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THE LIVINGWritten by Annie Dillard
Ada Fishburn shivered as she stood on the shore of Bellingham Bay, waiting for her husband, Rooney, to unload their belongings. Several months before she had left her old life in Missouri and embarked with her small family on the long journey to the Washington Territory. The old life didn't die, however, until she was well into the trip. One morning, as the wagons were trudging across the endless plains, Charley, her younger son, stood up and went over the side of the wagon, landing in the path of the wheels. There was no time to fish him out of the rut or stop the wagon. The wheels went over his small body, and he died.
They buried him the next day beneath a tree that was, as they discovered while digging, a popular burial place. As Ada and her family struggled to cut themselves a life in the desolate Washington forest, death would become all too familiar to them. Death, they soon learned, was half of living.
The Fishburns’ life is just one of the many stories that Annie Dillard paints in The Living. What distinguishes them from the others is their longevity: the book begins with Ada’s arrival and ends with the adulthood of her grandchildren. The 400 pages in between are filled with events that are random and haphazard ... or are they? Clare and Glee Fishburn, Ada’s sons, quickly sprout up in the wild and begin families in the ebb-and-flow town of Whatcom. Two island boys, John Ireland Sharp and Beal Obenchain, grow up and leave their deserted island home to follow two different ways of life. Baltimore native Minta Honer arrives in nearby Goshen and, after several years, must make her own way after losing her husband and two youngest children. Like the Fishburns, they learn that life is chock full of dying. Indeed, the reader will find the number of deaths staggering. You will cry as characters of tender ages and attitudes have their lives suddenly snuffed out.
It is Beal Obenchain who provides us with the one event that ties all these stories together into a complete package. One night he calls on Clare Fishburn and announces that he is soon going to kill him. Bewildered, Clare doesn't know what to make of it, and he begins to watch out for Beal and carry a revolver for protection. In reality, Beal is seeking to control Clare, to make him so fearful that he becomes a living corpse, a shell without spirit. Clare begins to go down that road, but he soon learns that Beal’s threat is no different than the threat made to us by life: death does not ask permission or care about those whom you love. With this learning, Clare has a new perspective on life that asks the questions, Whose lives are good? Whose lives mean something? Who will be forgotten?
Dillard’s point is a profound one, and it is artfully woven into the very believable and very real tapestry of 19th century pioneering. Yet, as the book draws to a close, the reader will be somewhat disappointed with Dillard's picture of God. Instead of a sovereign God who is the author of history, Dillard sees Him simply as creator. Somehow, He fits into day-to-day living, but His presence is unfelt and unheeded.
That said, The Living is a book well-worth reading. Throughout the book there are many thoughtful observations on life and how we live it, observations that provoke thought and offer new light on our existence. The most important point, however, is the simple question that bleeds from the last scene of darkness: how does your upcoming death influence how you live?
- Jason Ewert
October 2002
October 2002
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