She stands amidst a world both beautiful and haunting, taking in the wonder of nature alongside the horror of human behavior.ĭillard’s prose captures both the inner and the outer marvels of being alive. As a young girl, Dillard devours the world around her becoming intrigued and obsessed by varying fascinations such as art and rocks, bugs and literature. Her prose painlessly dissects the struggles and demands of childhood, of growing up. Steady yourself, I say, take this in slowly, and so I turn back and I leaf through pages I’ve already read, and I revel in the beauty of the written word.Īn American Childhood is a memoir, an autobiography about Dillard’s childhood in Pittsburg around the 1940’s and 1950’s. When it happens, my heart beats harder and my mind struggles to keep my eyes in check, to prevent me from flying through page after page. Pulling books from under my bed, from library shelves, from friends’ dusty collections, I hunger to find connection. Such an experience with an author or a novel is why I read with a voracious intensity. “Can I read you just one more passage?” I would ask Ryan because Dillard’s prose struck me, moved me to the point where I wanted to hear her words roll off of my tongue. I sat on my couch, with a Pottery Barn pillow in my lap, and I read, rapt, An American Childhood by Annie Dillard.
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