Walden; Or, Life in the Woods

Rating:
Summary: Why we dwell in nature
Review: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." I grew up in New England near Walden Pond and first read Thoreau's Walden in college. It has had a profound influence upon my life over the thirty years since then. One of the great tragedies of life in our time is that many people spend their lives working like slaves to accumulate wealth which is spent on things they don't need. And in the course of this pursuit of wealth, vast tracts of time are lost at great expense. Why? Some people may never have the epiphany that the pursuit of material wealth and the search for meaning are entirely separate and wealth doesn't guarantee that you live your life well or nobly or meaningfully. Thoreau knew this. He considered the townspeople of Concord to be slaves to their farms and herds and fields and houses. In the woods Thoreau became totally immersed in the process of living each day: he watched red and black ants fight an epic battle, which he described as having great depths of Homeric valor. He observed the color of the pickerel in Walden and the color of the ice in winter. And listened with disdain to the sound of the Fitchburg railroad as it whistled in the distance. He was a purely self-reliant human being having built his own cabin by hand and planting his own fields. This great American naturalist could look at a stand of trees and tell by observation the forces of nature it had experienced. Thoreau is profoundly wise and if you read Walden earnestly, it will change your life. I know that after I had read it, I was never the same person. Give it a chance to do the same for you. You may become transcendental, if you read it sincerely. And understand the importance of marching to the tune of a different drummer.

Rating:
Summary: Find Yourself, but Not Always In the Woods.
Review: Walden is the most important book that I have ever read. It is instructive, but not to be taken literally. It is not dictating that everyone should go to the woods, but find their own God. For Thoreau that was Nature in the woods, for Thomas Carlyle, Great Leaders. What is it for you?

Rating:
Summary: A Study of the Beauty of Nature.
Review: Thoreau was an American naturalist and Walden is his meticulously kept record of the phenomena in nature that he observed. He espouses the benefits of nature as well as the healing properties of simple toil and the benefits of rugged independence. Thoreau's mantra of "Simplify, Simplify, Simplify" has become pertinent again and again over the years since he wrote this little book. The book is an excellent nature book as well. Thoreau spent hours observing nature, and wrote about it with a simple and beautiful prose. Thoreau spent two years at the pond Walden. This book covers his observations during that time.

Rating:
Summary: Counter-Culture Writing of Yore
Review: I did not particularly enjoy this book, but it is one of those books that anyone who wants to study American Literature must read. Some parts are fascinating, and some of his arguments are strikingly acute, subtle, and persuasive. However, his experiment in natural living and in a more honest human economy just does not ring true to me. While his minor points are often inspiring, the overall argument simply strikes me as a little too self-righteous and overbearing. His indictment of society aside, I just don't find his alternative views as an improvement. I'm not interested in breaking down said arguments for the sake of this review, but I find its strengths to lie in the quality of the writing, the completeness of the philosophy, and the conviction in which it is written. Its weaknesses are debatable. I can see where one could argue there are none if one were to agree with his points and enjoys the narrative style. Others may say it is rather long-winded and/or cynical. I fall somewhere in the middle, as I actually suspect few readers will. I think most people will love or hate Walden, but, like I said, every serious student must give it a chance.

Rating:
Summary: A compass for the bewildered world
Review: Imagine a society that falls spiritually asleep. Then imagine a man who wakes up from this societal lethargy and strikes out on a personal adventure in living, awareness, and enlightenment.

Well...perhaps Thoreau isn't quite the Buddha, but you have to give the man credit for making good with what he had at his disposal. For centuries untold, the highest spiritual aspirants of our world have striven for a life of purity and simplicity apart from the masses. Many of them had great teachers and spiritual guides; but some, like Thoreau, had to go it alone. There is a saying in the Dhammapada: "But if you cannot find / friend or master to go with you, / travel on alone / like a king who has given away his kingdom, / Like an elephant in the forest."

Thoreau is such an elephant, diligently making his way through the forest, seeking a path of which our society has lost sight.

Anyone who is bewildered with the modern world, who sees layer after layer of absurdity and insanity in our industrial age, or who has felt acutely the loss of spiritual identity in the western world, should pick up Walden. Thoreau knows the way better than most; follow his lead to the heart of wisdom.


Rating:
Summary: Thoreau was a genius, like Jerry Garcia
Review: When Thoreau made his great experiment of withdrawal from the social world he went into the woods in order to confront himself and real life. This action , the action of withdrawal and the ensuing revelation have served as inspiration and example for many others overwhelmed by the burdens and business of life. Thoreau however was not an ordinary person in withdrawal. He was a very deep student of Nature and of the philosophical literature of his Time, of Emerson. And he was in tune with the Transcendental spirit of that time that reaching out and beyond to a spiritual reality which in some way would unite all worlds and bring the universal unity of Mankind. The combination of his deep perception of the local physical world and the vast stretch of his richly metaphoric mind help make one of the great American classics.
This work is so aphoristically rich that it is difficult to read it as simple consecutive prose. As with Emerson one must pause and rethink the various aphorisms given us. But one thing, the spirit, the spirit of hope of intellectual adventure of faith in a greatness and goodness in Nature carry us forward. As Thoreau said " There is new day to dawn , the sun is but a morning star"


Rating:
Summary: World Classic
Review: Borrowing a corner of friend Ralph Waldo Emerson's farm, Thoreau sets out to conduct an experiment in living more simply for the sake of living more fully spiritually and intellectually. He builds a small cabin and begins to live self-sufficiently with his own hand, farming, hunting and building as he needs. By keeping his wants simple he keeps his horizons broad and finds that he may devote himself to higher callings than he might with the encumbrances of modern life.

Walden is the journal of this experiment, providing an account of both the mode of living he has chosen and the far-reaching contemplations he is able to afford himself by that mode of living. It is page after page of beautiful prose and imagery considering his place in nature and society both--or simply appreciating the length and breadth of the day from his doorstep, having given himself the freedom to forego his work if he pleases by keeping his wants simple and true to what the human spirit needs rather than what vanity or social convention say he must need. While his thoughts wander far afield at times his observations are invariably insightful and often profound. (It is startling the number of well-known quotes and observations that find their first expression in Walden.)

And this is his theme, not to live as a recluse, but to suggest that we all live more simply so that we may live more fully, that our villages be spread out and we allow ourselves space for thought and freedom to follow a muse, and that we further make our villages and indeed the whole of nature our living universities and schools, making the student learn by living and the community itself perpetual teacher and student.

While his own experiment called for living apart for the sake of testing the limits of self-reliance, Thoreau does not advocate a world of hermits. He remains very much engaged in the society around himself, only asking that we consider what it means to provide for ourselves and if we haven't found that most of our effort is devoted to superfluity and nearly none to the mind and spirit. He argues that the essentials of maintaining one's self are much simpler than society has deemed and that what passes for the norm has become a hindrance to living rather than an improvement.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review: I had not read this growing up but wish I had. This is such a wonderful book. There are not many pictures in here - just a hand drawn map in one part of the book. Its excerpts from Thoreau's journal over the two year period when he lived on Walden's pond. He did not live like a recluse (he went in to Concord almost every day) so its not a book about living alone per se. Its more about reflecting on life, considering why one "is" and recognizing the beauty and mystery of nature around us every day, everywhere. Thoreau talks of regular daily things too like what it costs him to farm, or having cider, or building a chimney. The writing style is conversational, open, honest. He doesn't try to get tricky with words, he just tells it like he sees it. It's so beautiful. For anyone (like me) who indeed sees nature as their "religion" or sees the Great Spirit in every leaf, tree and bug, this book will be adored. So many wonderful messages, thoughts, woven throughout this book. Its an incredible work.