FOR THE TIME BEING

"I don't know beans about God," she writes. But if Annie Dillard doesn't know beans about God, who does? Confucius? Ted Bundy? Christ? The Buddha? Joe Stalin? She quotes them all. I read this book before listening to it; I liked the listening better. In reading, I went too fast and missed something, or else I went too slowly and lost the beat. This is a study of religion, and yet it is so stark as to be almost coldhearted. David Birney has a marvelous voice. It's good to have his company. We come into the world alone and leave it the same way. That needn't be how we read, though. Not since the invention of the audiocassette. B.H.C. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 99]