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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Felt to much like the ramblings of an immature teenager who just realised “profound” truths (from the perspective of our time). In his time, I do not doubt this was revolutionary ig, but I just can’t take this seriously rn
How do you write a review on a book such as Walden? How do you even approach it? It is such an influential text that has transcended from the aprox 350 pages of the book itself to a life of its own. It is the essence of the American dream, the epitome of individuality and freedom. How can I even dare to criticize it? But perhaps I shouldn’t be so intimidated. I think that Thoreau probably wouldn’t like that very much, and who has anything to learn from their elders anyway, right?
Walden is a book of grand ideas, there is no denying that. It is apparent that Thoreau held a lot of interesting ideas and expressed them very eloquently, because despite his sometimes bombastic intonation, I cannot do anything but agree that living deliberately essentially sounds like a good idea. I do believe that more people should at least try to reflect upon their own place in the world once in a while. Some of us, me included, live in an abundance of material goods and could do with trying to let go of some of that material obsession. Who knows what would happen if we stopped throwing away perfectly good things and replace them with new ones all the time? What would happen to our sense of selves? In a society where commodities often constitutes a representation of one’s identity, getting rid of your stuff could possibly be a complete remodeling of the subject. But I won’t go into that right now, there is a perfectly good book called Fight Club that already deals with this issue.
Like Thoreau, I also find the idea of the untouched wilderness very compelling. I can really understand the need to walk in the woods and isolate oneself from the constant flow of information and opinions and just hear yourself think. I also sense an underlying issue of commodification of land itself in this aspect. In a country where much of that same wilderness is considered private property, the sanctity of it must become much more important. Where I live, everyone has the right to trade on private property without the threat of everything from scary gunmen to law-suits. We have the fundamental right to walk in the forests, go fishing in the streams and even go camping. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to not have that privilege. For a man like Thoreau, who saw his contemporaries as being on a path on the way to ignorance, mundane consumerism and progress for progress sake, the regression back to untouched origins and Spartan lifestyle must have seemed necessary for survival of the mind and body.
It is for these reasons that I can understand how and why Walden has left such a deep mark on the American canon. It is well-written, convincing and argumentative for taking control of one’s own life in a society that make you feel small or invisible. To take a step back, like Thoreau did, is to make the world smaller and to make yourself bigger. If nothing else, it must feel a lot more comfortable. We have seen the result of this idea in practice. There are a lot of people who has followed Thoreau’s lead, packed their bags and left in order to seek the great perhaps. Just last October, I attended a lecture by a man who told his audience that he wasn’t much of a reader, but he had read Walden during a particularly hard period of his life and as a result, he had uprooted himself and moved away from civilisation and into a small cabin in the northernmost part of Sweden. He then proceeded to spend three years all by himself up there in the darkness and the massive silence. I was naturally intrigued, because I’ve rarely heard of books that has such a significant impact upon a person. But I am fairly sure that his story is’t unique. The legacy of Walden echoes through a lot of great literature. I see it in novels like On the Road and I see it in novels like Fight Club. Even though none of them express Thoreau’s philosophies explicitly, the spirit of Walden is there.
But how can this dense book be so impactful? I believe that it has partly to do with its evangelic tone, which is inescapable while reading. Thoreau is not afraid of expressing himself boldly and bluntly, and this point is in fact one of the issues I have with this novel. Thoreau expresses himself with such authority that all objections are drowned in the forceful flood. To me, this counteract the whole purpose of the book. If one is to seclude oneself from the opinions and influences of others, why should we listen to this guy? This question haunted me while reading, and the matter became more and more pressing as I started to realise that Thoreau himself hasn’t achieved this liberation. Incidentally, as his narration progressed, I felt more and more like he was not at all living up to his own ideals. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the fact that he isn’t really removing himself from civilisation is the most compelling evidence for this. Yes, he builds his own house and describes his struggles in detail, yet neglecting to be as outspoken about the detail that it is located within walking distance from his parental home and of equally short distance to the town of Concord. It is mentioned in passing only. The same goes for his detailed descriptions of food and provisions. He spends a couple of pages carefully describing what he eats and what he produces while in the next breath mention lightly that he doesn’t include the food that is provided in the form of meals sent and shared with family and friends. It just doesn’t add up. Okay, one or two of these things would probably not make me react very strongly, but this is a reoccurring issue throughout the text. Ultimately, it makes him look like a little privileged white man who hasen’t thought very much about practicing what he preaches.
These inconsistencies are probably also the reason why the debate regarding Walden’s importance is still ongoing. In my post-read research, I came across two articles that really stood out to me. The first one, written by Kathryn Schulz and published in The NewYorker in October 2015 asked the question of why everyone loves Henry David Thoreau? In this article, Schulz strongly argues that Walden’s importance to the American consciousness is too great in regards to its meager content and Lutheran tone. She argues that Thoreau has put himself on too high a horse and believes that he is better than his fellow men. She even goes as far as to write that: “’Walden’ is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people.” I agree with this view to some extent. There are indeed very problematic parts in Thoreau’s rhetoric. For example, he moralises and ridicules other people’s life choices. I think specifically about his description of his neighbor John Field, the Irishman who most likely has fled from the Great Potato Famine and who has migrated to America to make a better life for himself and his family. While the family show hospitality to him during a rain shower, he takes the opportunity to dissect their unfortunate situation and scrutinize all their faults and flaws over which Thoreau claims moral and social victory. The same disregard for other people’s sufferings can be seen in descriptions of how the poor likes being clothed in rags and dirt and that it therefore would be futile to try and help them. These examples are just two out of numerous similar accounts, and I must confess that for me, this is a little hard to stomach. It tells me that the self-acclaimed freedom that Thoreau favours must come at the expense of others’. And I just cannot accept that. Neither can Schulz, and her article aims sharp critique towards him for all his transgressions on human civility and compassion.
However, another article from the same month, written by Donovan Hohn and published in The New Republic, points out that Schulz is missing the point of Walden in her article. This is very interesting, because Hohn expresses a completely different view of Walden and Thoreau’s life. Among other things, Hohn points out that Thoreau was an active participant in his community, was an avid abolitionist and was active in the Underground Railroad. This does not sound like a man who fails to see the needs of others. In contrast ot Schulz, Hohn reads Walden as a spiritualist text outside of the Christian doctrine that has the ability to expand the worldly issues into a more important discussion of identity and transcendental philosophy. This is valid and well and all, but the thing that really stood out to me in Hohn’s article was the fact that he suggested that Thoreau’s intention with Walden perhaps wasn’t that it was to be taken as gospel, but that it in fact was to be seen as humorous and at least partially ironic. Hohn mentions that after attending one of Thoreau’s lectures, Emerson, Thoreau’s friend and fellow transcendentalist, noted in his journal that the audience had ”laughed till they cried”.
And this is perhaps where some of my own thoughts and reflections essentially land, too. I think that this ambivalence in Thoreau’s writing is precisely why his work continues to be a source of debate. Hohn asks why we so desperately want to see Thoreau as either a saint or a fraud, why can’t he be both? I see the answer to this as fairly simple really: should we regard this book as an account of an actual experiment, or should we see it as a fictional piece? Depending on how one chooses to answer that question, this book has very different agendas. Undoubtedly, many do take this text literally, and regard it as a piece of argumentative philosophy in favour of the individual over the collective. If one do, I think that this text is highly problematic. If it was to be taken seriously, it resembles something of an Ayn Rand novel where extreme individualism is the only way to progress and where communal and familial relationships are symbols of bondage. In such case, I do think that Schulz has every right to be worried that this text is assigned reading in American high schools. In contrast, if one chooses to regard Walden as a piece of fiction where Thoreau sketches a persona of himself instead of claiming it be an accurate account of his views, this book becomes much more complicated, and in my opinion, much more interesting. I do believe that the truth, as always, falls somewhere in between. There are indeed parts of Walden where Thoreau’s voice resonates clearly and truthfully, but the little quirks and inconsistencies reveals that there are probably more than meets the eye. I believed it to be ironic at first, and it wasn’t until a fellow bookworm, whom I hold in high esteem, told me that they took it as a serious work, that I realised that it was even possible to do so. However, despite that it has been pointed out to me, I struggle to reconcile with the statement that Walden is a non-fiction work. To me, it is as much a fabrication of the fantastical as Thomas More’s Utopia. This view does not prevent me from taking the key themes seriously, I just think that Thoreau ultimately wants to encourage his readers to think for themselves. I think Thoreau wanted to write something that made people stop and think independently, and this is not the case if one takes is as truth. As always, the failing link between theory and practice is the small human, with all their issues, insecurities and search for simple truths. To me, Walden makes it evident that it cannot be that easy.
Rating: 2,5
This book goes from me being tempted to skip sections to thinking that Thoreau was a genius. There are several sections in desperate need of being trimmed, but there are also so many where I was highlighting almost the whole page. I would suggest reading this over the course of a few days rather than all at once, so that you have time to ponder the lovely thoughts.
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Beautiful
This book was painful to get through. The first chapter was interesting and posed some good arguments and critiques on capitalism and consumerism, the last chapter was an interesting note on being a citizen. Especially during a time when you don't agree with the government. I see why the only parts of this book read/taught in schools is the last chapter. The rest of the book is musings on nature, Thoreau's prose and writing is beautiful, but he gets lost in the weeds and a lot of the nice context he is talking about nature get's lost in his complete pompous "I'm better than everyone else" attitude. Altogether his writing is beautiful but the ulterior beauty is lost in the pages.
This is my fourth attempt at reading this book. Listening to the audiobook helped me to finish. Thoreau is an interesting man who comes across as extremely arrogant and intellectually righteous as he espouses his philosophy of the world. I like his thoughts in regards to material possession and living simply as opposed to living to be a consumer or to gain fame etc. The first half of the book focuses on his reasoning to live by Walden’s pond and the justification for doing it. This section is thought provoking and enjoyable. The second section focuses on the wildlife surrounding his dwelling. This is not so engaging. However, it is effective in showing the benefits of slowing down and finding the joy in observing nature.
I really wanted to like this book. It has some good quotes, but ultimately this book was boring and the detail he goes into about certain things is a bit much for my taste. I gained nothing by reading pages about air bubbles forming in the ice.
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I just don't have the attention span for this one right now. He's so wordy and rambles a lot. I'm sure he's brilliant... Probably?