Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Rating:
Summary: Life-changing!
Review: This is a five-star book if ever I have read one! I am a Presbyterian minister and, other than scripture, this is the most formative book I have read in my life (and I have read lots of books!). I first read this book fourteen years ago when taking my daughter to gymnastics class. Each week as she tumbled and climbed, I read and savored a chapter of this book and was forever changed. "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" is about seeing, really seeing, seeing deeply. It is about awe and wonder, without which we cannot be truly human. It is about the interconnectedness of all life. This book has caused me to "see" God, life, myself in a much "bigger," more profound way than I did before having read it. I have given away dozens of copies over the years, and I am writing this review because I came to this site to order another copy for a teenager in my church and wanted to add my "witness." I wish I could afford to buy you your copy, too!

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Summary: A book dazzling with prose and mind-shattering knowledge!
Review: "Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain" (p.7). That is just one wonderful quote out of many that make up the bulk of Annie Dillard's Pulitzer winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The book's themes are a combination, an amalgam, of natuure, science, philosophy, theology and mysticism. What is God's relationship to man? What is man's relationship to God? Although there are a lot of Christian elements imbued in (PTC), Dillard has a mystical view of life and creation as well -- a direct, unmeditated experience of the presence of God. In (PTC), nature, more often than not, is the stimulus that inspires the mystical union. The book has a permeating aura of panentheism to it, meaning, the natural world is contained within God but sees God extending beyond the natural world. God is both immanent and transcendent, both within the natural world and beyond it. Dillard uses the natural world, the insects, the minute organisms and animals of Tinker Creek and Tinker Mountain to try to answer a far greater question regarding humanity: how does the creation and destruction in the natural world relate to the human world? What is God's role in that? The themes are so complex but yet startlingly simple.God is the Creator of both horror and beauty. It is in both the former and latter where the human understanding comes to play; it is where the 'lesson' lies, if you will. (PTC) is a book that needs to be read more than once in order to fully comprehend it. The reader has to wait and digest what is being offered, as in (p. 258): "It is merely the slow cessation of the will's sprints and the intellect's chatter: it is waiting like a hollow bell with stilled tongue. Fuge, tace, quiesce. The waiting itself is the thing. That is so true about almost everything in life.

Rating:
Summary: Interior Monologue - gasping for real air
Review: I too had started reading this years ago and gave it up after a few pages as too boring. I picked it up again and this time found the first 2/3 actually interesting. The meditation of the life around her, the interesting details about how various animals survive thru animalistic means (eg praying mantis) and the ying/yang of life (anectdotes of Eskimo survival) were well written. But around at the 2/3 point, I started to really want these religious and natural observations to really apply to her relationship with others. Throughout the book there is SO little human interaction for a person of this perception to be so devoid of the pleasure of human contact -- I found this aspect to be increasingly disappointing and stifling. It almost seemed to be a study in a year of depression.

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Summary: This book is a vacation!
Review: I am reading this wonderful book as slowly as possible, savoring every beautiful descriptive sentence. It has helped me to appreciate nature on a new level -- what higher praise can a book have?

Rating:
Summary: THE WORST
Review: What kind of book is this? A description of some grass needles, a tree and a praying mantis. You can analyze all the hidden meanings you want, but where now does that get you? Don't waste the time or money, Pulitzer means not a thing.

Rating:
Summary: Great for some of Us
Review: I was browsing the bookshelves and picked this one up knowing nothing about it. I'm picky and have no patience for a book that doesn't appeal to me. When I started reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I wondered how much of it I was going to be able to get through before I got bored; as it turned out, I kept reading. The author's talent is such that she can go on and on describing the same things and keep up the fascination for those of us who "get it". I know this book would not be for everyone--hence the negative comments seen in these reviews. But for a person who can get lost staring into the depths of a flower, it is exciting to find a comrade who feels the same sense of awe, and more--much more, and who can express it with such depth and intensity, and even try to explain it. I know I've completely processed just a little bit of what she's saying with this first perusal, so I look forward to going back to the book and reading with more comprehension throughout the years. By the way, I skipped descriptions that were just too cruel; I don't like certain images in my mind.

Rating:
Summary: worth the wait for a new way to see
Review: The first time I started to read this book I got a few paragraphs and lost interst. The book sat around for several years collecting dust. Recently, while recuperating from the flu, I picked the book up again and I soon began wishing for the strength to kick myself for letting this amazing book go unread! Dillard has amazing powers of observation, in this case about nature and wildlife, and the ability to covey those observations in stylish prose.Previously mundane surroundings become magical and everyday sights inspire awe. Dillard will give you a new way of looking at the world around you, even for those who thought they were already seeing it all.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Book of the 20th Century
Review: If I were stuck on a desert island and could have only one book with me for the rest of my life, it would be Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dillard is one of those extremely rare people who is not only a writer, but who is a philosopher. We can teach philosophers to write well but we cannot teach writers to think. A priceless gift to the world, Dillard was born both a profound thinker and a phenomenally gifted writer. If you are looking for light reading, this is not the book to pick up. Neither is this a book for the faint-of-heart. I have read it many times and can never read more than a chapter a day due to it's intensity and density. It takes time to process and savor the depth and beauty of each sentence. Your dreams will echo the unique and picturesque images invoked by Dillard's writing. Dillard's profound insights concerning humanity and our relationship with one another, the world around us and God will blow your mind wide open and leave you awe-struck and inspired. This book has changed my life and the lives of the many friends to whom I have given copies.

Rating:
Summary: The Seinfeld of books
Review: Like the series on NBC, this book says nothing, and says it very well. However, Seinfeld has humor, and this has none. You will find yourself trying to analyze the book for hours, until you will come to the conclusion that it is smart because you don't get it, or that it is saying nothing, and taking a very long time to do so. Everyone I know has eventually come to the same conclusion, that this is nothing, and the only reason people claim to "get it" is because the words Pulitzer Prize are on the cover. Try to analyze this is you must, but just remember, if you do come up with something, you are misinterperting the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Series of Prose Poems
Review: This book is not for travelog readers, seekers of gardening tips, fans of edge-of-your-seat action thrillers or collectors of useful information. Nor is it a typical soft-headed, tree-hugger's book. It amounts to a clear, powerful evocation of one astonishingly capable writer's interior conversation with her natural environment. For the right reader, it will echo in every corner of life, gain significance over time and inform his or her understanding of the world outside civilization. You'll know where you are by the third page.