Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Dillard, the daughter of an oil company executive, grew up in an upper-middle-class home in Pittsburgh.[1] She read voraciously; 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 on the study and collection of plants and insects.[2] She attended Hollins College in Roanoke County, Virginia, receiving both a bachelor's (1967) and a master's degree (1968). At Hollins she came under the tutelage of poet and creative writing professor Richard Henry Wilde Dillard, whom she married in 1965. She would later state that Richard taught her everything she knew about writing.[3] Her master's thesis, "Walden Pond and Thoreau", studied the eponymous pond as a structuring device for Henry David Thoreau's Walden.[4] Dillard's knowledge of Thoreau's works was an obvious inspiration, although critics have pointed to many differences between their two works. However, in a nod to his influence, Dillard mentions within the text that she named her goldfish Ellery Channing, after one of Thoreau's closest friends.[5]

After graduating in 1968, she continued to live in Virginia, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she wrote full-time. At first she concentrated solely on poetry, which she had written and published when she was an undergraduate.[6] She began keeping a journal in 1970, in which she recorded her daily walks around Tinker Creek. Her journals would eventually consist of 20 volumes.[7] In 1971, after suffering from a serious bout of pneumonia, she decided to write a full-length book dedicated to her nature writings.[8] 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.[9] 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."[10] When she first began writing the book, Dillard would only dedicate one or two hours a day to the task; by the last two months, however, she was writing nearly 15–16 hours a day.[11]

Dillard's primary reader for Pilgrim was a Hollins professor called John Rees Moore. After finishing a chapter, she would bring it to Moore to critique. Moore specifically recommended that she expand the book's first chapter "to make clear, and to state boldly, what it was [she] was up to," a suggestion that Dillard at first dismissed, but would later admit was good advice.[12] Previous to publication, chapters of the book appeared in publications including Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Living Wilderness.[13] Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was published by Harper's Magazine Press in 1974, and was dedicated to Dillard's husband. Editor in chief Larry Freundlich remarked upon first reading the book: "I never expected to see a manuscript this good in my life . ... The chance to publish a book like this is what publishers are here for."[14]

Tinker Creek is part of the upper Roanoke River watershed, like this body of water running through Wasena, Roanoke, Virginia.

Written in a series of internal monologues and reflections, the book is told from the perspective 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 thematically divided into four sections—one for each season—consisting of separate, named chapters: "Heaven and Earth in Jest", "Seeing", "Winter", "The Fixed", "The Knot", "The Present", "Spring", "Intricacy", "Flood", "Fecundity", "Stalking", "Nightwatch", "The Horns of the Altar", "Northing", and "The Waters of Separation".

The first chapter, "Heaven and Earth in Jest", serves as an introduction to the book. The narrator describes the location as well as her connection to it:

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.[15]

In the afterword of the 1999 Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, Dillard states that the book's other, two-part structure mirrors the two routes to God according to Neoplatonic Christianity: the via positiva and the via negativa. The first half of the book, the via positiva, beginning with the second chapter, "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 second chapter, "Seeing".[16] The first and last chapters of the book serve as the introduction and conclusion, respectively. The narrative is composed of vignettes detailing the narrator's wanderings around the creek. In "The Present" the narrator encounters a puppy at a gas station off the highway, and pats its belly while contemplating the view of the nearby mountain range; the reflective act of "petting the puppy" is referred to in several other chapters. In "Stalking", the narrator pursues a group of muskrats in the creek during summer. One of the most famous passages comes from the beginning of the book, when the narrator witnesses a frog being drained and devoured by a water beetle.[17]

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a work of creative nonfiction that uses poetic devices such as metaphor, repetition, and inversion to convey the importance of recurrent themes.[18] Although it is often described as a series of essays, Dillard has insisted it is a continuous work, as evidenced by references to events from previous chapters.[19] 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".[20] 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."[21]

The book often quotes and alludes to Walden, 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."[22] 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,[23] 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".[24]

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".[25] Dillard seemingly refers to the idea of an "invisible narrator" in the sixth chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; while referring to the "infinite power" of God, the narrator notes that "invisibility is the all-time great 'cover'".[26][27] Nancy C. Parrish, author of the 1998 book Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, and the Hollins Group: A Genesis of Writers, notes that despite its 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."[28] 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 there might be an image of the social self—of personality, character, or ego".[29] While most critics assume that the narrator is female, mostly due to the autobiographical elements of the book and the assumption that the narrator is Dillard herself, Clark questions whether the narrator is male. Stating that Dillard uses "a variety of male voices, male styles" throughout the book, Clark asks, "When Dillard quit writing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in the persona of a fifty year old man, did she then begin to write as a woman?"[30]

Dillard is often compared to Henry David Thoreau, whose book Walden (1854) shares similarities with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

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.[45] 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."[46]

The initial consensus among reviewers was that it was "an unusual treatise on nature".[47] The book was published soon after her poetry collection Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974, University of Missouri Press). Reviewing both volumes for America, John Breslin noted the similarities between the two: "Even if her first book of poems had not been published simultaneously, the language she uses in Pilgrim would have given her away."[48] The Saturday Evening Post also praised Dillard's poetic ability in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, noting that "the poet in her is everywhere evident in this prose-poem of hers: the reader's attention is caught not only by the freshness of her insights, but by the beauty of her descriptions as well."[49] Melvin Maddocks, a reviewer for Time, noted Dillard's intention of subtle influence: "Reader, beware of this deceptive girl, mouthing her piety about 'the secret of seeing' being 'the pearl of great price,' modestly insisting, 'I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood.' Here is no gentle romantic twirling a buttercup, no graceful inscriber of 365 inspirational prose poems. As she guides the attention to a muskrat, to a monarch butterfly, a heron or a coot, Miss Dillard is stalking the reader as surely as any predator stalks its game."[50]

Despite being a bestseller, Pilgrim received little academic attention until more than five years after its publication. Early reviewers Charles Nicol[51] and J. C. Peirce linked Dillard with the Transcendentalism movement, comparing her to Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.[36] Author and environmentalist Edward Abbey, known as the "Thoreau of the American West", stated that Dillard was the "true heir of the Master". He wrote, "she alone has been able to compose, successfully, in Thoreau's extravagant and transcendental manner."[52] In his 1992 book 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."[53] 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.[54]

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."[55] Since its initial publication, portions of the book have been anthologized in over thirty collections.[23] Subsequent editions included those published by Bantam Books (1975) and Harper Colophon (1985; 1988). The Harper Perennial 25th-Anniversary edition, which included an afterword by the author, was released in 1999. The first UK edition was released in 1976. The book has been translated into many languages throughout the years, including Swedish, Japanese, French, and German.[13] In 1998 it was listed in Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books, both on the board's and the reader's lists.[56]

• Breslin, John B. (1974). "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek/Tickets for a Prayer Wheel". America, 130(15): pp. 312–314.
• Chénetier, Marc. (1990). "Tinkering, Extravagance: Thoreau, Melville, and Annie Dillard". Critique: Studies In Contemporary Fiction, 31(3): pp. 157–172.
• Chevalier, Tracy. (1997). Encyclopedia of the Essay. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 1-884964-30-3.
• Clark, Suzanne. (1991). "Annie Dillard: The Woman in Nature and the Subject of Nonfiction". Sentimental Modernism: Women Writers and the Revolution of the Word. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-31374-0.
• 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, NH: University Press of New England. ISBN 1-58465-097-4.
• Dillard, Annie. (1989). The Writing Life. New York, NY: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-016156-6.
• Dillard, Annie. (1994). The Annie Dillard Reader. New York, NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-017158-8.
• Dillard, Annie. (1999). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York, NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095302-0.
• 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, NY: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-598-30170-7.
• Hardack, Richard. (2008). "'A Woman Need Not Be Sincere': Annie Dillard's Fictional Autobiographies and the Gender Politics of American Transcendentalism". Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, 64(3), pp. 75–108.
• Ireland, Julia A. (2010). "Annie Dillard's Ecstatic Phenomenology." Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 17(1): pp. 23–34.
• Johnson, Sandra Humble. (1992). The Space Between: Literary Epiphany in the Work of Annie Dillard. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-446-6.
• Kitchen, Judith. (2011). "Grounding the Lyric Essay". Fourth Genre: Explorations In Nonfiction, 13(2), pp. 115–121.
• Maddocks, Melvin. (1974). "Terror and Celebration". Time, 103(11): p. 104.
• Marshall, Ian. (1998). Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia. ISBN 0-8139-1797-2.
• McClintock, James. I. (1994). Nature's Kindred Spirits: Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, and Gary Snyder. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-14173-8.
• McIlroy, Gary. (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, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-09537-4.
• 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.
• Nicol, Charles. (1974). "Looking Spring in the Eye." National Review, 26(17): p. 489.
• Papa, James A. (1997). "Paradox and Perception: Science and Narrative in Walden and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Weber Studies, 14(3): pp. 105–114.
• Parrish, Nancy C. (1998). Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, and the Hollins Group: A Genesis of Writers. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-2243-2.
• Pearson, Joanne, Richard H Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel. (1998). Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1057-X.
• 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.
• Saturday Evening Post. (November 1, 1974). "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek", 246(8), p. 74.
• Scheese, Don. (1996). Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America. New York, NY: Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-0964-9.
• Slovic, Scott. (1992). Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-362-4.
• Smith, Linda L. (1991). Annie Dillard. New York, NY: Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-7637-0.

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek at Open Library
• Annie Dillard's Official Site