Talk:Annie Dillard

Comment

"She quite the Catholic Church and Christianity" I think that should be "quit".

Her page said she died tomorrow? It's 1/11/18, and it says she died on 1/12/18? There's no sourcing for this death and I can't find any proof with a simple search. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.66.30.73 (talk) 01:06, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

I think it's fake, as it would be in some media by now if true. Also, she appears to have no connection to Southern California. Her husband has a link to Key West, which is on the wrong side of the country. I removed what I judge to be vandalism by the user "2600:1004:b103:513f:a036:74e7:e96e:54d9".--Quisqualis (talk) 06:22, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Comment

Can anyone give a source for her birth name (Meta Annie Doak)? I am compiling some more info for this entry, but have thusfar been unable to verify the "Meta" name using any print sources. Thanks much! --amysayrawr 00:19, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

other facts

• wrote essays, poetry, memoirs, literary criticism
• carefull formulations, observations, metaphysical insights
• Tickets: poetry, first publication
• Pilgrim: inspired by Thoreau's Walden. Tinker Creek in Virginia's Roanoke Valley. D. lived there (observing nature, reading and writing)

[ more to be added later ]

some interlinking with american nature writers, John Muir and Thoreau especially, would be useful;

Any reason that I should not add a page about An American Childhood?--the authentic david christians (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment

Does anyone else find it funny that an article about an author is in need of a clean-up for grammar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.76.68.46 (talk) 14:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Structural Changes

I have made structural changes to this article to improve readability. I retained all existing information, but in is some cases made minor wording changes. I added facts from An American Childhood. I hope people find the changes agreeable.

Isegot 11:58, 17 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isegot (talk • contribs)

Edit

"She quit the Catholic Church and Christianity; she 'stayed near Christianity and Hasidism.' "

Where does this quote come from? It is not on her website, as it is cited, and as far as I can tell it originates from Wikipedia (which may be one of the reasons she says on her website that almost everything this article says about her is wrong). It sort of sounds like something she might say, but I'm going to take it off. Please put it back if you find a source!

Furthermore, I can't find evidence that she "quit the Catholic Church and Christianity." If she has recently, it doesn't belong with this book description. She did an interview about this book (For the Time Being) with a Catholic magazine where the interviewer said, "You take what could be called an ecumenical approach in your writing by drawing from the rich thinking of important figures from many different religious traditions. And yet you remain a Christian, a Catholic." Dillard replies: "That's right." And later: "I find the Hasids particularly rich in insight." (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Natural+wonders-a057088517). These replies seem to make better sense of what is on her website than what is currently in this article. So I'm going to add them.

75.70.204.208 (talk) 02:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I went back and read some more of the article. What a mess! And so many things are cited as being on her website aren't there. Such as: "Neurologist Andrew Budson, then at Harvard, wrote that Dillard was "almost unbelievably intelligent." (I can't find this anywhere else, either.)

So many of the book descriptions are just weird if you've actually read them. 75.70.204.208 (talk) 02:24, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you: the article is a right mess. I believe your removals were called for, and more can be done. (Although this quote cracked me up, it can probably go since it's strangely cited to her website: "Frederick Buechner called it 'A rare and precious book.' Other reviewers wondered if she took hallucinogenic drugs. She says, 'No.'" Ha!). I'm in the process of writing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, so I may help out here while I do the necessary research. María (yllosubmarine) 03:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

hi everyone. here is her website with the quotes: http://www.anniedillard.com/books-annie-dillard.html (not sure about the neurologist one). all of our timing is strange! maybe we just all have extra time over Tgiving...i had written her about the missing quotes (she was my teacher), and she fixed the website today. 75.70...I wrote you a private talk apologizing for removing the Free Library quote. I only did that because she says she currently has "no religion...or many religions," but I didn't mean to be hasty and i saw your talk after I did it. It's a good quote (more appropriate than what's there) and i will put it back up, I'm sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liveturtle (talk • contribs) 20:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

oops, forgot to sign above. and wanted to add: above i referred to the old quote on her homepage that she has "no religion, or many religions," but that's not there any more! Liveturtle (talk) 20:23, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The long holiday weekend certainly didn't hurt. :) I've been meaning to expand Pilgrim at Tinker Creek since I created the article about four years ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. I'm glad the quotes can be attributed to the books section of her official website, but the material that uses the books section as a reference should link to the books section, not the mainpage -- this mix up is why 75.70.204.208 and I assumed that the website was being cited erroneously. In short, the quotes should link to http://www.anniedillard.com/books-annie-dillard.html, not http://www.anniedillard.com, since that's where they come from. I can reformat the citations, if you'd like?

Second, the article still needs an awful lot of work as far as professionalism and non-essaylike writing, which the quotes may be inadvertently adding to. That's something we can easily work on, though! BTW, a few days ago I contacted Dillard's literary agent for permission to use the photograph on her official website here on Wikipedia, and they agreed! The image is currently here, but it's waiting for the permission to be acknowledged before we can use it in articles. María (yllosubmarine) 20:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Note: I've started work on reformatting the cites, but I'll have to continue later. I've run into issues with plagiarizing, which is a rather time-consuming but all important task. Be sure that when quoting material from websites (even an author's official site) that you don't simply copy-and-paste: either include quotes where applicable, or paraphrase. See Wikipedia:Plagiarism for more info. I'll try to get it sorted out, but there's a lot of cleaning to be done. María (yllosubmarine) 21:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Further reading

In Further Reading, I took out the Bedrock book. That book merely anthologizes something in Teaching a Stone to Talk. There's really no reason to list that, especially as the book which originally featured that essay is itself listed in the article. 128.138.169.236 (talk) 01:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Unverified Assertion

The following opinion drawn from American Childhood suggests that Dillard's difference with the church was resolved by C.S. Lewis: "As an adolescent she quit attending church because of "hypocrisy." When she told her minister of her decision, he gave her a stack of books by C. S. Lewis, and that resolved her rebellion." Based on the text of page 228, I don't see the grounds for drawing this conclusion. I'm going to remove "that resolved her rebellion" and add her interpretation of C.S. Lewis. See below the passage from page 228 regarding C.S. Lewis:

"If the all-powerful creator directs the world, then why all this suffering? Why did the innocents die in the camps, and why do they starve in the cities and farms? Addressing this question, I found thirty pages written thousands of years ago, and forty pages written in 1955. They offered a choice of fancy language saying, "Forget it," or serenely worded, logical-sounding answers that so strained credibility (pain is God's megaphone) that "Forget it" seemed in comparison a fine answer. I liked, however, C.S. Lewis's effort to defuse the question. The sum of human suffering we needn't worry about: There is plenty of suffering, but no one ever suffers the sum of it."

The chapter ends with the assistant minister suggesting that she will return to the church, to which Dillard writes: "Humph, I thought, Pshaw." --Isegot 02:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isegot (talk • contribs)

Philanthropy section

This section may have been correct as of 2011. However, there is no mention of paintings for sale on her official website as of April 13, 2016. So, this should be removed or rewritten in the past tense. If the latter, I would not know how to cite a webpage that can no longer be retrieved. Thanks. 148.159.128.51 (talk) 13:29, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

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