A review by bluelilyblue
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

5.0

I can't remember the last time a book felt like coming home from a day-long walk with a friend. Annie Dillard sees the intricacy of the world in her backyard, turns over a river rock and uncovers a new conception of the Divine, senses the gravity of the seemingly ordinary. She walks, waits, sees, and shows how something so uncomplicated can ground one into one's place in a world of strange and beautiful things. I enjoyed the way that the theological wonderings arising from observations of animals, plants, and landscapes echo the Romantics' approach to the sublime--accepting the interweaved beauty and horror of the living world and learning the love of what would instinctually be repulsive or frightening; awfulness, both in the new and the old sense of the word. Annie Dillard is knowledgeable and spiritual in a wholly unpretentious way, guiding the reader through the quiet rituals of paying attention and being open to the nonhuman world with such tenderness. I might have fallen in love with her and with her wonderful nature journal/ philosophical inquiry/ cabinet of curiosities.