The ABUNDANCE
Annie Dillard has spent a lifetime examining the world around her with eyes wide open, drinking in all things intensely and relentlessly. She conjures currents of magic and wisdom, illuminating the seemingly ordinary moments of a life lived fearlessly – as a breathless teenager, as a roving young adult and as a writer – with her unique wit, boundless curiosity and fierce, undeniably singular voice.
Whether observing a sublime lunar eclipse or a moth consumed in a candle flame, the trembling of lily pads on a pond or hundreds of red-winged blackbirds taking flight, Dillard’s awe at the fragility of the natural world rejuvenates and inspires pleasure and heartache.
Precise in language and deeply meditative in spirit, this is a landmark collection from one of America’s masters. A formative figure in contemporary non-fiction and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Abundance showcases Annie Dillard in all her enigmatic genius.
ALSO BY ANNIE DILLARD
Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)
Holy the Firm (1977)
Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982)
Living by Fiction (1982)
Encounters with Chinese Writers (1984)
An American Childhood (1987)
Writing Life (1989)
The Living (1992)
Mornings Like This (1995)
For the Time Being (1999)
The Maytrees (2007)
The
ABUNDANCE
ANNIE DILLARD
Foreword by Geoff Dyer
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2016 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Annie Dillard, 2016
Foreword copyright © Geoff Dyer, 2016
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First published in the United States of America in 2016 by
HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007
See page 303 for a full list of publications in which the pieces in The Abundance have been published previously.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78211 771 1
eISBN 978 1 78211 772 8
Designed by Suni Manchikanti
For Phyllis Rose
The immense life of us all. We are all ordinary when there are so many of us; and yet—such a festival!
KAREL CAPEK
They will question thee concerning what they should expend.
Say: The Abundance.
THE QUR’AN, SURA OF THE COW
CONTENTS