During last week’s absence of a column, it was pointed out to me by a friend that pretty much all of the books I’ve written about so far have been by male authors. Was that an accident, they politely wanted to know, or do I just only like books written by men?

That was a question that made me cringe a little, and while a look at the bookshelves in my study turns up a definite count in favor of male writers, there’s a healthier representation of woman writers than there has been in this column. Or, to mangle a cringeworthy phrase: Some of my favorite books are by women, and I thought I’d use this space to try and make sure I talked about a couple of them:

This week, I’d like to touch on my relationship with Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, one of the more singular reading experiences I’ve ever had, and a book that I really value, although I’ve always found it a bit difficult to explain why. (I imagine most readers, constant readers, have three or four books like that, at least, don’t they?)

Annie Dillard wrote Tinker Creek while living in Virginia—it’s commonly described on the internet as a ‘nonfiction narrative’, which means, I guess, a book where someone talks about their life, but it isn’t a biography, isn’t concerned with day-to-day terms. Rather, it seems to span a year (possibly less) at Tinker Creek, a sort of twentieth-century Walden, where Dillard observes the world around her and works out her thoughts on humanity, on god, the cosmos, etc. Although she makes some reference to the neighbors, to other people, the voice throughout the book is understandably Dillard’s, and by the end of the book you (or at least, I couldn’t) help but like and admire her.

I first encountered Tinker’s Creek in university, when it was one of the options on a reading list for a class in American Literature(tm). At the time, I knew nothing about Annie Dillard or her writing—I picked the book simply because I liked a title. (Note to aspiring writers: This is why your titles are important! Because of lazy sods like me) Picking the book up, at first I thought it was a novel, and was shocked to realize, a few pages in, during Mz. Dillard’s description of her cat, that it wasn’t. Further, I was shocked at how readable, how vivid the book was (the past couple of books I’d read for class I’d been a bit…less than enamoured of, let’s say). Annie Dillard’s prose, on the other hand, was uncluttered, clear, insightful, and busy, drawing connections between things that might seem unrelated and flitting from page to page tying together some kind of…great pattern that reflected her life. You got the feeling, reading Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek, that everything, every cannibalistic wasp and breeding fish and trip to the vet with an injured cat, was part of some great, ornate design. In the parlance, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek made it look easy. It’s also a life-affirming book. At the time I read it, I was coming out of a fairly dark mood that had kept my chin down for the previous few months—Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was one of the things that lifted my spirits and convinced me to give the world a second try. In terms of looking at the world, it uses a paradigm that feels very different than the one that theologians and athiests often argue over, about God and suffering and intelligent design and evolution. The way Dillard addresses these issues is singular, and inspiring. Regarding the problem of pain, as C.S Lewis described it, she memorably points out, paraphrasing here, that ‘either the wold is a monster, or I myself am a freak’. One gets the feeling her tongue is only half-in-cheek when she says it. And when she is describing the feeling she gets watching the sun set behind a tree or comparing locusts to grasshoppers, she constantly connects the specific, the visible, the tactile to the mysterious, the ethereal, the abstract, the universal. It’s quite an extraordinary book. Love it or hate it, I guarantee that, if you read it, you’ll find it different from anything else out there.