FOR THE TIME BEING BY ANNIE DILLARD STUDY GUIDE
CHAPTER 2
Allen Loibner-Waitkus
For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 1
COUNTRIES MENTIONED IN CHAPTERS 1 & 2*
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*includes countries of origin of some of the people mentioned For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 3
GENERAL NOTES Hopefully, you have noticed that Chapters 1 & 2—as well as all subsequent chapters—are broken into ten seemingly disparate sections. They are (in order): 1. Birth 2. Sand 3. China 4. Clouds 5. Numbers 6. Israel 7. Encounters 8. Thinker 9. Evil 10. Now
PEOPLE Abraham—(originally “Avram” or “Abram”) the common patriarch of the three Abrahamic religions. In Judaism he is the founding father of the Covenant, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the prototype of all believers, Jewish or Gentile; and in Islam he is seen as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad. Amemar—a Jewish Amora sage of Babylon, of the fifth and sixth generation of the Amora era. He is accounted as one of the most prominent sages of his generation and the Headman to his town’s sages, Nehardea. Among his disciples, one may find the most prominent sages of the sixth generation of the Amoraim, among them: Rav Ashi, the head of the academy of Sura, who became Amemar’s “Fellow Student,” and R. Huna b. Nathan, the Exilarch. Among his colleagues: Mar Zutra and Rav Ashi, and many times the Talmud records all three of them together. Initially, his hometown was Nehardea, but later he moved to Mahuza, where he also served as a Dayan, religious Judge. Aristotle—(384–322 BCE) an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, whereafter Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. At seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Plato’s Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BCE). His writings cover many subjects—including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, and government—and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BCE. Augustine of Hippo—(13 November 354–28 August 430) an early North African Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 4
most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions. Chinul—(1158–1210) (best known as “Bojo Jinul”; often called “Jinul” or “Chinul” for short) a Korean monk of the Goryeo period, who is considered to be the most influential figure in the formation of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism. He is credited as the founder of the Jogye Order, by working to unify the disparate sects in Korean Buddhism into a cohesive organization. Forster, Edward Morgan—(1 January 1879–7 June 1970) (better known as “E. M. Forster”) an English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and librettist. Many of his novels examined class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society, notably A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924), which brought him his greatest success. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 16 different years. Giacometti, Alberto—(10 October 1901–11 January 1966) a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. He was born in the canton Graubünden’s southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia, as the eldest of four children to Giovanni Giacometti, a well-known post-Impressionist painter and Annetta Giacometti-Stampa. Coming from an artistic background, he was interested in art from an early age. Goullart, Peter—a Russian-born traveler, explorer and author, who is best known for a number of books describing the life and customs of various peoples living in remote parts of East and Southeast Asia Halevy, Rabbi Judah—(c. 1075–1141) (best known as “Judah Halevi”; also known as “Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi” and “Judah ben Shmuel Halevi”) a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was The Kuzari. Hechaside, Rabbi Yehudah—(c. 1660–17 October 1700) (better known as “Judah he-Hasid Segal ha-Levi”) a Jewish preacher who led the largest organized group of Jewish immigrants to the Land of Israel in the 17th and 18th centuries. Hutus—(also known as “the Abahutu”) a Bantu ethnic group native to African Great Lakes region of Africa, primarily area now under Burundi and Rwanda. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal population divisions alongside the Tutsi and the Twa. Kaplan, Justin Daniel “Joe”— (5 September 1925–2 March 2014) an American writer and editor. The general editor of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th and 17th eds.), he was best known as a biographer, particularly of Samuel Clemens, Lincoln Steffens, and Walt Whitman. Keyfitz, Nathan—(29 June 1913–6 April 2010) a Canadian demographer, a pioneer of mathematical demography For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 5
Kushner, Rabbi Lawrence—(born 1943) a Reform rabbi and the scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, California Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci—(15 April 1452–2 May 1519) (best known as “Leonardo da Vinci”; also known as simply “Leonardo”) an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank,he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal. MacMillan, Carleton Lamont, M.D.—(1903–1978) was a physician and political figure in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada. He represented Victoria in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1949 to 1967 as a Liberal member. Maggid, Great—(died December 1772) (better known as “Rabbi Dov Baer ben Avraham of Mezeritch”; also known as “the Maggid of Mezritch”) a disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, and was chosen as his successor to lead the early movement. Rabbi Dov Baer is regarded as the first systematic exponent of the mystical philosophy underlying the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, and through his teaching and leadership, the main architect of the movement. He established his base in Mezhirichi (in Wołyń), which moved the center of Hasidism from the Baal Shem Tov’s Medzhybizh (in Podolia), where he focused his attention on raising a close circle of great disciples to spread the movement. After his death, avoiding the unified leadership of the first two generations, this third generation of leadership took their different interpretations and disseminated across appointed regions of Eastern Europe. Under the inspiration of their teacher, this rapidly spread Hasidism beyond Ukraine to Poland, Galicia and Russia. Mao—(26 December 1893–9 September 1976) (full name was “Mao Zedong”; also known as “Chairman Mao”) a Chinese communist revolutionary, poet, political theorist and founding father of the People’s Republic of China, which he ruled as the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. His theories and military strategies and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. Nachman of Bartslav, Rabbi—(1772-1811) a master and religious thinker, was a great-grandson of the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov. Nachman sought to reinvigorate the movement, which he saw as having lost its original impetus. Nathan of Nemirov, Rabbi—(2 January 1780–20 December 1844) (also known as “Reb Noson”; born “Nathan Sternhartz”) the chief disciple and scribe of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty. Reb Noson is credited with preserving, promoting and expanding the Breslov movement after the Rebbe’s death. Rebbe Nachman himself said, “Were it not for Reb Noson, not a page of my writings would have remained.” Noah—the tenth and last of the pre-flood Patriarchs. The story of Noah’s Ark is told in the Bible’s Genesis flood narrative. The biblical account is followed by the story of the Curse of Canaan. For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 6
Ozick, Cynthia—(born 17 April 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist Paul of Tarsus—(c. 5 – c. 67 CE) (commonly known as “Saint Paul” and “Paul the Apostle”) an apostle (though not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of the Christ to the first century world. Paul is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age and in the mid-30s to the mid-50s CE, he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences. According to writings in the New Testament and prior to his conversion, Paul was dedicated to persecuting the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem. In the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles (often referred to simply as Acts), Paul was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mission to “arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem” when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a great light. He was struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus, and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God. Approximately half of the book of Acts deals with Paul’s life and works. Pierotti, Ermette— an Italian-born architect and engineer. Pierotti served as city engineer of Jerusalem under the Ottoman Governor. Pol Pot—(19 May 1925–15 April 1998) (born “Saloth Sar”) a Cambodian politician and revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. As such, he became the leader of Cambodia on 17 April 1975, when his forces captured Phnom Penh. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea (30th Prime Minister of Cambodia). He presided over a totalitarian dictatorship, in which his government made urban dwellers move to the countryside to work in collective farms and on forced labour projects. The combined effects of executions, strenuous working conditions, malnutrition and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25% of the Cambodian population. In all, an estimated 1 to 3 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) perished as a result of the policies of his four-year premiership. Rab Ashi—(352–427) (better known as “Rav Ashi”) a Babylonian Amoraic Talmid Chacham, who reestablished the Academy at Sura and was first editor of the Babylonian Talmud. According to a tradition preserved in the academies, Rav Ashi was born in the same year that Rava, the great teacher of Mahuza, died, and he was the first teacher of any importance in the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia after Raba’s death. Simai, Ashi’s father, was a rich and learned man, a student of the college of Naresh near Sura, which was directed by Rav Papa, Raba’s disciple. Ashi’s teacher was Rav Kahana, a member of the same college, who later became president of the academy at Pumbedita. Rulfo, Juan—(16 May 1917–7 January 1986) (full name was “Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno”) a Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer. He is best known for two literary works, El Llano en llamas (1953), a collection of short stories, and the 1955 novel Pedro Páramo. Fifteen of the seventeen short stories in El Llano en llamas have been translated into English and published as The Burning Plain and Other Stories. This collection includes the popular tale “¡Diles que no me maten!” (“Tell Them Not to Kill Me!”). Ruskin, John—(8 February 1819–20 January 1900) the leading English art critic of the Victorian For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 7
era, as well as an art patron, draftsman, watercolorist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterized his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasized the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures, and ornamentation. Scholem, Gershom—(5 December 1897–21 February 1982) (born “Gerhard Scholem”) a Germanborn Israeli philosopher and historian. He is widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah, becoming the first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His close friends included Walter Benjamin and Leo Strauss, and selected letters from his correspondence with those philosophers have been published. Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and for his biography Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah (1957). His collected speeches and essays, published as On Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (1965), helped to spread knowledge of Jewish mysticism among both Jews and non-Jews. Shalev, Meir—(born 29 July 1948) an Israeli writer and newspaper columnist for the daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Shalev’s books have been translated into twenty-six languages. Singer, Israel Joshua—(30 November 1893–10 February 1944) (better known as “I.J. Singer”) a Polish American novelist who wrote in Yiddish. He was born Yisruel Yehoyshye Zinger, the son of Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman. He was the brother of author Isaac Bashevis Singer and novelist Esther Kreitman. He married Genia Kuper. His eldest son, Yasha, died of influenza before the family’s emigration to America. His younger son, Joseph Singer was the translator for both his father’s works and his uncle, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Joseph, a painter and writer like his fathe,r married June Flaum Singer who went on to become a writer. They had four children: Sharon Salinger, Brett Singer, I.J. Singer and Valerie Singer. The three daughters followed in the family business and are also published poets and novelists. Teresa of Ávila, Saint—(28 March 1515–4 October 1582) (also called “Saint Teresa of Jesus”; baptized as “Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada”) a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and author during the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer in the Carmelite Order of her time and the movement she initiated, later joined by Saint John of the Cross, eventually led to the establishment of the Discalced Carmelites, though neither she nor John were alive when the two orders separated. Zutra, Mar—a Jewish Amora sage of Babylon, of the sixth generation of the Amora era. He was a colleague of Amemar and Rav Ashi. He headed the Yeshiva of Pumbedita, and according to the book Seder Tannaim ve-Amoraim, previous to Rav Aha b. Rava. In the Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (French version), he is not mentioned as a head of a Yeshiva, but in later sources he is noted as Mr. Zutra, Head of a Yeshiva.
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GEOGRAPHY Bangladesh—(officially “the People’s Republic of Bangladesh”) a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar (Burma). Nepal, Bhutan, and China are located near Bangladesh, but they do not share a border with it. The country’s maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area. Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong, which has the country’s largest port. Cambodia—(also known as “Khmer” or “Kampuchea”; officially known as “the Kingdom of Cambodia”) a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 square miles) in area, bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the northeast, Vietnam to the east, and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Figi—(officially “the Republic of Fiji”) an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand’s North Island. Its closest neighbors are Vanuatu to the west, New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand’s Kermadec Islands to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France’s Wallis and Futuna to the northeast, and Tuvalu to the north. Palestine—a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories. The name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and it was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region comprises most of the territory claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel, the Holy Land or Promised Land. Historically, it has been known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham, and the Levant. Pithom—(also called “Per-Atum,” “Heroöpolis,” and “Heroonopolis”) an ancient city of Egypt. Multiple references in ancient Greek, Roman, and Hebrew Bible sources exist for this city. The exact location of this city remains somewhat uncertain. A number of scholars identified it as the modern archaeological site of Tell El Maskhuta. Others say that the site is identified with Tell El Retabeh, while the 10th century Jewish scholar Saadia Gaon identified the place in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch as Faiyum, 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Cairo. Ramses—an ancient city in Egypt Rwanda—(officially “the Republic of Rwanda”) a sovereign state in Central and East Africa and one of the smallest countries on the African mainland. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda is in the African Great Lakes region and is highly elevated; its geography is dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the east, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. St. John’s River— the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At 310 miles (500 km) long, it winds through or borders twelve For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 9
counties, three of which are the state’s largest. The drop in elevation from headwaters to mouth is less than 30 feet (9 m); like most Florida waterways, the St. Johns has a very low flow rate 0.3 mph (0.13 m/s) and is often described as “lazy”. Popular belief in the St. Johns area holds that it is one of the few rivers that flow north, although north-flowing rivers are common. Numerous lakes are formed by the river or flow into it, but as a river its widest point is nearly 3 miles (5 km) across. The narrowest point is in the headwaters, an unnavigable marsh in Indian River County. The St. Johns drainage basin of 8,840 square miles (22,900 km2) includes some of Florida’s major wetlands. It is separated into three major basins and two associated watersheds for Lake George and the Ocklawaha River, all managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District.
RELIGION atonement—the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ beadle—a minor parish official whose duties include ushering and preserving order at services and sometimes civil functions Elohim—one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible; the term is also used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to other gods Gnosticism— a modern name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish milieus in the first and second century CE. Based on their readings of the Torah and other biblical writings, these systems induced that the material world is created by an emanation of the highest God, trapping the Divine spark within the human body. This Divine spark could be liberated by gnosis of this Divine spark. Hinduism—an Indian religion, or a way of life, widely practiced in South Asia. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, “the eternal tradition” or the “eternal way,” beyond human history. Scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This “Hindu synthesis” started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE, following the Vedic period (1500 BCE to 500 BCE). liturgy—a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship payess—sidelocks worn by Hasidic and Orthodox male Jews phylacteries—either of two small square leather boxes containing slips inscribed with scriptural passages and traditionally worn on the left arm and on the head by observant Jewish men and especially adherents of Orthodox Judaism during morning weekday prayers qelippot—(literally “peels”, “shells” or “husks”) the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the polar opposites of the holy Sefirot. The realm of evil is also termed Sitra Achra,
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the “Other Side” opposite holiness) in Kabbalah texts. Qur’an—(also known as “Quran” and “Koran”) the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Allah). It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature. The Qur’an is divided into chapters (surah in Arabic), which are then divided into verses (ayah). Shabbos—(also known as “Shabbat” or “the Sabbath”) Judaism’s day of rest and seventh day of the week, on which religious Jews and certain Christians (such as Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists) remember the Biblical creation of the heavens and the earth in six days and the Exodus of the Hebrews, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day. Judaism’s traditional position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution, though some suggest other origins. Variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions. According to halakha (Jewish religious law), Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night. Shabbat is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. Traditionally, three festive meals are eaten: in the evening, in the early afternoon, and late in the afternoon. The evening meal typically begins with a blessing called kiddush and another blessing recited over two loaves of challah. Shabbat is closed the following evening with a havdalah blessing. Shabbat is a festive day when Jews exercise their freedom from the regular labors of everyday life. It offers an opportunity to contemplate the spiritual aspects of life and to spend time with family. sibyl—any of several prophetesses usually accepted as 10 in number and credited to widely separate parts of the ancient world (such as Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy) tikkun—a Hebrew word meaning “fixing/rectification.” It has several connotations in Judaism.
VOCABULARY Aristotelianism—a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. This school of thought is in the modern sense of philosophy, covering existence, ethics, mind and related subjects. In Aristotle’s time, philosophy included natural philosophy, which was replaced by modern science during the Scientific Revolution. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school and later on by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle’s writings. In the Islamic Golden Age, Avicenna and Averroes translated the works of Aristotle into Arabic and under them, along with philosophers such as AlKindi and Al-Farabi, Aristotelianism became a major part of early Islamic philosophy. baroque—characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance cairn—a heap of stones piled up as a memorial or as a landmark
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cataclysm—a momentous and violent event marked by overwhelming upheaval and demolition clapper—the tongue of a bell Cro-Magnon—a common name that has been used to describe the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens) that lived in the European Upper Paleolithic. Current scientific literature prefers the term European early modern humans (EEMH), to the term Cro-Magnon, which has no formal taxonomic status, as it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiocarbon dated to 43,000–45,000 years before present that have been discovered in Italy and Britain. Similar remains, of those that reached the European Russian Arctic 40,000 years ago, have also been found. dory—a flat-bottomed boat with high flaring sides, sharp bow, and deep V-shaped transom Eocene—a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the Grande Coupure (the “Great Break” in continuity) or the Eocene– Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of the epoch are well identified, though their exact dates are slightly uncertain. gulag—the penal system of the U.S.S.R. consisting of a network of labor camps kibbutz—a communal farm or settlement in Israel kite—any of various usually small hawks with long narrow wings and often a notched or forked tail maul—a heavy often wooden-headed hammer used especially for driving wedges; also a tool like a sledgehammer with one wedge-shaped end that is used to split wood
RED KITE Black Mountains, Wales, 2009
Peking Man—Homo erectus pekinensis (formerly known by the junior synonym Sinanthropus pekinensis), is an example of Homo erectus. Discovered in 1923–27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian near Beijing (written “Peking” before the adoption of the Pinyin romanization system), China, in 2009 this group of fossil specimens dated from roughly 750,000 years ago.
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Platonism—rendered as a proper noun, is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In narrower usage, platonism, rendered as a common noun, refers to the philosophy that affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to “exist” in a “third realm” distinct both from the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism. Lower case “platonists” need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato. Sanskrit—an ancient Indo-Aryan language that is the classical language of India and of Hinduism turbid—deficient in clarity or purity vernix—(vernix caseosa) a pasty covering chiefly of dead cells and sebaceous secretions that protects the skin of the fetus wan—drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion
IMPORTANT QUOTES “On December 1, 1931, Anna MacRae came to life. How many centuries would you have to live before this, and thousands of incidents like it every day, ceased to astound you?” (36). “There might as well be a rough angel guarding this [obstetrical] ward, or a dragon, or an upwelling current that dashes the boats on rocks. There might as well be an old stone cairn in the hall by the elevators, or a well, or a ruined shrine wall where people still hear bells. Should we not remove our shoes, drink potions, take baths? For this is surely the wildest deep-sea vent on earth: This is where the people come out” (36). “There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what this means, take yourself—in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love—and multiply it by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it” (47). “Digging through layers of books yields dated clouds and near clouds. Why seek dated clouds? Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?” (47). “Augustine said to a group of people, ‘We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God’” (47). “In his last will and testament, Rabbi Yehudah Hechasid, a Kabbalist and ethicist of the twelfth century, left numbered precepts for sensible and holy living. 15. Don’t weep excessively for a deceased person. There are three days for weeping, seven days for eulogizing, thirty days for mourning…. Beyond that God says, ‘Don’t be more merciful than I am.’ 45. Don’t cut down a fruit-bearing tree.
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46. Don’t write in a book, ‘This book belongs to …’ Just write your name, omitting ‘This book belongs to …’” (48). “‘The dead outnumber the living,” Harvard’s Nathan Keyfitz wrote in a 1991 letter to Justin Kaplan. ‘Credible estimates of the number of people who have ever lived on earth run from 70 billion to over 100 billion.’ Averaging those figures puts the total persons ever born at about 85 billion. By these moderate figures, the dead outnumber us (by now we have swelled to 5.9 billion) by about 14 to 1. None of these figures is certain, and Keyfitz wrote that the ratio ‘could be as high as 20 to 1.’ The dead will always outnumber the living. “Dead Americans, however, if all proceeds, will not outnumber living Americans until the year 2030, because the nation is young. Many of us will be among the dead then. Will we know or care, we who once owned the still bones under the quick ones, we who spin inside the planet with our heels in the air? The living might well seem foolishly self-important to us, and overexcited.” (49) “In Juan Rulfo’s novel Pedro Paramo, a dead woman says to her dead son, ‘Just think about pleasant things, because we’re going to be buried for a long time’” (50). “Quizzical encounters cumulate over a lifetime. Possibly when our brains fire their dying charges we will remember and see, to our dismay, not any best-loved face but instead some solitary figure, a stranger, whose image the mind retains” (53). “One morning I walked from a kibbutz to the edge of the Sea of Galilee. On the shore beyond me I saw a man splitting wood. He was a distant figure in silhouette across the water. I heard a wrong ring. He raised his maul and it clanged at the top of its rise. He drove it down. I could see the wood divide and drop in silence. The figure bent, straightened, raised the maul with both arms, and again I heard it ring just as its head knocked the sky. Metal banged metal as a clapper bangs its bell. Then the figure brought down the maul in silence. Absorbed on the ground, skilled and sure, the stick figure was clobbering the heavens. “I saw a beached red dory. I could take the red dory, row out to the guy, and say: Sir. You have found a place where the sky dips close. May I borrow your maul? Your maul and your wedge? Because, I thought, I too could hammer the sky—crack it at one blow, split it at the next—and inquire, hollering at God the compassionate, the all-merciful, WHAT’S with the bird-headed dwarfs?” (53) “In his world, people respected books. When a book wore out, they buried it like a person” (55). “What does God pray? ‘May it be my will that my mercy overcome my anger’” (58). “Shall we contemplate Chinese scholars’ beheadings twenty-three centuries ago? It hurts worse to break a leg” (59). “Do we believe the individual is precious, or do we not? My children and your children and their children? Of course. The 250,000 Karen tribespeople who are living now in Thailand? Your grandfather? The family of men, women, and children who live in central Asia as peoples called Ingush, Chechen, Buryats, and Bashliks? The people your address book tracks? Any other group you For the Time Being by Annie Dillard • Chapter 2 Study Guide • Loibner-Waitkus • UA-PTC • PAGE 14
care to mention among the 5.9 billion persons now living, or perhaps among the 80 billion dead?” (59). “There are about a billion more people living now than there are years since our sun condensed from interstellar gas. I cannot make sense of this” (59). “The good times, and the heroic people, are all gone. Everyone knows this. Everyone always has” (60). “In our time, says a twentieth-century Hasidic rabbi, we are in a coma” (62).
SOURCES
COLOPHON
All people, places, religious terms, vocabulary words, and quotations come from the following edition: Dillard, Annie. For the Time Being. Vintage Books, 2000. All definitions were compiled by Allen Loibner-Waitkus using too many sources to mention, including Merriam-Webster.com and (gasp!) Wikipedia.
DESIGN Software: Adobe InDesign CC 2018 Colors: Pantone 2765, 209, 439, and Black 6 Font Family: Brandon Grotesque Cover Photograph: Baby Looking Down Cover Photograph Source: Stock Unlimited Photo of Kite: Wikipedia (User: Black Kite) Designer: Allen Loibner-Waitkus
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