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wolfbridge's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
The most insightful and innovative usage of words I’ve ever seen. Nobody can write quite like Dillard.
savaging's review against another edition
4.0
I'm here for the moths and not for the gods. This trend is worsening as I age: more and more interest in moths, less and less interest in gods, until I can sort of yadda-yadda the extraordinary thoughts of extraordinarily thoughtful Annie Dillard while she's considering the Absolute, until she gets back to the details of a dusty spider web.
christinajcraig's review
5.0
Annie Dillard is a magician. Her writing is amazing. She combines religion with nature with philosophy with suffering with beauty with moths with salt with perception.
Here are some passages:
The god of today is a glacier. We live in his shifting crevasses, unheard.
We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.
I deepen into a drop and see all that time contains, all the faces and deeps of the worlds and all the earth's contents, every landscape and room, everything living or made or fashioned, all past and future stars, and especially faces like the cells of everything, faces pouring past me talking...
Here are some passages:
The god of today is a glacier. We live in his shifting crevasses, unheard.
We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all.
I deepen into a drop and see all that time contains, all the faces and deeps of the worlds and all the earth's contents, every landscape and room, everything living or made or fashioned, all past and future stars, and especially faces like the cells of everything, faces pouring past me talking...
dfarmil's review
3.0
Chaotic in a good way I think? This book felt very grounded and existential at the same time. I thought the writing was beautiful but the sentences felt convoluted at times. I am still unsure whether I think this is a good thing or not. All in all might have to revisit.
wellduhiread's review
Really not a giant fan of Annie Dillard :P I had to read this for school and I didn't like it...
_l__n_r's review
3.0
I first read this book in undergrad, a horrifyingly long time ago, and LOVED it. If this review were based solely on my memory of Holy the Firm, it would be an easy 5 stars.
The moth essay is a forever favorite, but the book got harder for me to read as it went on. It got more and more esoteric and obscure and odd. Dillard is a beautiful writer and Holy the Firm is a great example of that, but I just wasn't as into it at 37 as I was at 20, I guess. The Julie Norwich / Julian of Norwich allusion felt a little weird to me and I didn't enjoy the final section (the climax of Dillard's religious crisis where she wrestles with why God would allow suffering), but perhaps that's because I'm much clearer in my own religious beliefs now than I was when I read it the first time.
I wouldn't NOT recommend this book or Dillard in general, but it's a difficult read and definitely benefits from discussion.
The moth essay is a forever favorite, but the book got harder for me to read as it went on. It got more and more esoteric and obscure and odd. Dillard is a beautiful writer and Holy the Firm is a great example of that, but I just wasn't as into it at 37 as I was at 20, I guess. The Julie Norwich / Julian of Norwich allusion felt a little weird to me and I didn't enjoy the final section (the climax of Dillard's religious crisis where she wrestles with why God would allow suffering), but perhaps that's because I'm much clearer in my own religious beliefs now than I was when I read it the first time.
I wouldn't NOT recommend this book or Dillard in general, but it's a difficult read and definitely benefits from discussion.