The Living: Novel, A

By Annie Dillard

“Remarkable. . . . A deftly woven narrative saturated with violence, hardship, and triumph. Readers will be richly rewarded, for by the end of this deeply felt novel it is hard to let the frontier town and its people go.”  — San Francisco Chronicle

This New York Times bestselling novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard is a mesmerizing evocation of pioneer life navigated by European settlers and Lummi natives in the Pacific Northwest during the last decades of the 19th century.

The Living is a tale full of gold minors, friendly railroad speculators, doe-eyed sweethearts, shifty card players, and 19th century adventures that will stay with you long after you close the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061850400

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, The Writing Life, The Living and The Maytrees. She is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and has received fellowship grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Reviews for The Living

[meredk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an unusual novel. Annie Dillard writes about the life of people in Bellingham Bay in the late 1800s. It’s fiction, but she clearly researched what things looked like, how people lived, etc. In that way it’s fascinating. Also, the writing is truly gorgeous - some of the most beautiful and potent writing I’ve read in a while. For example, there’s a scene late in the book in which one of the characters, who is expecting to die very soon, goes out for an evening walk:“Here, in all the world, there shone only his own light - his red burning tobacco, and the glowing dottle beneath it, and the black unburnt bits above. There was no other light, human or inhuman, up or down the beach, or out on the invisible islands, or back in the woods, or anywhere on earth or in heaven, except the chill and fantastical sheen on the sea, whose cause was unfathomable. Before him extended the visible universe: an unstable, thick darkness almost met the silver line of the sea. A long crack had opened between the thick darkness and the water. The crack, half the apparent height of a man, gave out upon a thin darkness, black without substance or stars. He looked out upon the thin darkness, and seemed to hear the woulds of the dead whir and slip on its deep fastness. They wanted back. Their bodies in the graveyard on the cliff could not see to steer their sleeping course, their sleeping heels in the air.”There are a couple of down sides to this book. One is that it’s pretty grim throughout - that may be the reality of those times, but it made it occasionally hard to keep reading. Also, there’s no story arc: The path of the novel is quite flat. I think she did that deliberately so that the emphasis would be on the place (a strong character itself) and the collective lives of the people, rather than any specific story. For me, that kept it from being as engaging as I would have liked.

[ethanyarbrough · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An epic story covering 40 years in the history of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, starting in 1855. Many interesting characters and details of how the early pioneers to the region lived, survived and developed the land into the cities that now thrive -- Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellingham, WA, which is the primary focus of the book. Because I live in these cities, I found the history fascinating and Dillard's descriptions of the place precise and accurate. I did find myself wondering if the book would hold the interest of people not familiar with the place. For that to happen, the narrative must be compelling and if this book falls short in any part, it may be that. Though the times that are the focus of the book required much in the way of physical effort from the people, Dillard's narrative spends a majority of the time inside the minds of the characters as they ruminate on life and what seems to be ever-present death in this difficult environment. But there are enough moments in which characters we have come to know are cast onto the rocks of fate in heart-wrenching ways that, overall, you do find yourself rooting for these characters and I found myself wanting to spend more time with them just to make sure they'd all be alright in the end. There is a sense of realness to the characters and I was left missing them, both because the story was over and because they all live more than a hundred years ago and so as vibrant as they are in the pages of the book, they are long gone and buried by time.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think the biggest reason that I enjoyed this book is that I live in Seattle, so I am familiar with the areas in which it takes place, and can appreciate how much this area has changed in the past 150 years. The book really made me think about the first white settlers who came out here, and how hard their lives were, yet how rewarding the landscape could be for them, as it is for me.On the downside, the book is at time gruesome and depressing - life was hard for these people, and Dillard doesn't spare us any of the grief or gore. Sometimes I didn't really understand the characters and their feelings. The plot line doesn't really follow a conflict-resolution trajectory: it is just a continuing saga of a few generations of Puget Sound's first settlers, and as such the plot wasn't very satisfying. Closer to real life, perhaps, but there was never a sense of resolution. Dillard's writing is very rewarding.

[ksmyth_18 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've been told that this is not Annie Dillard's best work. Nevertheless, there are things about it that I really like, and some things I find less appealing. First, I love the atmospherics in the book. Her description of Western Washington in the 1850's, when the book begins are right on, and give a great period flavor. The dark, dripping forest, the damp days, make the setting feel almost primeval. Unfortunately, I'm less fond of the plot--particularly at the end of the book, when it sort of degenerates into a big whodunit. Who cares. I liked this book but you have to take the good with the bad.

[rachelellen_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is not a book through which you race along. It took me a full month to read it, I think. It's very dense, very solid, full of similes that make you think, and situations that make you cringe or cry or laugh or shudder. There's not much of a plot, which in this instance is OK, because the focus of the story is on the people and on the place in which they live and on the nature of life there. You get a definite sense in the first half of the book of the apparent randomness of death on the 19th-century Northwestern U.S. frontier, and the second half goes more into life in a boom town and the way the ups and downs of that kind of existence affect the characters. I'm making it sound very dull, but it's not; the writing is lyrical and thoughtful and very, very good.

[cygnus555 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I purchased this book shortly after I moved to Bellingham Washington... It was a really great novel that made me really understand how difficult the early settlers had it. I was shocked and dismayed by the huge numbers of people who died horrible deaths in this book.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good historical novel in the early pioneer days of the Pacific Northwest.

[b.masonjudy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"The Living" is a deft novel and as driven as I was to finish reading I didn't find the overall narrative to be too compelling. Dillard holds a weighty and biblical tone through most of the book as it chronicles life of pioneers in Whatcom County. Reading about life during this time was detailed and if you've ever visited the Puget Sound area the perspective of awe and wonder Dillard captures in the setting is well crafted indeed. It is a great skill to be able to capture the lives of particular people in a particular place but I finished the book thinking "so what?" as the sound of the wind through douglas fir rattled in my head.

[busterrll · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great Book Best author I have come across since Robertson Davies passed away

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dillard's prose is wonderfully descriptive and delightfully crafted; this is a fabulous work.