For the Time Being
From Annie Dillard, one of the most compelling writers of our time, comes her most profound narrative yet. With her keen eye, penchant for paradox, and yearning for truth, Dillard renews our ability to discover wonder in life’s smallest—and darkest—corners. Why do we exist? Where did we come from? How can one person matter? Dillard searches for answers in a powerful array of images: pictures of bird-headed dwarfs in the standard reference of human birth defects; ten thousand terra-cotta figures fashioned for a Chinese emperor in place of the human court that might have followed him into death; the paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin crossing the Gobi Desert. Vivid, eloquent, and haunting, For the Time Being evokes no less than the terrifying grandeur of all that remains tantalizingly and troublingly beyond our understanding.
