Annie Dillard Revisited

Fifteen years ago my prof (later mentor, Dr. Reg Grant) assigned for his class to read Annie Dillard's Pulitzer-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek as part of a course in creative writing. (We had to read it and then turn in something that mimicked her style.) And frankly, I could hardly stand the book. I wanted her to get on with something, anything instead of trailing on and on about nature.

Still, the results proved interesting, even if for some students (self included) the work provided only an opportunity for parody.

So this week I gave my students the same assignment. And I re-read Dillard to refresh my memory. (I wanted to be able to catch their allusions, sorting through what they borrowed and what they created.)

To my utter surprise, I loved it! (If only my Auntie Louise were still alive--who once told me she would like to "come back" as a duck, because they have such fun splashing and diving, even on gray, rainy days. I wanted to send her a copy.)

Whereas in the past I had not read enough poets to catch Dillard's veiled references to them, now I understood. And whereas in the past I had read too little history even to know what anchoresses were, this time when I found them in her similes, I caught her meaning. The whole experience had the effect of making me glad to have yielded youth to years of learning. Eureka!

As Dillard writes, "'Never lose a holy curiosity,' Einstein said; and so I lift my microscope down from the shelf, spread a drop of duck pond on a glass slide, and try to look spring in the eye."

What the microscope is to her, books are to me. And this week when I lifted one from the shelf and spread open its pages, I found a generous reward for trying again to look Dillard in the eye.