SOURCE: "The Dialectical Vision of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," in Critique, Vol. XXIV. No. 3, Spring, 1983, pp. 182-91.

In the essay below, Reimer argues that Dillard employs a dual dialectic in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, first between nature and religion, then between beauty and horror.

When Pilgrim at Tinker Creek appeared in 1974, reviewers agreed that it was a highly unusual treatise on nature. The work obviously exerted a peculiar power, for reviewers were either rhapsodic in their praise or passionate in their indignation. Neither side, however, was quite sure in what tradition or genre the book belonged, or in what context to evaluate the author's rather disconcerting conclusions about the natural world. That is where the matter has stayed. A bibliographical search some five years later turned up no articles on the book besides the initial reviews. Although the book has gone through twelve printings in two...