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barareads's review against another edition
3.0
OK this text is easier to read than Emerson‘s nature, thank God for that…
the very first idea about not many people understanding or like being in on ‘the art of walking’ is great, motivational; then it gets a little bit weird but still a lot of good points that I could even use in different fields of my research. there are of course a lot of nice quotes. a little bit of hypocrisy in his praising of America, I was a bit uncomfortable reading about that considering the year in which it was written…
he sure loves the word ‘perchance’… and the part where he predicts that Americans will be so much more intellectual than Europeans was really funny to read.
overall it’s a good essay. I’m not exactly smart enough to understand all of it and analyze it all in depth but this time I got more than just the gist of it, so hooray i guess
the very first idea about not many people understanding or like being in on ‘the art of walking’ is great, motivational; then it gets a little bit weird but still a lot of good points that I could even use in different fields of my research. there are of course a lot of nice quotes. a little bit of hypocrisy in his praising of America, I was a bit uncomfortable reading about that considering the year in which it was written…
he sure loves the word ‘perchance’… and the part where he predicts that Americans will be so much more intellectual than Europeans was really funny to read.
overall it’s a good essay. I’m not exactly smart enough to understand all of it and analyze it all in depth but this time I got more than just the gist of it, so hooray i guess
liambetts's review against another edition
4.0
Very short, but this really inspired me. I love Thoreau's writing style, word choice and philosophy, even if he might be setting up a false dichotomy between nature and civilization.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions. ”
"All other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives.”
“Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.”
I've read excerpts of Walden before, but I've really got to reread it.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions. ”
"All other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives.”
“Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.”
I've read excerpts of Walden before, but I've really got to reread it.
wmmcnamara's review against another edition
“A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A township where one primitive forest waves above, while another primitive forest rots below,—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.”
meetingcanada's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
papidoc's review against another edition
4.0
I listened to this as an audiobook, and found it a bit difficult. Partly that may be due to the denseness of Thoreau's writing, but I suspect that it was mostly due to the reader. He read in something of a singsong manner, and was a bit difficult to understand sometimes, leading to a tendency for my mind to wander. I think this is one that I need to read for myself, with pen and notebook nearby, to process it better. Nonetheless, there were flashes of brilliance that came through as I was driving to and from work, and those make me eager to read it more carefully.
barnesstorming's review against another edition
3.0
It's OK. My issue with Thoreau is that he comes across as hubris-y. This one is less so, and there are some wonderful lines. And I know he was a pioneer essayist about nature. But to a modern eye, there's just too much ego and pretension for me to really get behind him. My wife LOVES this, and "Walden" (which I liked less than this). YMMV.
_jmrz_'s review against another edition
5.0
http://bibliophileblather.blogspot.com/2013/12/walking-henry-david-thoreau.html
I am ashamed to admit that up unto this past weekend, I had never read anything (besides a few happened-upon quotes I wrote in my journal) by Thoreau. I have long intended to read "Walden" and have felt that deep in my backpacking, alpine, and forest-loving soul I was destined to fandom of Thoreau...and that it was some sort of sin to not have already read several of his works already. In short, I felt a phony Thoreau fan. So, this past Saturday, I had a date with the library and intended (once again) to sit down to read "Walden", but instead a different essay, "Walking" caught my eye in a book of Thoreau's collected works.
In the way of background:
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was...well...a bit difficult to categorize. Among other things he was a American intellectual and writer known infamously for his experiment of living close with nature...which was reflected upon in his most famous work "Walden" (or so I'm told). Most scholars place him at the center of the American Renaissance and a notable figure in the transcendentalism movement. One article capture the aspect that I find most admirable about Thoreau:"Thoreau dedicated his life to the exploration of nature — not as a backdrop to human activity but as a living, integrated system of which you and I are simply a part."
"Walking" caught my attention initially by it's title alone. Having discovered a fondness for hiking over the past few years, feeling it something I should have grown up doing and am not making up lost time for with my exponentially growing ardor for it, I figured Thoreau would have some stirring things to say on the topic. The essay was the product of journal entries which then became two lectures which were then combined into one essay, "Walking", for publication in 1862..as Thoreau was dying.
Now to the essay itself:
There is no real risk of plot spoiler here, as plot is not the point. Mainly, I became instantly engrossed in reading this because it speaks so clearly to the point of what is lost in a life of Hurry, which I am the most guilty of. It seems to me to be a treatise and plea to remember the beauty that comes with less rather than more, slow rather than fast. It is a reminder to not give Time such a power over our daily lives, to forget it's existence entirely when we are able. And, of course, it is a beautiful reminder of the great treasure Nature is, the incredible creation it is, and that we take so little advantage of what it has to offer us all the time, each day.
A few of my favorite bits:
"...sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about he country, in the Middle Ages...under pretense of going 'a la Sainte Terre,' to the Holy Land...till the children exclaimed, 'there goes a Sainte-Terrer, a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander...some derive the word from "sans terre," without land or home...having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering."
"...the walking of which I speak...is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.
...for I believe that climate does thus react on man - as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires."
"Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price...from the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind."
"I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows."
"The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland...just killed emits the most delicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person should thus sweetly advertise...and remind us of those parts of Nature which he most haunts."
I, for one, hope to become more of a saunterer.
References:
http://thoreau.eserver.org/whowhy.html
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/thoreau-emerson-and-transcendentalism/thoreaus-walking/summary-and-analysis
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/thoreau/
I am ashamed to admit that up unto this past weekend, I had never read anything (besides a few happened-upon quotes I wrote in my journal) by Thoreau. I have long intended to read "Walden" and have felt that deep in my backpacking, alpine, and forest-loving soul I was destined to fandom of Thoreau...and that it was some sort of sin to not have already read several of his works already. In short, I felt a phony Thoreau fan. So, this past Saturday, I had a date with the library and intended (once again) to sit down to read "Walden", but instead a different essay, "Walking" caught my eye in a book of Thoreau's collected works.
In the way of background:
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was...well...a bit difficult to categorize. Among other things he was a American intellectual and writer known infamously for his experiment of living close with nature...which was reflected upon in his most famous work "Walden" (or so I'm told). Most scholars place him at the center of the American Renaissance and a notable figure in the transcendentalism movement. One article capture the aspect that I find most admirable about Thoreau:"Thoreau dedicated his life to the exploration of nature — not as a backdrop to human activity but as a living, integrated system of which you and I are simply a part."
"Walking" caught my attention initially by it's title alone. Having discovered a fondness for hiking over the past few years, feeling it something I should have grown up doing and am not making up lost time for with my exponentially growing ardor for it, I figured Thoreau would have some stirring things to say on the topic. The essay was the product of journal entries which then became two lectures which were then combined into one essay, "Walking", for publication in 1862..as Thoreau was dying.
Now to the essay itself:
There is no real risk of plot spoiler here, as plot is not the point. Mainly, I became instantly engrossed in reading this because it speaks so clearly to the point of what is lost in a life of Hurry, which I am the most guilty of. It seems to me to be a treatise and plea to remember the beauty that comes with less rather than more, slow rather than fast. It is a reminder to not give Time such a power over our daily lives, to forget it's existence entirely when we are able. And, of course, it is a beautiful reminder of the great treasure Nature is, the incredible creation it is, and that we take so little advantage of what it has to offer us all the time, each day.
A few of my favorite bits:
"...sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about he country, in the Middle Ages...under pretense of going 'a la Sainte Terre,' to the Holy Land...till the children exclaimed, 'there goes a Sainte-Terrer, a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander...some derive the word from "sans terre," without land or home...having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering."
"...the walking of which I speak...is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.
...for I believe that climate does thus react on man - as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires."
"Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price...from the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind."
"I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows."
"The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland...just killed emits the most delicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person should thus sweetly advertise...and remind us of those parts of Nature which he most haunts."
I, for one, hope to become more of a saunterer.
References:
http://thoreau.eserver.org/whowhy.html
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/thoreau-emerson-and-transcendentalism/thoreaus-walking/summary-and-analysis
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/thoreau/