponder. But four or five pages in, I realised that it was okay to wander along, to put my confusions or puzzlement aside, and get to the meaning, or at least what I was going to make of it, by letting it wash over me line by line. Like poetry?

I might even suggest that there are lines and sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs that do not bear absolute rational scrutiny. At times I didn’t know what she was talking about. But somehow that made it richer.

She tries very hard to stimulate the reader, to lead us down curious paths.

And the words themselves. About the same time I read this book I took up playing Scrabble, both online and at home with friends on a beautiful old board I bought on eBay. But even with the weirdest constellation of letters, I couldn’t make some of the words she uses. I needed to keep the dictionary close by, for words like “tatterdemalion” which means a person in tattered clothing, or “epistomeliac” (which incidentally isn’t in any of my dictionaries.)

Is it too clever? No, it’s thrilling. Should you read it? Yes. Would I play Scrabble with her? Never.