Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

Five stars may be too many for this early volume in the Annie Dillard canon. It makes demands on the reader that are similar to those faced by a teacher reading a gifted student's term paper: The book is dazzling but it's also disorienting, like a travel adventure without a map. Still, it's a book that changes how the reader sees the world, and for that it gets highest marks. This is a fairly easy book to read but a tough one to get through. It is simultaneously nature study, personal diary, Scripture commentary, mystical theology, field observation manual, and blank-verse poem. Annie Dillard was just age 27 when she wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and it is very much a young writer’s book, poetic and enthusiastic. Such strengths are also weaknesses: at times the poetry can be a bit ornate, and the multitude of facts can be daunting. Still, there are significant rewards in this book, if the reader, like a seasoned traveler, is willing to follow the author wherever she goes. How far will we be going? The word “pilgrim” in the title suggests a long-distance trek to a holy place. But when we start the first chapter, we find Dillard already at a creekside cabin in Virginia , where she will stay for a year. If we’re to join her as pilgrims, we seem to at the destination without even setting out. Notice, though, that she calls her cabin an anchorite’s hermitage. Studying and writing by night, silently watching by day, she is more hermit than pilgrim. For Dillard and her readers, the journey in this book won’t be measured in miles. The road we’re on goes inward. How strenuous is this going to be? Dillard answers this one with a story from Genesis, the one where Jacob wrestles with God on the bank of a stream. The contest goes on all night. Like Jacob, Dillard waits by a stream, and for one strenuous page after another, she wrestles with creation and its workings. We watch horrified as an outsized water bug liquefies a frog, as mother insects devour their freshly-laid eggs, as reindeer are driven mad by clouds of flies. This will not be an easy trip. What will we see along the way? Before we can answer that, we have to confront a key fact about Creation: It may seem like an extravagant, intricate machine, set in motion and then left to run on its own; but it really resembles, once everything is examined carefully, a thought, a series of ideas made real. There is Mind behind what we see. Much of the book explores all the amazing stuff that there is in the world. Say what you will, the Creator loves variety and loves “Pizzaz.” But what’s the reward for finishing the journey? Death is what awaits us, of course; Life seems to require it, making room for what’s next. So, what will we do when we get there, with all we’ve seen along the way of pizzaz but also of blood and destruction? Here’s Dillard in the final chapter: “I think that the dying pray at the last not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.”

It's intriguing reading peoples' reviews of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. The majority find it spellbindingly beautiful, a work of poetry, and well deserving of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize it was awarded. A small, vocal group insist it's mind-numbingly dull, with no plot and no resolution. It doesn't "go anywhere". In many ways I find that the story, and readers' reactions, are quite similar to how meditation is perceived. First, the basics. Annie Dillard married a poet, earned a Master's Degree in English, and wrote her thesis on Thoreau and Walden Pond. For two years after she graduated she was writing, journaling, and painting. She then decided that in essence she should write her own take on nature, similar to Thoreau's experiences. Where Thoreau was a man out in rural Massachusetts in the mid-1800s, Dillard was a woman, over a hundred years later, in rural Roanoke, Virginia. She felt there was room enough in the world for a fresh take on natural life. And indeed she was quite correct. This isn't a "story" about a person starting Here and ending up There. It isn't even a series of essays, as some readers have mistakenly assumed. Instead, Dillard is clear that this is a cohesive piece, organized chronologically, building and expanding on previous experiences and then moving forward. Dillard is not only keen in her insight into what is before her, but also amazingly well read. She can find the relations between the water before her and the Eskimo traditions, between a barely visible creature and the quotes of scientists from decades ago. It's like sitting down at the side of a pond with your beloved aunt who has traveled the world, and hearing fascinating stories about how various bits of life relate to fascinating creatures far away. The book is poetry, and one focus here is that *life* is poetry. Everything around us is beautiful and terrible and will be gone in the blink of an eye. Turn your head too quickly and it will skitter off, never to be seen again. The roiling crimson beauty of a magnificent sunset will fade into a smoky grey, and no matter how many sunsets you watch after that, none will ever be quite the same. Is it "boring" to read about the fantastic myriad wonders that nature presents to us every day? That's an intriguing question. Somehow our world has trained us to be obsessively attentive when a movie-screen freight train barrels towards a stalled car, but to turn away uninterested when a double rainbow shimmers into existence over a lake. We stare down at our smartphone screen in dedicated frenzy when a Facebook post blings into existence, but we ignore the real live human being before us who we could learn so much from. We want a start, a middle, and an end. But nature goes on, always renewing, constantly restoring, and I think somewhere many of us have lost track of that. So, yes, settling in with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is like settling into a favorite chair on your back porch, sipping a delicious glass of wine, and watching with fascination as the golden-winged dragonflies perform an intricate mating ritual. It is spellbinding, and soothing, and fascinating - but one has to want to slow down and pay attention. One needs to mute the TV, turn off the cell, and be willing to breathe in the natural world which is all around us. Well recommended.

I enjoyed it immensely, even if its sentences are overwrought often to an annoying degree. I appreciate how she looks at the world in poetry: the world is a painting, and we are the poets charged with understanding it. The thing about Dillard is that in spite of the fact that her uber-emotive imagination stands in that place in her brain where my philosopher/mathematician stands in mine, she can still ask brilliant--even terrible--questions without all of the normal dillusions about what the alternative answers really are. There are downsides: the overdone sentences, the fact that not every chapter drove forward toward the point--or even manifested her goal. But one reads her and agrees, at the end of it, that yes, she earned that Pulitzer after all. And to all of the "bright AP English" students out there, for goodness sake put the book down and leave the book reviews alone. It just isn't for you. Pick it up again once you've lived some more of life.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish this book. I am decidedly not a nature girl, so a book so steeped in nature wasn't something I thought I'd be able to wrap my mind around for 200 odd pages. I was wrong. While I'm still not so into nature, this book is amazing. I was not as bored as I thought I'd be reading the musings of this woman wandering around the forest and the area surrounding the creek, discussing muskrats dragonflies, and locusts, etc. While that aspect of the book didn't turn me away from it, but it wasn't the most appealing either. While not wholly unappealing, it was also not apalling. It did make me look at nature in a different way and if I ever find myself camping, I'll likely chase down small woodland creatures and study them like there will be a test the next day. The best part of the book for me were all the relevatory moments Dillard came to while watching and pondering these creatures, their existence as well as her own and the environment. The chapter "The Present" spoke to me in a way that I didn't expect and said so many things that I think and feel about the present, but have never been able to elucidate. I am a highlighter, underliner, and margin writer. Anything that is enlightening, beautiful prose, a ponderable for later gets marked in some way in my books. This book is filled with yellow highlights and I can literally read those passages over and over again and find something new almost every time. While I believe Dillard is or at least at the time was heavily into Christianity, I did not find her heavy handed with the Biblical symbolism at all. As someone who is not hugely Christian, I still found her touch on divinity and creation beyond palatable and thought provoking. Chapter 13: The Horns of the Altar: "I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down" (242). It's paragraphs like the one above that makes this book a staple and one that I've read over and over again and will continue to do so.

Beautifully descriptive essays on nature almost to the absurd. This book was recommended and I would not have chosen it for myself. As lovely as the descriptions are, I was hoping for a story with people. I got observations and commentary. I would recommend it with reservations.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a strange book (I mean that in an entirely good, Pulitzer-prize winning sort of way). Your sense of nature around you will be not only sharpened but also simultaneously destroyed: Annie Dillard brings so much to your attention that any ordinary walk now seems like an adventure, filled with tiny events of huge importance that you are doubtless missing. This is a book about nature, and someone who loves nature and takes time to observe it. This book is, at its core, not so much a book as a journal: a journal written by someone who has learned to see all of life in the small things. Rather than being disconnected essays, as some have claimed, this book is an entire, living story. Annie Dillard writes about seeing with a sense of urgency, as if when you blink the entire, elaborate picture will have vanished. There is an ambition in this book to feel. You will be sucked in with no choice. There is no other writer who is so well able to tie tiny strands into a beautiful tapestry: especially when the tiny strands range from mountains to cicadas and locusts. This book is written in the revelry of experiencing creation bit by bit, leaf by leaf, muskrat by muskrat, mountain by mountain, galaxy by galaxy. But the writing is far from tedious. Rather, the sense of wonder — which you feel for an instant upon seeing something beautiful — is prolonged throughout the entire book. The book is balanced in two halves: a Yin-Yang sort of perspective on the world. The author calls these the via positiva and the via negativa: two routes to seeing God in creation: one in the world’s grand intricacy and beauty, and the other in the raw power that kills billions of insects each year. Both halves have a chapter which forms the high-water mark, each of which counterbalance the other. The chapter named “Seeing” is the mark of the via positiva, which is all wiped out in “Flood,” to begin the via negativa, which climaxes in “Northing.” You will never be able to take a ‘simple’ walk again (as if there is such a thing!). For both halves — the marvelous and the hideous — direct you to the glory of God’s creation. What is so exciting about this book is that it is not written from a ‘Christian’ perspective: faced with the glory of creation, Annie Dillard has no choice but to revel in the Creator and in His world. I highly recommend Pilgrim from Tinker Creek without reserve. It will challenge you. You will have a sharpened to the little things in creation. You will close the back cover and care a little bit more, which is absolutely a good thing.

This is Annie Dillard's reflection and meditation on creation, creatures, and Creator, based on a year of living through the seasons at her Virginia home on Tinker Creek. Tinker Creek, as with most places in earth, is teeming with life, seen and unseen, noticed and unnoticed, good, bad, and ugly, but life nonetheless. While reading this I was often reminded of both the hymn, "All Things Bright and Beautiful," as well as Monty Python's lampoon of it, "All Things Dull and Ugly." Dillard shares her methods of deep engagement with the life around her: truly listening and seeing, looking for details, living in the moment, that leads to knowledge. Her experiences move her to contemplate her own place as another living being among a multitude of others and what that means. I learned a lot from this book. For example, I learned where locusts come from. The book is full of those kinds of facts that lead the reader toward a greater appreciation for the wonder and complexity of nature. I also have learned the value of adjusting my thinking and observation skills so I can stop missing out. This is a beautifully-written and profoundly spiritual work that I will be revisiting.

How can you not like a nonfiction book that’s both informational and interesting? Entertaining too. Seriously, if I’d had exposure to texts that made science even remotely as engaging and intriguing as this one, I might have been become an ornithologist or entomologist. Who knew that the average size of all living animals, including humans, is almost that of a horsefly or that the average temperature of Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit? Not I, at least not until reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dillard’s musings on life, both ours as humans and that of the planet’s inhabitants from muskrats to mites), trees, rocks, creeks, clouds, and mountains, give the reader a fascinating perspective on nature and on life itself. I’ll never walk out in the front yard again without thinking of the moles burrowing beneath the soil or the starlings let loose in Central Park in 1890. I’ll never stand beside a creek without remembering its rushing, fleeting nature being a metaphor for life. One thing I will remember is the admonition to “Catch it if you can….These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.” This book was first recommended to me by some writer friends after I mentioned that I was reading (at that time) For the Time Being. “You have to read Pilgrim,” they all practically shouted at me. Now I know why. The prose, the information, the visual pictures of Tinker Mountain and its surroundings, the vocabulary (chitin, oriflamme, and bastinado for starters), and the references to spiritual and scientific sources make this book a must-read.

The book is a beautiful musing on silence and nature. The books was delivered by Atlantic Publishers. It has been the most dirty book so far I have received on Amazon. Locally printed and bound. Do not buy from this publisher

This was my first encounter with Annie Dillard and wow. I've never read anything like this before. It was amazing. Every sentence is a masterpiece, beautifully crafted and incredibly thoughtful. The book doesn't have a plot, there's almost no humans involved, it's just scientific/biological observations about the natural world but crafted as highly intriguing stories with the most beautiful poetic prose mixed in with the author's own existential musing about the world. If you are an abstract thinker, you will love this. (For my Myer's Briggs peeps out there, this is definitely a book for N-types). It's very refreshing to read something that isn't human-centered. There's no relationships, no dialogue, no drama (unless you count the drama that is the natural world - praying mantis's biting off the head of their mates, the cruel irony of life and death, water bugs that inject a digestive fluid inside their prey which MELTS THEIR INSIDES). I learned so much from this book but not in your typical "non-fiction" kind of way. I learned a lot about animals and insects, but also many new words. I'm glad I got the Kindle version so that I could use the dictionary feature, it was a much better way to read it and I would recommend for this book. Most importantly, this book gave me a new appreciation for life and for observation. I find myself now trying to observe the world as Annie does. I have read a lot of self-help and inspiration books, but this book about nature was one of the most inspirational books I've ever read. I recently read the Alchemist because everyone talks about how amazing it is. When I read it I thought it was a joke. A short story about a basic concept (find your life's calling) simply written (like seriously, anyone could have written that book), with sexist undertones (the male character must follow his Personal Legend out no matter what. The woman's Personal Legend is waiting for her man to come back from the desert...... greatttttt). Anyways, this is not about Alchemist lol but what I'm saying is this book by Annie Dillard blows Alchemist out of the water. The writing is incredibly complex and beautiful, it takes real talent and skill to have created it. Definitely could not have been written by just anyone. I would never in my life be able to create such a gem. But it's also easily understandable I'd say (especially with a kindle!). She has clearly done a lot of research, collected so much information and made numerous deep and thoughtful observations, some which have you thinking about them for days. Some so original but also so obvious my jaw drops when I read them and I think, wow, that is such an amazing viewpoint. The section on death about 200 pages in had me so excited because it was a completely new outlook to me yet it made so much sense! I can't believe this book isn't as famous as a book like the Alchemist. I've actually been wondering that for days now. Annie has had me making realizations and important insights about my own life way more than Paulo Coelho did. And her book is about BIOLOGY AND BUGS AND MUSKRATS!! When I read her words I feel like she is speaking to my very soul and lifting me out of my depression. I am so impressed with her. Can you tell I really like this book?! hahaha Anyways, this book deserves to be more famous than a lot of the famous books out there. I'll definitely be reading her other works after this.

This is an enthralling, erudite, exquisitely detailed and beautifully written book. I already have my own copy which I turn to every year to replenish my soul and my mind. This copy I bought to share with a friend

J’ai adoré le lire

Wonderful study of nature and nature observation and individual engaged in nature observation. Beautiful style of writing, you are always there with the author, seeing what she sees, hearing what she hears and understanding her line of thinking. Following her mental acrobatics sometimes feels like watching swallows dancing in the summer wind...beautifully swift and totally fascinating. A study in mindfulness when that term wasn't in fashion yet.