lilysgross 's review for:

Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
5.0

Thoreau has to be one of the most ridiculous, annoying, self-indulgent, absurdist characters/authors in all of American literature... and yet his sincerity and lack of affectation is clear throughout, and one learns to distinguish when he is being earnest and tongue-in-cheek – this distinction is a key part of the argument itself, which builds throughout the book (really a long essay in careful, meditative chapters). A political philosophy, an ethic of the self, a careful and prescient naturalist study, an intimate journal, a book of proverbs... Many things to return to here and I look forward to reading it again in ten years.