Does that mean writing about James was more daunting than writing about Thoreau or Emerson?
He was more daunting than Thoreau or Emerson because of what he knew about science, physiology, what he came to know about medicine, and physiological psychology. These were fields in which I knew nothing at all in the ’70s. I gradually read up on them over time. I still wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I decided I was still interested in the life — really interested — and I’d try to do as much as I could. What was the James piece you read after finishing the Emerson book? It was A Pluralistic Universe, which Annie had in mind as the really great James. I hadn’t read it in a long time. So from the beginning, in a way, I was aiming past pragmatism, past James’s psychology, aiming for A Pluralistic Universe. William James pops up as an epigraph to a late chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. What kind of effect did marrying Annie Dillard have on the later Emerson and James books? Unimaginably huge. I imagine future biographers will be particularly frustrated by that answer. Care to el
