“Now in compassion they bore, between them, their solitudes each the size of the raveled globe. Everything looked better since they were old.”

I just finished reading “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard, my first experience of this amazing writer.

The book jacket describes Dillard’s writing as “spare” and “elegant”. Elegant, emphatically yes, but spare, not in the least, more like expansive and erudite, cosmic and soul-filling. She took me from the teeming edge where sea meets dunes, and then catapulted me to the celestial playground of Venus, Alterf, Diphda and the slung out Milky Way. So many references I was compelled to investigate.

She makes the strong, fearless, hardworking fisherman and townspeople come alive alongside the artists, writers, drifters and “summer” people. Her words allow you to imagine these people so clearly that you might recognize them on the street, and also know them more deeply and intimately than I could have imagined. I became attached to Lou and Maytree so completely that I mourned his passing and was drawn into her steadfastness.

What I loved most about the book is Annie’s ability to unflinchingly present the full range of her characters’ thoughts and feelings, flaws and gifts, and, in the end, to softly recognize the enduring power of love and beauty. “Now in compassion they bore, between them, their solitudes each the size of the raveled globe. Everything looked better since they were old.”