Structure

Dillard favors long complex sentences with multiple pauses, clauses and phrases. Her transitions at times are weak, and are only realized until the reader is done with the subsequent paragraph. This form, or seemingly lack of, lends the reader to feel like they are walking right alongside her at Tinker Creek listening to her tangential thoughts and how the elaborate connections she has made between the natural world of Tinker Creek to the modern world to science to God and metaphysics. Sometimes the connections seem tenuous at best, just as when one moment in time can trigger a memory seemingly unconnected in the human mind. Her chapter structures amble—somewhat aimlessly—until the end when she closes with an image or motif that has been repeated throughout the chapter. Often, her writing circles around a question or an idea, never fully or explicitly answering the question, but...