Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Annie Dillard |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Publisher | Harper's Magazine Press |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 271 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0061219800 (1st edition) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| OCLC | 804986 |
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a 1974 nonfiction narrative book by American author Annie Dillard. Told from a first-person point of view, the book details her explorations near her home, and various contemplations on nature and life. The title refers to Tinker Creek, which is located outside Roanoke in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Dillard began writing Pilgrim in the spring of 1973, using journals that she composed over the past few years as inspiration. Separated into four sections, the book's narrative takes place over the period of one year.
Recording her observations and thoughts on solitude, writing, religion, as well as the flora and fauna, Dillard touches upon themes of faith and death. Pilgrim is often noted for its study of theodicy, and the author has described it as a "book of theology". Dillard considers it a "single sustained nonfiction narrative", although several chapters have been anthologized separately in magazines and other publications. The book is analogous in design and genre to Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the subject of Dillard's master's thesis at Hollins College. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has been lauded by critics since its initial publication. It won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction, and in 1999 it was listed in Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books.
Background and publication
Dillard grew up in Pittsburgh, the daughter of an oil company executive and a homemaker.[1] A voracious reader, one of her favorite books was Ann Haven Morgan's The Field Book of Ponds and Streams, which she compared to the Book of Common Prayer; in painstaking detail, it instructed one on the study and collection of plants and insects.[2] She received both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from Hollins College, where she developed her interests and skills as a writer. Her master's thesis, "Walden Pond and Thoreau", studied the eponymous pond as a structuring device for Henry David Thoreau's Walden.[3] Dillard's knowledge of Thoreau's works were an obvious inspiration for her, although critics have pointed to many differences between their two works. However, in a nod to her influence, Dillard mentions within the text that she named her goldfish Ellery Channing, after one of Thoreau's closest friends.[4]
After graduating in 1968, she continued to live in Virginia, near the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two years later she began keeping a journal, in which she recorded her daily walks around Tinker Creek. Her journals would eventually consist of 20 volumes.[5] In 1971, after she suffered a near-fatal bout of pneumonia, she decided to write a full-length book dedicated to her nature writings.[6] Dillard wrote the first half of Pilgrim at her home in spring 1973, and the remaining half the following summer in a study carrel "that overlooked a tar-and-gravel roof" at the Hollins College library.[7] She would later explain her choice of writing location as stemming from her wanting to avoid "appealing workplaces.... One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark."[8]
Dillard's primary reader for Pilgrim was a Hollins professor called John Rees Moore. After she would finish a chapter, she would bring it to Moore to critique. Moore in particular recommended that she expand the book's first chapter "to make clear, and to state bolding, what it was [she] was up to," a suggestion that Dillard at first dismissed, but would later admit was good advice.[9] Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was published in 1974 by Harper's Magazine Press. It is dedicated to Dillard's first husband, Richard.
Summary
I live by a creek, Tinker Creek, in a valley in Virginia's Blue Ridge. An anchorite's hermitage is called an anchor-hold; some anchor-holds were simple sheds clamped to the side of a church like a barnacle or a rock. I think of this house clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold. It holds me at anchor to the rock bottom of the creek itself and keeps me steadied in the current, as a sea anchor does, facing the stream of light pouring down. It's a good place to live; there's a lot to think about.[10]
Written in a series of internal monologues and reflections, the book is told from the point-of-view of an unnamed narrator who lives next to Tinker Creek, in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Roanoke, Virginia. Over the course of a year, the narrator observes and reflects upon the changing of the seasons as well as the flora and fauna near her home. Pilgrim is divided into four sections—one for each season—consisting of separate, named chapters. In the afterword of the 1999 Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, Dillard states that the first half of the book is the via positiva, which "accumulates the world's goodness and God's." The second half, the via negativa, ends with the chapter "Northing" which Dillard notes is the counterpart of the first chapter, "Seeing".[11]
Style and genre
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is often described as a series of essays; however, Dillard has insisted it is a continuous work, as evidenced by her references to events from previous chapters as the narrative progresses.[12] Although the chapters are separately named—several have also been published separately in magazines and anthologies—she referred to the book in a 1989 interview as a "single sustained nonfiction narrative".[13] Dillard has also resisted the label of "nature writer", especially in regard to Pilgrim. She stated, "There's usually a bit of nature in what I write, but I don't consider myself a nature writer."[14]
The book quotes and alludes to Walden often, although Dillard does not explicitly state her interest in Thoreau's work. Critic Donna Mendelson notes that Thoreau's "presence is so potent in her book that Dillard can borrow from [him] both straightforwardly and also humorously."[15] Although the two works are often compared Pilgrim does not comment upon the social world as Walden does; rather, it is completely rooted in observations of the natural world. Unlike Thoreau, Dillard does not make connections between the history of social and natural aspects,[16] nor does she believe in an ordered universe. Whereas Thoreau refers to the machine-like universe, in which the creator is akin to a master watchmaker, Dillard recognizes the imperfection of creation, in which "something is everywhere and always amiss".[17]
In her review for The New York Times, Eudora Welty noted Pilgrim's narrator being "the only person in [Dillard's] book, substantially the only one in her world.... Speaking of the universe very often, she is yet self-surrounded".[18] As Nancy C. Parrish—author of the 1998 book "Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, and the Hollins Group: A Genesis of Writers"—noted, despite it having been written in the first person, Pilgrim is not necessarily autobiographical. The narrator, "Annie Dillard", therefore becomes a persona through which the author can experience and describe "thoughts and events that the real Annie Dillard had only heard about or studied or imagined."[19] Critic Suzanne Clark also points to the "peculiar evasiveness" of Dillard-the-author, noting that "when we read Annie Dillard, we don't know who is writing. There is a silence in the place where they might be an image of the social self—of personality, character, or ego".[20]
Themes
Pilgrim is often noted for its study of theodicy. The narrator attempts to reconcile the harsh natural world, with its "seemingly horrid mortality", with the belief in a benevolent God. Death is repeatedly mentioned as a natural, although cruel progression: "Evolution", the narrator states, "loves death more than it loves you or me."[21] A passage in the second chapter of the book describes a frog being "sucked dry" by a "giant water bug" as the narrator watches; this necessary cruelty shows order in life and death, no matter how difficult it may be to watch.[22] The narrator especially sees inherent cruelty in the insect world: "Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly... insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another. I never ask why of a vulture or a shark, but I ask why of almost every insect I see. More than one insect...is an assault on all human virtue, all hope of a reasonable god."[23] While she remains drawn to the ultimately repugnant and amoral natural world, she also questions her place in it. The narrator states, "I had thought to live by the side of the creek in order to shape my life to its free flow. But I seem to have reached a point where I must draw the line. It looks as though the creek is not buoying me up but dragging me down."[24]
The title of the book suggests a pilgrimage, and yet the narrator does not stray far from her home near the creek: the journey is metaphysical.[25] Margaret Loewen Reimer, in one of the first critical studies based on the book, noted that Dillard's treatment of the metaphysical is similar to that of Herman Melville. While "Melville's eyes saw mainly the darkness and the horror" of the natural world, possibly stemming from his New England Puritan roots, Dillard's "sinister" vision of the world comes "more from a horror at the seeming mindlessness of nature's design than from a deeply pervasive sense of evil."[26] The narrator "pilgrim" seeks to behold the sacred, which she dedicates herself to finding either by "stalking" or "seeing". At one point, she sees a cedar tree near her house "charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame" as the light hits it; this burning vision, reminiscent of creation's holy "fire", "comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it."[27]
Critic Jenny Emery Davidson believes that Dillard's act of "stalking" allows her to rewrite the hunting myth, a popular theme in nature writing which mediates the space between nature and humans. Although a long tradition of male nature writers—including James Fenimore Cooper, Jack London and Richard Nelson—have used this theme as "a symbolic ritual of violence", Dillard "ventures into the terrain of the hunt, employing its rhetoric while also challenging its conventions."[28] Some critics approach Pilgrim on Tinker Creek in terms of Dillard's attention to self-aware analysis, such as what Mary Davidson McConahay describes as a Thoreauvian "commitment to awareness". Others, however, describe the work as being more devoted to speculation of the divine and natural world, than to self-exploration.[29]
Awareness plays an important role in the book; the narrator is not only self-aware, but also alert to every detail around her. Pilgrim's second chapter defines two types of seeing: "seeing as verbalization" (active) and "seeing as letting go" (passive).[30] The act of seeing is exhaustive and exhausting, as one of the chapters relates: "I look at the water: minnows and shiners. If I am thinking minnows, a carp will fill my brain till I scream. I look at the water's surface: skaters, bubbles, and leaves sliding down. Suddenly my own face, reflected, startles me witless. Those snails have been tracking my face! Finally, with a shuddering wrench of the will, I see clouds, cirrus clouds. I'm dizzy. I fall in. This looking business is risky."[31]
Reception and awards
The book was a critical and financial success, selling more than 37,000 copies within two months of publication. It went through eight separate printings in the first two years, and the paperback rights were quickly purchased.[32] Dillard was unnerved by the crush of attention; shortly after the book was published, she wrote, "I'm starting to have dreams about Tinker Creek. Lying face down in it, all muddy and dried up and I'm drowning in it." She feared she had "shot my lifetime wad. Pilgrim is not only the wisdom of my 28 years but I think it's the wisdom of my whole life."[33]
The initial consensus among reviewers was that it was "an unusual treatise on nature", and despite being a bestseller, Pilgrim received very little critical attention until more than five years after its publication.[34] However, critic Scott Slovic wrote that Pilgrim at Tinker Creek eventually "catapulted [Dillard] to prominence among contemporary American nonfiction writers—particularly among nature writers—and stimulated a wealth of reviews and a steadily accumulating body of criticism."[35] Gary McIlroy believed that Dillard's work is distinctive for its "vibrant rediscovery of the woods. [She] studies the wildest remnants of the Virginia woodlands, stirring all the dark and promising mysteries of the American frontier.[36]
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1975, when Dillard was 29 years old. The jury noted in its nomination that "Miss Dillard is an expert observer in whom science has not etiolated a sense of awe.... Her book is a blend of observation and introspection, mystery and knowledge. We unanimously recommend it for the prize.[37] Since its initial publication, portions of the book have been anthologized in over thirty collections.[16] In 1999 it was listed in Modern Library' 100 Best Nonfiction Books, both on the board's and the reader's lists.[38]
Notes
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 121
- ^ Dillard (1994), p. 173
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 149
- ^ McIlroy (1994), p. 91
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 126
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 122
- ^ Dillard (1989), p. 27
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 125
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 138
- ^ Dillard (1999), p. 4
- ^ Dillard (1999), pp. 279–280
- ^ "Books by Annie Dillard". Annie Dillard - Official Website. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
- ^ Chevalier (1997), p. 224
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 120
- ^ Mendelson (1995), p. 51
- ^ a b McIlroy (1994), p. 87
- ^ Papa (1997), p. 107
- ^ Welty, Eudora. (March 24, 1974.) "Meditation on Seeing". The New York Times. Retrieved November 28, 2011.
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 126
- ^ Slovic (1992), p. 66
- ^ Scheese (1996), p. 128
- ^ Dockins (2003), p. 638
- ^ Dockins (2003), p. 642
- ^ Scheese (1996), pp. 128–129
- ^ Marshall (1998), p. 89
- ^ Reimer (1983), p. 183
- ^ Radaker (1997), p. 124
- ^ Davidson (2001), p. 218
- ^ Slovic (1992), p. 62
- ^ Ireland (2010), p. 25
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 155
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 124
- ^ Parrish (1998), p. 125
- ^ Reimer (1983), p. 182
- ^ Slovic (1992), p. 61
- ^ McIlroy (1987), p. 71
- ^ Fischer (1988), p. 362
- ^ "100 Best Nonfiction Books". Modern Library. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
References
- Chevalier, Tracy. (1997). Encyclopedia of the Essay. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 1884964303.
- Davidson, Jenny Emery (2001). "Stalking a Prayer: Crossings of the Hunter and the Shaman in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers. Eds. Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. Hanover: University Press of New England. ISBN 1584650974.
- Dillard, Annie. (1989). The Writing Life. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0060161566.
- Dillard, Annie. (1994). The Annie Dillard Reader. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060171588.
- Dillard, Annie. (1999). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060953020.
- Dockins, Mike. (2003). "Stalking the Bumblebee: An Exploration of 'Cruelty' in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Massachusetts Review 44(4): pp. 636–648.
- Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (1988). The Pulitzer Prize Archive: A History and Anthology of Award-Winning Materials in Journalism, Letters, and Arts. National Reporting, 1941–1986, Volume 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3598301707.
- Ireland, Julia A. (2010). "Annie Dillard's Ecstatic Phenomenology." Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 17(1): pp. 23–34.
- Marshall, Ian. (1998). Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail. Charlottesville: University Press of Virgina. ISBN 0813917972.
- McIlroy, Gary. (March 1987). "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and the Burden of Science." American Literature, 59(1): pp. 71–84.
- McIlroy, Gary. (1994). "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and the Social Legacy of Walden." Earthly Words: Essays on Contemporary American Nature and Environmental Writers. Ed. John R. Cooley. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472095374.
- Mendelson, Donna. (1995). "Tinker Creek and the Waters of Walden: Thoreauvian Currents in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim." The Concord Saunterer, 3(1): pp. 50–62.
- Parrish, Nancy C. (1998). Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, and the Hollins Group: A Genesis of Writers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0807122432.
- Papa, James A. (1997). "Paradox and Perception: Science and Narrative in Walden and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Weber Studies, 14(3): pp. 105–114.
- Radaker, Kevin. (1997). "Caribou, Electrons, and the Angel: Stalking the Sacred in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Christianity & Literature, 46(2): pp. 123–143.
- Reimer, Margaret Loewen. (1983). "The Dialectical Vision of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Critique, 24(3): pp. 182–191.
- Scheese, Don. (1996). Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America. New York: Twayne. ISBN 0805709649.
- Slovic, Scott. (1992). Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0874803624.
- Smith, Linda L. (1991). Annie Dillard. New York: Twayne. ISBN 0805776370.
