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Loading... The Maytrees (2007)by Annie Dillard
None.  LDVoorberg | Apr 7, 2013 |  This is the first novel by Dillard I have read. It made me want to read more of her works. I liked the flow of her writing and the premise of the story. She manages to make the implausible seem reasonable. (  ) BookishJoJo | Apr 6, 2013 | I approached this book warily, as it's fiction, and I've always thought that Dillard was best at essays and inquiries into the natural world. I was prepared to be disappointed, but I was not prepared to be, as I was, blown away. This book is an astonishing, lambent, transcendent meditation on love, marriage and humanity. The story of Toby and Lou Maytree, and their friends and families, works on many different levels. The book is like a photo fussed over in Photoshop- layer after translucent layer, each coloring the whole delicately and almost imperceptibly. Every word drops into place with a feeling of inevitability, so well crafted is this novel. Highly recommended. (  ) satyridae | Apr 5, 2013 | The language is this book is really lovely. It's poetic, it's beautiful. I'm writing this review several months after finishing the book. I don't really remember much about the characters. I have some recollections of the plot. Those elements are not impressive. It's possible that this is a case of style over substance; pretty words that don't say much. But the words are very pretty. (  ) CassieLM | Apr 2, 2013 | Quite beautiful. The book is a poem, really. The images were beautiful and painful at the same time. I was sad when it ended. (  ) DonnaB317 | Jun 4, 2012 |
 At times, "The Maytrees" acts like vintage Dillard: It contains gorgeous, meticulous descriptions of the outdoors that springboard into the Platonic ether, into meditations on devotion, loss, and time. But the book does not reach as far into the clouds, or linger there as long, as Dillard's earlier work did. Her philosophical impulses are present, but they are moored to a linear narrative, and made to spring more or less logically from the minds and actions of flesh-and-blood characters. The result is one of the most lucid and effective books Dillard has ever produced.  The Maytrees, Dillard’s second attempt at the form, is composed of equal parts human detail, sweeping landscape, and commonplace book musings on the role of love in life. It sounds like a good combination—and the book has some fine moments—but she doesn’t cook her ingredients.  Now in “The Maytrees,” her second novel and a shimmering meditation on the ebb and flow of love, Ms. Dillard has created the sort of narrative that will have acolytes moaning low.
References to this work on external resources.
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Wikipedia in English (3)
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The beginning of the novel is a bit slow and descriptive, but stick with it! The story and characters will capture your attention.
This novel would make an excellent study for literature students, book clubs, and those reflecting on what it means to love, be in love, and live with love. (