Friday, March 28, 2008

annie dillard

I recently read FOR THE TIME BEING by Annie Dillard. Here is a passage from the first chapter that maybe meant something to me:



“The blue light of television flickers on the cave wall. If the fellow crawls out of the cave, what does he see? Not the sun itself, but night, and the two thousand visible stars. Once, I tried to converse with him, the fellow who crawled out of his blue-lit cave to the real world. He had looked into this matter of God. He had to shout to make himself heard. “How do you stand the wind out here?”

I don’t. Not for long. [. . .] It seemed unlikely that he heard. The wind blew into his face. He turned and faced the lee. I do not know how long he stayed out. A little at a time does for me-a little every day.”

4 comments:

Moltzan said...

This is a really good passage. It reminds me of the books I've been looking at work today...I'm on lunch break and I've been stocking books and um reading too...

Anonymous said...

I didn't realize I had comments set to google accounts only. Now anyone can comment, even anonymously (because yall' just want to post so badly here, right?).

Anonymous said...

I feel like the man in the blue cave some days. I don't watch television, but I do work on computers all day.

I miss the wind when I was little, my mother and I lived in Heart Butte, north central Montana. She was a school teacher on the reservation there, and the wind was incredible. Sometimes it would get up to like near hurricane speeds 100+ mph or something. But it was always windy, and sometimes we'd get this strange warm wind come through. All the trees were short and twisted, warped around by the air. Maybe I'll be back out in the wind some day.

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.