Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a visionary work. That she blends such rich humility and detachment with such intensely rendered ideas of perception makes the work worth reading on its own. Yet she raises valid epistemological questions, most importantly: how do we see when we expect to see, and how do we dislocate our intended seeing? Prompted by this great book, I attempt to see the stillness in objects; the silence underscored by anarchic and destructive potential. Her casual tone is something to be commended as well, since approaching such a topic as she does without some seeming puerility would be a difficult task for anyone.