96 pages
English language
Published Dec. 18, 1998 by Pomegranate.
This guy is a nineteenth century eco-hipster. This book is a long bit of rambling about nature, the human condition, and how we should act. It reminds me of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Some nice stories especially about the local Irish man who lived poorly spending all his money on coffee. Hard to learn anything from it. It gives tales of his time there, but nothing that I fully grabbed my attention beyond reading someone's diary
What a guy.
What can I say? I have a soft spot for environmental nonfiction that yanks at my heartstrings. Some people find "Walden" to be insufferable, but I prefer to think of it as more poetry than prose. Thoreau's writing is so crisp and tight that I can almost see him scrawling this out in his little cabin as I read it.
Walden reminds us what is really important in life. Watching the seasons change anew. The heroic story of two colonies of ants battling in the pine needles unnoticed by man. The artwork of nature and the universe that no painter or poet can match. Things we know intuitively as children, but forget in the duties and rules of adult life. Thoreau shows us a way we can live on our own terms. I think it's something we all want, but too few of us are able and courageous enough to find it. I found myself at a conflict reading this book. On one hand, I crave the simple life and independence that Thoreau presents (as seemingly the only right way to live). But, on the other, I can't see the world supporting 7 billion Walden ponds for us all to escape to. This book was written at a very different …
Walden reminds us what is really important in life. Watching the seasons change anew. The heroic story of two colonies of ants battling in the pine needles unnoticed by man. The artwork of nature and the universe that no painter or poet can match. Things we know intuitively as children, but forget in the duties and rules of adult life. Thoreau shows us a way we can live on our own terms. I think it's something we all want, but too few of us are able and courageous enough to find it. I found myself at a conflict reading this book. On one hand, I crave the simple life and independence that Thoreau presents (as seemingly the only right way to live). But, on the other, I can't see the world supporting 7 billion Walden ponds for us all to escape to. This book was written at a very different time. I think society has it's restrictions for a reason, and while it's nice to think about what it would be like without them, we don't all have the privilege to just ignore them. He says every man should be friction to the machine of the government, but wouldn't it just grind to halt? Who would enforce justice then?
I had a hard time keeping patient through some parts of the book. I would have probably gave up on it if I didn't like Thoreau's writing style so much. I think you either like the poetic style riddled with metaphors or you don't. I liked it and think it made some of his ideas easier to understand. Though he sometimes comes across to me as a 19th century hipster ("holier than thou" like another reviewer said), he still has some really great ideas on self reliance. This book has had a great effect on American society, and it was worth seeing the ideas behind it.
The American Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th Century was more than we deserved at the time, although with the Civil War, perhaps we atoned later for our sins. Walden is thought made beautiful through words, a book that pacifies without tranquilizing, and that spurs energy and action without tempting frenzy.
