Style
- She uses lots of metaphor.
- She provides geographical context (p. 4).
- She drops anecdotes and symbolic stories without explaining them (p. 5).
- Intermingles everything. Her writing is also curious and stimulated as if, really, walking.
- She inserts vignettes and settles on them for a while (p. 6).
- She describes general patterns, which means she have observed the same location, the same phenomena many times. But then describes what is happening now, today, as a point of reference or return (p. 7).
- She includes flashbacks or memories (p. 7), which suggests she really is recording stuff.
- She describes something before naming it, creating suspense and mystery (e.g., the giant water bug, p. 8).
- In some areas she starts to sermon. This is her channeling Thoreau (p. 9).
- She tries to write her philosphical thoughts but uses poetic language and metaphors (p. 11).
- She is excellent in describing the landscape (p. 11).
- She also describes a lengthier phenomena like sunset (p. 11).
- She uses short simple sentences.
- She uses disgression.
- She inserts real scientific descriptions.
- She inserts real anthropological accounts. Collect everything interesting!
- In some areas she becomes the subject of her paragraphs and heavily uses “I”.
- She uses childhood stories (p. 16).
- She states an axiom. Then suddenly tells a story (p. 20)
- Chapter three is a narrative on an afternoon of walking up until coming home. But within the narratvie are science trivias and writing, that extends the narrative. .
Learnings
- Collect lots of observations. Stay longer outdoors. Give more time for fieldwork.
Metaphors
- She used the tomcat as a metaphor of her curiosity.
- Mountains are her home; Creeks are the world where stimulus come from.
- When describing how the wind creates ripples on the surface of the water: “it crumples the water’s skin.” I saw the word crumple used by Craig Mod to describe mountain.
Phrases
- ”my spread lungs roared”
- mutely alive
Vocabulary
- Ex nihilo
- Bivouac
- Searing
- Seething
- Studded
- Strewn
- Ganglia
- Danse macabre
- Suet
- Gibbous
- Coot
- Rutted
- Pittance
- Spittle
- Engorged
- Rummaging
- Concertina
- Rove
- Clabber
- Excorciate
- Bungling
- Implacable
- Scrying
- Unkeeled
- Allayed
Questions
Is it possible to channel this sense of wonder? Everyday? Is it possible to be an existence where this wonder is not lost, but cultivated and transmitted to other and in one’s work?
Chapter by Chapter Analysis
Heaven and Earth in Jest
-
The tomcat and its bloodied pawprints
-
Washing the pawprints in front of the mirror in the morning
-
Waking up in the morning = arriving on the shore and entering a headland
-
Present: Waiting for surprises outside her window
-
Introduces setting: house, the creeks, the mountains
-
Wood duck flying → eating oatmeal at home → afternoon walking
-
Walking and walking near water
-
Walking on a January day; Kazantkasis
-
Describes a part of Tinker Creek; steers
-
Describes the steers
-
Continues to describe a walk with these steers
-
Describes a different part of the creek, an island, now featuring water creatures
-
Returns to talking about the island but on a different time (summers ago), i.e, backstory → talks about frogs → a specific frog
-
Witnessed the frog eaten by a giant water bug
-
Talks about the giant water bug
-
Carnivorous animals
-
==Thesis: Its is chancy in the world but we are also created. But were we created in jest? Did God created us then absconded us? Perhaps God has not absconded but spread that we can’t reach him.
-
==Thesis: Despite the existence of cruelty, we can’t describe the world just by this because of the existence of grace → mockingbird drop
-
Continues discussion on the mockingbird drop → Beauty and grace happens even if we don’t witness it (we just have to be there)
-
Sharks
-
==Thesis: See the landscape as a whole
-
==Thesis: The landscape has been extravagances from the get go
-
Describes the creek then a walk out of it
-
Describes the wind then the light
-
The most beautiful day of the year at 4:00
-
The most beautiful day of the year (continued): 4:30 light and mountains
-
The most beautiful day of the year (continued): 5:30 end of the show but moves on to the next part of the landscape, never stops → compares it with a magician
-
Describes walking on the other side of the mountain → references Thoreau’s “a meteorological journal of the mind.”
-
Explorer of neighborhood, not scientist. → Compares herself to a child
-
Like Thoreau, she describes her “profession” done in the night.
-
Describes her profession done in the mornings.
-
Calls herself a stalker or instrument of the hunt → talks about Indians
-
Conclusion: heavy symbolisms of air
References
Dillard, A. (2013). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.