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10th out of 53 books
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
An exhilarating meditation on nature and its seasons -- a personal narrative highlighting one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; ...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
June 28th 2000
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1974)
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Jen
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
cynics, those in need of perspective
Recommended to Jen by:
charlie
one of those things that came almost literally from the sky, dropped on the table in front of me with a shrug an nil explanation. my absolute favorite book, I LOVE THIS BOOK. i've so far read it five times and bought it for four others. highlighted to hell and took lots of notes, referenced it past the point where people are beyond over it. so all i'll say is: minutiae in nature are extraordinary.
"About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the...more
"About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the...more
"Thomas Merton wrote, 'There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.' There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the ...more
This was not a badly written book. However, it should not be forced upon poor innocent high school students! I have had to read a lot of boring books in my high school career, but this tops them all. Just when you thought something interesting was going to happen she watches birds or something for hours. True, there were moments of great beauty and her philosphy were not always crazed. I respect her art and her view of the world, but she has even said that it's silly for schools to make 16 and 1...more
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"Not only does something come if you wait, but it pours over you like a waterfall, like a tidal wave. You wait in all naturalness without expectation or hope, emtied, translucent, and that which comes rocks and topples you; it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind.
I have glutted on richness...I am bouyed by a calm and effortless longing and angled pitch of the will, like the set of the wings of the monarch which climbed a hill by falling still."
Annie Dillard ...more
I have glutted on richness...I am bouyed by a calm and effortless longing and angled pitch of the will, like the set of the wings of the monarch which climbed a hill by falling still."
Annie Dillard ...more
I read "Pilgrim" every year. In high school I wrote my diary as a series of letters to Annie Dillard (so gay). It's basically about a really smart young woman wandering the forest and thinking about nature and god and philosophy and stuff. Think Thoreau reincarnated as a 24 year old chick in the 70s. It didn't win the Pulitzer for nothing! It's a great book to read when you're in a "none of this shit matters" mood. No celebrities. No pop culture references. No boys.
Brittany Green
rated it
Recommends it for:
really really really bored people who want to be very very very bored
i lied this is actually the worst book ever. she is a walden want to be who failed
An amazing and inspiring piece of literature. Annie Dillard may not be for everyone (due to the lack of plot/storyline and the general passionate rambling for the natural world, both scientific and experiential), but she exudes a love for everything--seriously, everything. You can sense it in her words and metaphors, her daily excursions to the creek and its environs, always looking for something new, satisfied to just sit and wait and observe, to be one with and part of everything surrounding h...more
This book didn't so much change my outlook, as give words to feelings I had had for many years but never been able to articulate. It's like Walden, if Thoreau had a passion for weird nature facts and wasn't so insufferably boring or arrogant half the time. It describes Dillard's time living in the mountains of VA when she was about 27 (I hate that) and is told through a series of remarkable vignettes, each lumped under perceptive thematic headings. It's a relentless parade of the horror, fear a...more
Wow...this was REALLY the wrong time for me to read this book. I needed to be on some nature retreat in the quiet wilderness, but instead, I started this book while on my flight home to the states for Christmas. Big mistake. Not the book to read when you're cramped on a noisy plane in an uncomfortable seat. This book is so jumpy and sometimes random that it requires your utmost attention to the painstaking details that Dillard wants you to see. She uses the small details of nature to constr...more
Ramsey
rated it
Recommends it for:
someone fascinated by nature and willing to go on a spiritual journey
Shelves:
faith-related
There is way too much to say about this book. At times, I was bored out of my mind not knowing where she was going. At other times, I was moved to laughter, moved to tears, disgusted, uplifted, fascinated...
This is different than any book I've read before. It's more like a nature observer's journal, and it therefore is written in a stream-of-consciousness style. It's all over the place! But, just when I thought I couldn't follow Annie Dillard's "random" thoughts, I would ge...more
This is different than any book I've read before. It's more like a nature observer's journal, and it therefore is written in a stream-of-consciousness style. It's all over the place! But, just when I thought I couldn't follow Annie Dillard's "random" thoughts, I would ge...more
Although this book is advertised as environmental literature, it is more focused on theology than nature. Annie Dillard writes on theodicy- the attempt to understand how death and horror factor into a world ruled by a merciful god. She uses nature as a spring-board for this topic, and her brilliant descriptions and use of literary devices are breathtaking. Dillard is truly a master of the English language, and it was refreshing to read anything by such a talented writer.
Although I ...more
Although I ...more
I love this book, but it frustrates me too. Maybe it's because Dillard was so young when she wrote it. But it doesn't deserve to be compared to Walden. Thoreau is arrogant and has a prescription for every one of society's problems. Dillard asks hard questions and agonizes over the answers. It's never an open and shut case for her. I'll read her books again and again, but I might be done with Thoreau.
I can see how one might love this book, were it the first exposure to the Buddhist ideas presented.
This book might be titled "Musings on Nature" and is in the tradition of Thoreau.
The theme is to be open to things, to see with new eyes, to ignore the noise of conscious thought and simply let sensation in without the need to label them.
My problem with this book is I agree with it, have been exposed to the thinking before and was in the position of someone l...more
This book might be titled "Musings on Nature" and is in the tradition of Thoreau.
The theme is to be open to things, to see with new eyes, to ignore the noise of conscious thought and simply let sensation in without the need to label them.
My problem with this book is I agree with it, have been exposed to the thinking before and was in the position of someone l...more
When the doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. ...more
Annie definitely puts a lot of work in her choice of words, she is an author in the truest since of the word. I imagine I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it, rather then listening to the audiobook. Yet if I had read it I likely never would have made it through, its pretty long and dense and she is extremely A.D.D. I have found all her works are like this, they just jump all over the place. They're so random and don't seem to have much order or glue, so at the end you're scratchin...more
This is the kind of person I would like to imitate: someone who has her feet firmly planted in reality, and makes her flights of fancy from there. Because, she points out, nature is simultaneously unavoidably real and ridiculously fanciful.
I love the way she says, "And here's the point," because I usually need it. I love the words she uses (including my favorite word, "limn," no less than three times, and who knows when I saw it last in print before that), and although I ...more
I love the way she says, "And here's the point," because I usually need it. I love the words she uses (including my favorite word, "limn," no less than three times, and who knows when I saw it last in print before that), and although I ...more
At first I hated it, then I tolerated it. Very tedious to read someone else’s stream of consciousness about stuff I don’t care about. Now that I’ve finished it, I feel that I’ve learned a few things about nature, although I’m still mystified about why so many people sing the book's praises and why it got a Pulitzer Prize. I liked the part where she told about a different book—where the blind people got sight. That was cool. I also liked the part (p 126) where she looks through the microscop...more
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the Pullitzer Prize in 1975. I found this copy on a Bookcrossing bookshelf a couple of months ago. This is an amazing book! It's a journal of the author's year in her home near Tinker Creek in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, including her observations and thoughts on solitude, writing, religion, and nature. She records everything in amazing detail, making you wish you could see more yourself when you're out observing nature. Woven seamlessly into her observations are...more
For me, two stars means "I disliked it" (even though GR says it means "it was okay"). I usually don't finish books that I dislike, that's why I have so few 2 star reviews here on this site. However, this one seemed harmless enough, and there were aspects of the book I liked (at least when I started). For example, there are a lot of stories and anecdotes about nature that were really interesting:
"On cool autumn nights, eels hurrying to the sea sometimes crawl for a mi...more
skye
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
JVs
Recommended to skye by:
elizabeth metz
Thanks to Eli Metz for this one! She lent it to me in JVC: DC and it sat waiting for four years before it came to me. I tried reading it in Brooklyn and couldn't get into it. But here - riding the bus on cold sad January, February, March mornings - Dillard spoke right to me. It's all about presence - paying attention - seeing - and then she jumps full in to the basic (religious) problem of the universe.
Of course, some people don't see the problem. "So there's murder, starvation,...more
Of course, some people don't see the problem. "So there's murder, starvation,...more
An accurate synopsis of good portions of this book might be as follows: descriptions of unusual and unmistakably grotesque insect behaviors delivered amidst often overly poetic observations of nature. Yet, while that might describe a sizable chunk of the work, it does not do justice to the rest of the book.
If the sometimes insubstantial prose can be ignored, the book reveals a unique perspective about what life (in the most profound, universal sense) is and how life might be as se...more
If the sometimes insubstantial prose can be ignored, the book reveals a unique perspective about what life (in the most profound, universal sense) is and how life might be as se...more
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a wonderful book for anyone who loves nature. Dillard's relationship with the natural world is somewhat unique in my experience. Her fascination is equal parts love and revulsion, and she writes about both with scrutiny. Each chapter broaches some feature or response to nature that seems universal, like complexity, or perception, and Dillard brings a unique, largely (and refreshingly) unscientific perspective on them all.
There are tons of great passages ...more
There are tons of great passages ...more
“We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence.”
Whatever Dillard came searching for down at Tinker Creek in Virginia, she found this. It emerged in simple forms of mantises, sycamores, muskrats, and parasitic insects.
No matter how I slice the book, I will drain it of its juice. Dillard is a masterful wordsmith with an eye for mundane richness. She dabbles in biology, theology, philosophy, entomology, and physics. While standing on old stumps, she reaches handf...more
Whatever Dillard came searching for down at Tinker Creek in Virginia, she found this. It emerged in simple forms of mantises, sycamores, muskrats, and parasitic insects.
No matter how I slice the book, I will drain it of its juice. Dillard is a masterful wordsmith with an eye for mundane richness. She dabbles in biology, theology, philosophy, entomology, and physics. While standing on old stumps, she reaches handf...more
People keep mentioning Thoreau when talking about this book - I don't see it. For me, Thoreau was about many things; paying attention and "sucking the marrow out of life" being my favorites. Annie Dillard comes across more like a celebration of the staggering variety of life and death - and a question: what is it all about?
Dillard is more poet than Thoreau. And her vocabulary is exquisite. Her description of a snake on a rock alone is worth picking up this book for. Nature ...more
Dillard is more poet than Thoreau. And her vocabulary is exquisite. Her description of a snake on a rock alone is worth picking up this book for. Nature ...more
I got the Pilgrim referral from Philip Yancey's book called "Soul Survivor: How my faith survived the church" - which despite the fantastic title, is really a compilation of his spiritual mentors and heros. A lot of them are authors, Dillard is one of them.
I have thoroughly enjoyed it - it's like a cup of tea by a nice window in book form. It's very unusual writing though - really a journal of her thoughts and experiences throughout a year living next to Tinker Creek. So a ...more
I have thoroughly enjoyed it - it's like a cup of tea by a nice window in book form. It's very unusual writing though - really a journal of her thoughts and experiences throughout a year living next to Tinker Creek. So a ...more
Welcome to the return of Walden Pond. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and it was well-deserved. It is a lush and lyrical examination of the world, as the author passes a year in Virginia's Blue Ridge mountains. She learns to truly see the world, to look beyond the commonplace and superficial; and she has the gift to describe what she sees. An early passage states, "The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it foreve...more
I remember reading this in my AP English class my senior year of high school. Others were perplexed by it (in hindsight, probably because it was one of their first forays into nonfiction writing that wasn't specifically plot driven-- everyone commented, "Nothing happens!") but I thought it was funny and random and I liked that nothing really happened, other than Annie Dillard's own observation of the world around her.
Although it took me a number of pages (~40) to really get 'into' this book, once I was 'in' I was hooked! Dillard does a great job of pulling out the details and describing them in a way that you can actually picture what she's talking about. Some of the descriptions were a bit gross (especially if you read this during your lunch break!), but it was all about life and death and the cycles of life. Having a bit of an ecological background can be helpful in understanding a lot of what Dillard talk...more
I think this book has permanently altered my view of nature, infusing it with fear and awe and a particular dillard-esque way of investigating it. She covers, with poetic and impassioned prose, ruminations on death and violence and beauty and seeing and language and study and fecundity... etc
I love this book. I like to reread it every couple of years. Here are some cool passages:
"The growth pressure of plants can do an impressive variety of tricks. Bamboo can grow three feet in twenty-four hours, an accomplishiment that is capitalized upon, legendarily, in that exquisite Asian torture in which a victim is strapped to a mesh bunk a mere foot above a bed of healthy bamboo plants whose woodlike tips have been sharpened. For the first eight hours he is fine, if jitter...more
"The growth pressure of plants can do an impressive variety of tricks. Bamboo can grow three feet in twenty-four hours, an accomplishiment that is capitalized upon, legendarily, in that exquisite Asian torture in which a victim is strapped to a mesh bunk a mere foot above a bed of healthy bamboo plants whose woodlike tips have been sharpened. For the first eight hours he is fine, if jitter...more
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