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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
"I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society."
"Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap."
"For I believe that climate does thus react on man—as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky—our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains—our intellect generally on a grander seale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests—and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas."
"Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them—transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a library—aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature."
"I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense than this."
"So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste—sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill—and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the mind, cast by the wings of some thought in its vernal or autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry."
"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 am frustrated. Frustrated by the bounds and constraints of the modern world on the wild spirit of my inner self. Frustrated by the small amounts of growth and exploration my body and mind allows. I yearn to feel in touch with, in sync with, nature. I used to dismiss nature as lesser, boring, dirty, uncomfortable. We are all alienated from our roots while we are indoctrinated into society. But now I yearn to be free of the restraints of society. Of the daily responsibilities and anxieties imposed upon me by the structures I once rushed to embrace out of fear of insecurity and rejection.
I want to be free.
"Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap."
"For I believe that climate does thus react on man—as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky—our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains—our intellect generally on a grander seale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests—and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas."
"Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as often as he used them—transplanted them to his page with earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring, though they lay half smothered between two musty leaves in a library—aye, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature."
"I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know in any higher sense than this."
"So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste—sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill—and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the mind, cast by the wings of some thought in its vernal or autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry."
"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 am frustrated. Frustrated by the bounds and constraints of the modern world on the wild spirit of my inner self. Frustrated by the small amounts of growth and exploration my body and mind allows. I yearn to feel in touch with, in sync with, nature. I used to dismiss nature as lesser, boring, dirty, uncomfortable. We are all alienated from our roots while we are indoctrinated into society. But now I yearn to be free of the restraints of society. Of the daily responsibilities and anxieties imposed upon me by the structures I once rushed to embrace out of fear of insecurity and rejection.
I want to be free.
To this modern reader’s ears, Walking is a bit slow, wordy, and ponderous. Still, there are flashes of brilliance and passages that made me think. I chose Walking for a book club discussion because it is “always available” through our Overdrive collection and so everyone could download it. It’s also short.
I was taken aback by this passage from the poem The Old Marlborough Road:
Um, what? Elijah Wood? I had to read it several times to convince myself it was there.
I was taken aback by this passage from the poem The Old Marlborough Road:
Where they once dug for money,
But never found any;
Where sometimes Martial Miles
Singly files,
And Elijah Wood,
I fear for no good
Um, what? Elijah Wood? I had to read it several times to convince myself it was there.
A somewhat connected series of thoughts and ideas on the act of walking, this book is presented and read like an afternoon stroll. I remember highlighting quite a few sentences, but I can’t recall any of them right now. All that to say it was enjoyable and interesting, but not necessary.
reflective
fast-paced
reflective
medium-paced
I’ve been meaning to read Thoreau for a long time, long enough to have had a copy of Walden sitting on my bookshelf “to be read” for several years. Finally I decided to begin by biting off one of his smaller works to see if it would entice me into Walden… it did not.
Thoreau, like many authors of his time, has some good takes and some bad ones. The bad ones didn’t make walking unreadable (because it’s so short) but they did make me realize that I would much rather take my environmental philosophy from the Robin Wall Kimmerers of the world. For example, here’s what Thoreau thinks of Indigenous American practices.
“The very winds blew the Indian's cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench himself in the land than a clam-shell. But the farmer is armed with plow and spade.”
Hmmm. Yuck. This quote fits in with his broadly imperialistic philosophies that so famously write America as a country of infinite glories, such as this line:
“America is made for the man of the Old World.... The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked by a new civilization superior to the preceding.”
Cool. You think you’re special. So no I won’t be reading Walden, at least not unless someone talks me into it in the future, but I won’t say that Thoreau is without merit. I leave my review with 2 quotes that caught my eye in a good way.
“I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock, spruce or arbor vitae in our tea.”
“Which is the best man to deal with he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?”
"...in Wildness is the preservation of the World." Thoreau's two essays in my version of the text, "Walking" and "Night and Moonlight" focus on the importance of not only appreciating existing wildness around us, but cultivating wildness in ourselves and the surrounding areas. Almost contradicting himself in some parts, he suggest that the Farmer is above the Indian, in that he believes that some cultivation and agriculture is better than leaving things lie. At the same time, he holds the view of his time that the Indians (read, Native Americans) are a primitive culture with no complex technology, saying that they would cultivate the land with a "clam shell." Despite this evidence of his time period and a few slight contradictions, I found these essays to be fresh and informative, still applicable in a time when nature seems to be slipping away through our fingers. Thoreau's places where "no man has stood before and no man will ever stand" are growing few and far between.
I read this because it popped up on my Libby app. I have never read any Thoreau and thought it might be a good place to start. The appeal of walking and being out in nature in the middle of this corona isolation made it sound like a good book. I really enjoyed the beauty of nature in the first pages - and the solitude. Having all that untouched beauty to oneself sounded refreshing and nice. Then the language started to get to me. Thoreau's thoughts also felt a bit rambling and even contradictory at times. He wanted the wild, but then he wanted to worship farmers who are ones who tame the wild. (Unless I misunderstood something.) I think my main takeaway from this little book is that I won't be reading Walden Pond any time soon. I can figure out how to play hermit in nature and rejoice in nature on my own without Thoreau's help. I hope I don't sound too sacrilegious when I say that.
challenging
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
medium-paced