Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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 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.

I originally read this book, in the tree flesh about 9 years ago and recently purchased this audio book in search of something nostalgic, familiar that soothe my ire to an from work on the 110 Freeway. The recording itself is not bad, the speaker's voice is what you would want to hear nature narrations told in. Although when going through a mid-youth crisis as I am, I found myself having to skip back tracks often, attempting to find the greater meaning that Dillard has so expertly woven in between her Praying Mantises and Blood Flukes, I would have appreciated being granted more pauses and breaks between words. Such is the tragedy of an audio book. The volume of the CD was a little low, often I found myself forgetting to turn the volume back down, leading to unpleasantries when attempting to change my car audio input back to the radio. I suppose I also have been spoiled by mp3 CD's, which hold a greater number of tracks than regular CD's; I found myself a little irritated by the frequency at which I was changing disks. My sincerest apologies to that guy that I almost hit with my car as I tried to move from disk 5 to disk 6. I would definitely re-buy this if it were offered on in mp3 CD format.

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?! hahahaAnyways, 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.

J’ai adoré le lire

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 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

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.