The Living (1992)

I've owned this for years but it sits on my bookshelf in FL and I still have to read it.

interesting history but I never felt like I cared much about the characters - I confess, I skipped pages to finish ( )

Not her best work. Ordinarily I give Dillard rave reviews. This book seemed redundant and lackluster. ( )

I think the biggest reason that I enjoyed this book is that I live in Seattle, so I am familiar with the areas in which it takes place, and can appreciate how much this area has changed in the past 150 years. The book really made me think about the first white settlers who came out here, and how hard their lives were, yet how rewarding the landscape could be for them, as it is for me.

On the downside, the book is at time gruesome and depressing - life was hard for these people, and Dillard doesn't spare us any of the grief or gore. Sometimes I didn't really understand the characters and their feelings. The plot line doesn't really follow a conflict-resolution trajectory: it is just a continuing saga of a few generations of Puget Sound's first settlers, and as such the plot wasn't very satisfying. Closer to real life, perhaps, but there was never a sense of resolution. Dillard's writing is very rewarding. ( )

Slow, like a Pacific Northwest winter, but I found myself caught up in the story of these pioneers and their families who faced hardship and death. The prose was amazing, full of literary devices that often caused me to stop for a moment and generally made me read slower than I usually do.