Walden (1854)

I actually liked this book a lot. While I was quite hesitant at first, I eventually sat down to read it and it was absolutely worth it. Walden describes Henry David Thoreau's life in the woods, in a cabin he built himself. While he explains how he lived, what he did and how his life changed in a autobiographical way, the book also contains a lot of material concerning Thoreau's worldview and his philosophical thought patterns.

A good, short reading experience, which lets you rethink about the things that are most important in life. ( )

Boring.

A few interesting thoughts here and there — mainly philosophical ideas, and considerations about nature and the wilderness and their intrinsic value — but most of it is whimsical and messy.

Exaggerated in its claims (you can't learn anything from older people; people are dumb and don't show any initiative; we should strive to live with the bare minimum; poverty is a virtue; the village of Concord, MA, is a shithole of ignorant peasants).

The message isn't clear. Perhaps: be radically independent, shun civilisation, worship freedom and nature and the Classics.

ca. 350 pages detailing the measures of Walden Pond in the Summer, the irregularities in the thickness of the ice layer in the Winter, assorted gossip or legends about people who lived nearby, the exact type of materials he used to build his hut, how and when he built it…

I'll save a few quotes from the book, and an imprecise message about libertarian politics and environmentalism, but that's it, I think. ( )

I appreciated the ability of Thoreau to feel and describe so fully his deepest thoughts on his surroundings but I did tire of the length of descriptions. ( )

Mostly trite observations and nihilism dressed up as romanticism. Stealing nuts from squirrels is a novel experience but rather unilluminating to read about. ( )

To borrow the environmental movements phrasing of 'act local, think global', I would sum up Thoreau's Walden as 'live simply and think hard'. So many of the trappings of our lives are unnecessary for our relationship with the land, each other and the larger world of ideas. Fashion, money, great houses, etc. do not bring inner peace or knowledge (p. 9). Books, time to contemplate and people to talk with are all we should need. He says so eloquently in his section on Civil Disobedience, "There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness."

This is my first time reading Walden, but I'm struck by how many excerpts I've heard over the years, without attribution. I think he'd like that, in that the knowledge lives on, not the one who put it on paper at one time.

I heard the following quote in the film Dead Poet's Society: "I went to the woods to live deliberately" (p. 66). What an amazing sentence and thought. It's structure is simple, its effect, on me, forceful and profound.

To end, I like his advice in his section of Civil Disobedience: "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." ( )