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A review by _jmrz_
Walking by Henry David Thoreau
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/