A review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.

This book is a child of its time: written in 1974, it has the environmental awareness of Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring; but its deeper influence is the philosophical ruminations of Thoreau’s Walden.

It is an astonishing first book, from a 27-year-old, and was rewarded with the Pulitzer Prize for its contribution to American literature.

Perhaps because of her youth, Dillard was criticised at the time for her presumption in injecting herself into the text, and for the verbosity of her descriptions. However, these criticisms may simply have been jealousy at what she was able to craft! Certainly her extended musings, and descriptions of her ramblings around Tinker Creek are part of the charm of the book.

For some, it will be her observations of nature that will enchant. Dillard proves herself to be a competent amateur scientist, with informed observations, not only of the animals, insects and plants around her, but even the starry hosts.

For me, though, it is her spiritual observations that I find so refreshing and challenging. On the second page she talks about the mystery of the natural world:

This is the mystery of the continuous creation and all that providence implies: the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the dissolution of the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the elusiveness of the free, and the flawed nature of perfection.

That sentence alone could take hours of pondering and discussion, and thoughtful reflection. It is also a summary of the themes of the book. The book is a reflection on the characteristics of creation and how that extends to humans and society; and also reflects the Maker.

Dillard talks about the positives of creation: its beauty and design and intricacy. She also considers the negatives: the struggle for survival, some of the horrible behaviour of creatures (especially insects) that defy moral imagination.

In her contemplations, she draws on extensive research, weaving in scientific knowledge, but also utilises poetry, fiction, the classics and sacred texts, especially the Bible.

If there is one theme that predominates, it is the existence of beauty and grace, which are “performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” The source of that beauty and grace is a sovereign creator, referenced in subtle ways, but as much a presence in her narrative as he is in our world.

For example, she writes about the sun:

We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on this planet seems aware of this strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever.

She quotes theologians: Julian of Norwich, Jacques Ellul, Martin Buber and Thomas Aquinas. She also adds her own memorable and pithy observations: “The breeze is the merest puff, but you yourself sail headlong and breathless under the galeforce of the spirit.” “Our bodies are shot with mortality.” “[W]e the living are… not held aloft in a cloud in the air but bumbling pitted and scarred and broken through a frayed and beautiful land.”

This is one of the enduring images of the book. The fact that we are not the magnificent successful victors that we imagine ourselves to be. As Dillard puts it, infinitely more eloquently:

I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about in a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodies 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.

This is a theology of sin that is not clichéd or preachy or self-righteous. It is a carefully built argument based on reasoned observations over a year of research and reflection.

She goes on to talk about the only guarantee in life: our neediness. So we must knock, seek and ask, but be prepared for an unconventional answer: life!

This is by no means a systematic theology, but it is not intended as such. It is a book seeking to raise eternal questions from observations of the natural world, challenging the materialistic responses that abound.

She completes her meditations, walking along Tinker Creek, with her left foot saying “Glory!” and her right foot saying “Amen! Exultant, in a daze, dancing, to the twin silver trumpets of praise.”