Thomas Merton's words, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues,” hold a profound truth. In life, we often find ourselves succumbing to the allure of the small and insignificant. We spend our days creating itsy-bitsy friends, preparing itsy-bitsy meals, and embarking on itsy-bitsy journeys, all while ignoring the vast and wild world that surrounds us.

The world is far more than what we make of it. It is a place of extremes, both dangerous and beautiful, bitter and bright. We are often so focused on the mundane that we fail to see the true wonder and potential that lies within. We are like farmers who make hay when we should be making whoopee, or those who raise tomatoes when we should be raising Cain or Lazarus.

The gaps in our lives are where the spirit can truly find its home. These are the altitudes and latitudes that are spare and clean, allowing us to discover ourselves in ways we never thought possible. They are the clefts in the rock where we can cower and catch a glimpse of the back parts of God, or the fissures through which the wind lances, splitting the cliffs of mystery.

But finding these gaps is not easy. They shift and vanish, making them difficult to stalk. And yet, if we can manage to find them, we may discover a universe within ourselves. We may find that we are more than just a maple tree, but a whole world waiting to be unlocked.

However, not everyone is as attuned to nature as Annie Dillard. While I have firm ideas about protecting the environment and animals, I do not share her fascination with the natural world. I would never spend an hour watching a spider make a web, nor would I sit down beside a copperhead snake or sleep out in the open with just a sleeping bag for protection.

Despite my differences with Dillard, I was still intrigued by her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The way she sprinkles quotes throughout the text, from W.C. Fields to Einstein and Thoreau, adds depth and richness to her writing. And her intentional organization of the book, through the four seasons and the exploration of the via positiva and via negativa routes to God, is both clever and thought-provoking.

The language of the book is dense and rich, requiring careful reading and contemplation. It is not a book to be rushed through, but one to be savored and enjoyed. There are many unknown words and experiences, but they only add to the beauty and mystery of the text.

In the end, I realize that my own poverty of spirit may prevent me from fully experiencing the grace that Dillard describes. But her writing has still managed to engage me and make me think about the world in a new way. And perhaps that is the greatest gift that a writer can give.

So beautiful and charming!!! A true pearl for the heart and a true spiritual path through the presentation of the Creation and the millions of elements that compose it.

As soon as you begin to read it, you will be captivated by this joy with all the detailed descriptions and small actions of nature: the landscapes, the elements, the small animals that affect Annie.

I was very afraid to read it, but instead, I found myself rediscovering what the heart of God and creation is. Yes, without realizing it through this joy of the mutations of nature, it is rediscovered, or rather... Annie seeks to discover the mystery of God and his creation. It is also a joy to the eyes to read the many biblical references, Latin quotes, and passages from the Koran.

Don't do as I did and devour the book in two days. It should be read very slowly. It is not a book with particular action. On the contrary, there is nothing of this, but when tasted slowly with due meditation, it is a true rediscovery of the mystery of the Cosmos.

(A small note that I want to leave you. I have often read many pages to my husband. After a while, he clearly told me that it was crazy bothering and tedious. "It's good for 30 pages, but not 300 repeating more or less the same things," he said. Well, what he says is not exactly false. You can also try this during reading. I teased him, especially because he comes from Virginia and not far from the areas described here. What a sore he is!!)

I have learned an abundance of thrilling details regarding fifth-order parasites and the remarkable transformation of grasshoppers into locusts. While some critics have labeled Annie Dillard's nature writing as overly elaborate or hysterical, I truly understand her intense enthusiasm.

However, the one aspect that troubles me is her consistent use of the term "Eskimos." Beyond the outdated language, the issue for me is that in a book that is so deeply felt and meticulously compiled, it evades the crucial question of Indigeneity. We are never informed about how long she has resided at Tinker Creek. Is this her third year? Her first? What significance does being a newcomer or an outsider hold? Despite her evident fascination with Indigenous peoples, we never hear about those who were there before her. For such a聪慧 and meticulous writer who is obsessed with research, this seems like a significant oversight. I am not pointing this out to suggest that the book should be disregarded, but rather I am genuinely (and personally) interested in exploring what it means to be a settler who is invested in the place where one lives and how that specific dynamic influences the way one observes and relates to things. I would have loved to know her thoughts on this matter, but instead, she chose to allude to the romanticized "Eskimos" and "Indians" in Alaska that she read about in Farley Mowat novels.

For me, two stars truly implies "I disliked it" (despite what GR indicates, which is "it was okay"). Generally, I don't persevere through books that I have an aversion to, and that's precisely why I have so few 2-star reviews on this site. However, this particular one initially seemed rather harmless, and there were indeed certain aspects of the book that I liked (at least when I began reading).

For instance, there are numerous stories and anecdotes about nature that were genuinely interesting. As the author described, "On cool autumn nights, eels hurrying to the sea sometimes crawl for a mile or more across dewy meadows to reach streams that will carry them to salt water. These are adult eels, silver eels, and this descent that slid down my mind is the fall from a long spring ascent the eels made years ago. In the late summer of the year they reached maturity, they stopped eating and their dark color vanished. They turned silver; now they are heading to the sea where they will mate, release their eggs, and die. Imagine a chilly night and a meadow; balls of dew droop from the curved blades of grass. Here come the eels. The largest are five feet long. All are silver. They stream into the meadow, sift between grasses and clover, veer from your path. There are too many to count. All you see is a silver slither, like twisted ropes of water falling roughly, a one-way milling and mingling over the meadow and slide to the creek." This kind of content was captivating and kept me engaged in the reading.

Nonetheless, there is still a bit of over-writing that I detest. But then, listen to this next part: "If I saw that sight, would I live? If I stumbled across it, would I ever set foot from my door again? Or would I be seized to join that compelling rush, would I cease eating, and pale, and abandon all to start walking?" Ugh! The melodrama! The romanticization! The overly dramatic prose... and why does she always assume that everything is related to HER? Almost every time she mentions some natural phenomenon, she inevitably concludes the thought with some sort of personal revelation or reaction. It is excessive, selfish, and human-centric. It is precisely what I do not wish to encounter in a book about nature. She inserts herself everywhere, as if her thoughts are more significant than what is actually happening.

Regarding the language, which many people seem to praise, I found it bloated, overwritten, and overly concerned with description. It's not just simple description but rather description bordering on embellishment. I felt her human influence in every aspect, transforming the beauty she often describes into heavy, labored prose full of awkward strain and effort.

This book serves as a prime example of a writer delving into a subject as deceptively simple yet complex as nature and crafting detailed, vivid descriptive prose围绕它展开. It is greatly aided by the fact that Annie Dillard was also a poet. I must admit that I gleaned a wealth of knowledge about many things that I had previously taken for granted, and it truly piqued my interest. There are muskrats, squirrels and their remarkable immunity to poisoned mushrooms, snakes, frogs, water bugs that can suck the life out of frogs through their skin, praying mantises, grasshoppers, fish - you name it. It all seems fascinating and almost foreign. However, having lived part-time in an area very similar to the Tinker creek that Dillard writes about, I can empathize with her feelings regarding the majestic qualities of the mountains and creeks.

What I found appealing about the book, paradoxically, is also what prevented me from giving it the highest rating. There is an abundance of nature描写, but not enough of a personal story. As Dillard herself writes, "I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and, like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, 'Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?' The poor wretch flees." Although her descriptions were so beautifully composed around factual accounts of life that they became utterly entrancing, at times it did feel a bit excessive.

To think that Dillard wrote this masterpiece at the tender age of twenty-seven! It is truly astonishing.

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, emptied, translucent, and that which comes rocks and topples you; it will shear, loose, launch, winnow, grind.

I have glutted on richness. I am buoyed 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's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" is a remarkable piece of work. It won the Pulitzer Prize, which is a great honor.

I was so in love with this passage that during my undergraduate years, I wrote it by hand and taped it to my wall. This way, I could read these beautiful words anytime I wanted.

The description of waiting and the arrival of something overwhelming is truly captivating. It makes you think about the power of patience and the unexpected gifts that life can bring.

Dillard's use of language is masterful, painting vivid images in the reader's mind.

Overall, this passage has had a profound impact on me and continues to inspire me to this day.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was the worthy recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for Nonfiction. Authored by Annie Dillard, this remarkable book is set at Tinker Creek, which lies just outside Roanoke in the magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The story unfolds over the course of one year, with an unnamed narrator reflecting on the ever-changing seasons and offering a plethora of contemplations on nature, flora, and fauna. There are also profound reflections on themes such as Christ, faith, awareness, as well as writing and creativity. It has often been compared to the classic work of Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

The writing in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is at times exquisitely descriptive, flowing in a stream of consciousness that can be both beautiful and haunting. While I was captivated by certain parts of the book, I found some sections to be overly detailed, especially those concerning the world of insects and the spawning of fish. However, the passages that vividly describe the surrounding nature and topography in the changing seasons of the Blue Ridge Mountains are truly stunning. For example, Dillard writes, \\"Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.\\"

Another beautiful excerpt is, \\"Long racemes of white flowers hung from the locust trees. Last summer I heard a Cherokee legend about the locust tree and the moon. The moon goddess starts out with a big ball, the full moon, and she hurls it across the sky. She spends all day retrieving it; then she shaves a slice from it and hurls it again, retrieving, shaving, hurling, and so on. She uses up a moon a month, all year.\\" The Kindle version I read included both an Afterward and a More Years Afterward. In 2007, Annie Dillard made the following observation: \\"I was twenty-seven in 1972 when I began writing 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.' It is a young writer's book in its excited eloquence and its metaphysical boldness. (Fools rush in.) Using the first person, I tried to be--in Emerson's ever-ludicrous phrase--a transparent eyeball.\\"

Kao dostojna i dostojanstvena nastavljačica tradicijske linije Toroovog „Valdena”, Eni Dilard je mapirala zadivljujuć svet.

In this world, the tactics of writing follow the rhythms of the living environment. If it were a different time and different circumstances, this book would represent a meticulous work, according to which all those who want to engage in nature writing would be judged.

The decisive factor for this literary genre is not the theme, but the way it is written - meditatively, meanderingly, and with a good measure between essayization and the experiential.

And when it comes to experience, it is extremely unusual how Eni Dilard went about writing a work that brings intimate, but not personal experiences. The opposite is usually quite different - when we read, for example, the autobiographies of past eras, personal moments are usually emphasized, while the intimate ones are bypassed.

Although she constantly writes about herself, we surprisingly little learn, for example, about Dositej's intimate being. And while Dositej wanted to show through the account of his life how it is possible to become an enlightened being, Eni Dilard, without mentioning the authorial "I", tries to revive in us, through a dense, lyrical clarity, the forgotten and overshadowed primitiveness of nature.

Although, seemingly, little is in her favor not to slide into an overly sentimental pathos of panpoetic mysticism in the glorification of nature, she also bypasses this possible trap and in every sentence offers an opportunity for a precious focused event-in-language.

If the world is an infinite cipher, Eni has a report on some passwords.

(Deus sive natura.)

Yes, this book won the Pulitzer Prize quite a few years ago. Just based on that, you know you will probably like it, right? Even so, I'm going to tell you why it has been of value to me.

You see, besides being a writer, I'm also a meditator in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition. Being very "mindful" of my thoughts and the world around me, even when not meditating, is an integral part of that practice.

One evening while talking with my meditation teacher, he recommended I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, both from the perspective of a writer and also as a dedicated practitioner of meditation. Intrigued, I got a copy. Glad I did.

Annie Dillard is one hell of a writer, of that there is no doubt. Her writing is so profound, full of feeling and clarity. I can only hope that in some lifetime I can write with such excellence.

Speaking directly to the reader, Dillard presents an unwavering narrative about her isolated life during one whole year. At her home in the mountains of Virginia, she embarked on a quest to understand the mysteries of life, violent death, God, and all of existence. It's a very ambitious task for a very determined and clear-sighted woman.

When I think about what Dillard achieved, I view it as a year-long meditation retreat of the most "mindful" kind. Yes, she studied books during that year, but mostly she delved into the complexities and patterns she found in the natural world around her. However, during all that time in the mountains under the sun, moon, and stars, she was also exploring her own essence. As a reader, I completely related to her journey, and you might too.

The book is not only about self-discovery but also of cosmic significance. What a remarkable writer and what a fascinating human being.

I want to make it extremely clear that this rating is due to my deficiencies as a reader and not because of any shortcomings on Dillard's part as a writer in this book. I truly don't believe I am a proficient enough reader to fully appreciate the work she has accomplished here.

Occasionally, I would catch glimpses of her theses and find myself deeply struck by some of her sentences. For example, "No the point is that not only does time fly and do we die, but that in these reckless conditions we live at all, and are vouchsafed for the duration of certain inexplicable moments, to know it." However, for the most part of the reading, it felt rather slow for me.

To be fair, I have never really read a book of meditations on nature before, so my opinion of this book could also be attributed to growing pains. Regardless, the core of the book, as far as my limited knowledge goes, seems to lie in the value of being honest, mystified yet disillusioned, in awe and aware of the world that God has given us the privilege to live in.

"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 gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, 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. Simeon Weil says simply, 'Let us love the country here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love.'"

I hope that one day, when I am a better reader and wiser, I will read this again.

I've gone through this a million times. Beauty is not a hoax. How many days have I learned not to stare at the back of my hand when I could look out at the creek? Come on, I say to the creek, surprise me. And it does, with each new drop. Beauty is real. I would never deny it. The appalling thing is that I forget it.

This book is joy and shock. It's definitely one of my favorite reads of the year. It's like a precious gem that shines with unique luster. The words in it seem to dance on the page, captivating my heart and soul. Thanks to Amy and MJ for recommending Annie Dillard to me. Their suggestion has opened up a new world of literary beauty for me. Through reading this book, I have been able to see the world from a different perspective and appreciate the little things that often go unnoticed. It has truly been a remarkable reading experience that I will cherish for a long time.

Dillard is an undeniably talented writer in the aspects of observation and description. She possesses the patience needed to remain still in nature for long hours. Her enthusiasm for nature even extends to sentence construction. I can't claim that this book speaks to me the most loudly - it wouldn't make it onto my short list - but I can definitely appreciate her abilities. “[...]scorpions in amber, sharks that roiled and heaved. The sight held awesome wonders: power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture with violence.” This is a book worthy of its acclaim and readership. I will likely return to it one day for its naturalism and keenness. It's similar to the great The Peregrine. I love knowing that a book like this can win The Pulitzer.

On stalking: “If I must hold a position, I do not ‘freeze.’ If I freeze, locking my muscles, I will tire and break. Instead of going rigid, I go calm. I center down wherever I am; I find a balance and repose. I retreat - not inside myself, but outside myself, so that I am a tissue of sense. Whatever I see is plenty, abundance. I am the skin of water the wind plays over; I am petal, feather, stone.” The beautiful language here resonates with how I bow-hunt deer.

A significant portion of the book is Dillard grappling with the cruelty, suffering, and inefficiency of the world, its waste of life and hard deaths. Every minute witnesses the annihilation of multitudes. “We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet. There is not a people in the world who behave as badly as praying mantises.” These are true words, and I echo her sentiments.

This is a very special book written by a uniquely sensitive, observant, and original thinker. However, I thought her afterword was a bit deflating. The older writer Dillard dismisses the younger Dillard for being too indulgent with her prose. I say let it stand. Be kind to former versions of yourself. To a large extent, we become different people. Treat them like old friends.

***

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