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lesliekate's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
2.5
Sehr inspirierend. Ich hab direkt einen Campingtrip geplant weil mich der Drang, in die Natur zu gehen und völlig abzuschalten übermannt hat. Allerdings auch ein sehr fragwürdiger Ansatz mit dem Thoreau Amerika, Kolonisation, Native Americans und Slavery betrachtet. Not the biggest fan. Inspiriert hat er mich trotzdem irgendwo...vielleicht eher herausgefordert.
darren_cormier's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.25
emmaemme05's review against another edition
4.0
il mio primo libro di filosofia, una perfetta esplorazione del mondo naturale e gli insegnamenti che possiamo trarre dal suo essere selvaggio. È necessario ricordare che Thoreau è nato nel 1800 quindi alcune espressioni e pensieri sono ovviamente figli del suo tempo, ma il concetto alla base è alla fine condivisibile (almeno per me).
leah_markum's review against another edition
4.0
According to Thoreau, there's an art to walking. Essentially, it's being home yet not having a home; being on a pilgrimage, yet idling. And since this is Thoreau, he ties his favorite hobby to environmental nature, and then to human nature.
akemi_666's review against another edition
2.0
Strange mix of primitive anarchism and American exceptionalism.
I really like Thoreau's disdain for private property and utilitarian instrumentality. Like, he feels pretty Taoist at times, emphasising the embodied experience of walking, in and for itself, against walking as a tool towards a dissociated ends. Same with private property; its enclosure desolates the wild and entangled energy that made the land desirable in the first place. Wilderness cannot be captured nor instrumentalised. It is the exuberant excess of every capitalist project.
But then he has these weird passages about how humans have always progressed to a higher state of being by moving westwards, which seems to implicitly justify American imperialism and the genocide of indigenous peoples. Cough syrup Hegel can fuck off.
I'm totally for having a dismal swamp as a front yard tho.
I really like Thoreau's disdain for private property and utilitarian instrumentality. Like, he feels pretty Taoist at times, emphasising the embodied experience of walking, in and for itself, against walking as a tool towards a dissociated ends. Same with private property; its enclosure desolates the wild and entangled energy that made the land desirable in the first place. Wilderness cannot be captured nor instrumentalised. It is the exuberant excess of every capitalist project.
But then he has these weird passages about how humans have always progressed to a higher state of being by moving westwards, which seems to implicitly justify American imperialism and the genocide of indigenous peoples. Cough syrup Hegel can fuck off.
I'm totally for having a dismal swamp as a front yard tho.
bookaneer's review against another edition
2.0
Hmm. Reading Thoreau has never been easy for me, it takes time and many pondering. But I remember that it was immersive. Walden and Civil Disobedience were among my favorite nonfiction writings of all time, and looking at the book still in my shelf and survived numerous book sales/swaps/etc, they still are. So I had high hopes when I came across this one. Thoreau philosophizing about walking, what's not to like.
Sadly, he didn't moved me this time. I was quite entranced with the first one-third of the essay - very Waldenish - but it went everywhere from there. He likes America a lot because the stars shine brighter, the moon is bigger and so on. "Westward the star of empire takes its way". He also says all good things are wild and free. Cultivation of land be damned. He wanted to live among the savages, even. "The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful verity with which good men and lovers meet." But no, he heard that apparently Singapore had tigers that could carry you away in the night is just too much wildness for him, so yeah, he'll stick with America. No tigers. Then he went on criticizing poetries and literature for "not adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild." Oookay.
Well, there are other weird sentences and musings which I won't bother copying them here. Nonetheless, there are still his usual quotable ones, some itsy bitsy gems here and there. But, at the end of this particular walk with Walden, I only got confused, lost my way, and definitely not er, "lit up with a great awakening light as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn".
Sadly, he didn't moved me this time. I was quite entranced with the first one-third of the essay - very Waldenish - but it went everywhere from there. He likes America a lot because the stars shine brighter, the moon is bigger and so on. "Westward the star of empire takes its way". He also says all good things are wild and free. Cultivation of land be damned. He wanted to live among the savages, even. "The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful verity with which good men and lovers meet." But no, he heard that apparently Singapore had tigers that could carry you away in the night is just too much wildness for him, so yeah, he'll stick with America. No tigers. Then he went on criticizing poetries and literature for "not adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild." Oookay.
Well, there are other weird sentences and musings which I won't bother copying them here. Nonetheless, there are still his usual quotable ones, some itsy bitsy gems here and there. But, at the end of this particular walk with Walden, I only got confused, lost my way, and definitely not er, "lit up with a great awakening light as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn".
shumska's review against another edition
4.0
mislim da je thoreauov glas danas aktualniji no ikada, ne samo radi spasa Zemlje, nego i radi spasa zdravog razuma.