The Natural World
Annie Dillard established her reputation with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek which, though not intended as such, situated her as a chronicler of the natural world. Because Dillard is something of a genre juggler, it is not especially accurate to categorize that book as work belonging to the nature writing genre. However, her subsequent genre-bending writing has also revealed Dillard to be especially attuned to the world of natural phenomena often gone unnoticed or under-appreciated by most. Natural events which receive her attention and have produced some of her finest prose ranges from the massive astronomic movements which result in a total solar eclipse to the life a spider taking up residence behind the toilet. Hers is not the observation of nature from a scientific point of view, but is more like a philosophical engine that drives her toward understanding faith and humanity.
Mysticism
Legendary writer Eudora Welty famous reviewed Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by confessing that very often she had no idea what Dillard was even talking about and, furthermore, not only was there nobody else in the book but Dillard, but that the author wrote as if she were the only person in the world. As to the former charge, it is quite unlikely that Welty is the only person who ever read Dillard that felt this way. Consider this passage with the knowledge that taking it out of context in no way makes it less obscure:
“Over here, the rains fail; they are starving. There, the caribou fail; they are starving. Corrupt leaders take the wealth. Not just there, but here. Rust and smut spoil the rye.”
This is the kind of writing capable of confusing even a master of the art like Welty, but it also speaks directly to her other complaint about Dillard writing as though she alone inhabited the universe. That is almost the exact definition of a mystic. And throughout Dillard’s essays are passages that reveal an overarching thematic pursuit of mystic belief. Taken together, Dillard’s body of work can be read as something of a continuing spiritual journey either without a destination or toward a destination still unreached. Some of her essays are on topics which are directly targeted toward that mystical journey—writing about solitude in the woods and how to hold onto faith in a world filled with pain for example. Dillard’s mysticism can also be found in essays covering having nothing whatever ostensibly to do with spiritual matters. Mystical literature is notorious for being difficult for the masses. It is often written with no intention of publication or with the knowledge that of those who read it, only a few will understand it, but mass appeal is hardly the point, anyway.
The Writing Life
One of Dillard’s collection of essays is actually titled The Writing Life and it is specifically about being a writer, but defies the easy classification of being a book of advice on how to write. It is, as the title clearly spells out, about what it means to be a writer and that is a theme which also flows freely through essays which are ostensibly on that subject. When writing about nature, Dillard often digresses down a sort of meta-vein in which ponders the nature of writing about nature. Her memoir of childhood features a thematic spine about how her childhood informed her decision to become a writer. This theme also traces back in a way to Welty’s observations about Dillard in that review. At all times in her writing there is a self-awareness by Dillard that she is a writer and that the way something is written has as much impact on a reader as the subject that is being written about it.
