Thoreau in Love in Queereaders

May 13, 2013 Grady rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The lost pages, the secret thoughts of Henry David Thoreau

John Schuyler Bishop has written a startlingly new and fine novel about one of America's icons, the brilliant thinker, writer, philosopher, environmentalist, abolitionist Thoreau. Bishop reconstructs Thoreau's 1843 six-month sojourn to New York from the 250 pages missing from Thoreau's diary written during that time and in doing so he has unveiled a splendid love story about a `love that dare not speak its name.' It is a wondrously entert The lost pages, the secret thoughts of Henry David Thoreau

John Schuyler Bishop has written a startlingly new and fine novel about one of America's icons, the brilliant thinker, writer, philosopher, environmentalist, abolitionist Thoreau. Bishop reconstructs Thoreau's 1843 six-month sojourn to New York from the 250 pages missing from Thoreau's diary written during that time and in doing so he has unveiled a splendid love story about a `love that dare not speak its name.' It is a wondrously entertaining and tender reconstruction of a missing segment of Thoreau's life and flows so naturally that THOREAU IN LOVE abruptly becomes a credible missing link for historians to address.

A bit of history from the encyclopedia before discussing this book: `Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book `Walden', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay `Civil Disobedience', an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on Staten Island, and tutored the family sons while seeking contacts among literary men and journalists in the city who might help publish his writings, including his future literary representative Horace Greeley. Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's pencil factory, which he continued to do for most of his adult life. He rediscovered the process to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite by using clay as the binder; this invention improved upon graphite found in New Hampshire and bought in 1821 by relative Charles Dunbar. (The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Cont茅 process, was patented by Nicolas-Jacques Cont茅 in 1795).'

It is this sojourn to New York, or rather to Staten Island, that Bishop addresses in his book. Bishop offers evidence that Thoreau had always had same sex inclinations as a young boy and into his college year when he roomed with an openly gay Stearns in college and had attractions to young men in Concord but forever resisted his inclinations because of the fear of discovery by the puritanical society, especially in Concord. But when he accepts a job with his idol Ralph Waldo Emerson's relative William Emerson and his disconsolate wife Susan in their home on Staten Island, he travels by boat with Susan and there he meets the 16 year old stunningly handsome sailor and Captain's Boy Ben Wickham and immediately there is a mutual attraction which by the end of the trip to Staten Island has blossomed into a profoundly memorable love affair.

Once separated form one another at Staten Island Henry attempts to adjust to his role as a tutor of the Emerson children while at the same time questioning his aching longing for Ben, deciding that would be no respectable life for a man who longs to be known for his writing. He dates women, seeks publication of his essays in New York, but all the time he writes love poems to Ben, writes and receives love letters with Ben, adjusts to the life on Staten Island, befriends a gay minister who is married - a situation Henry finds unacceptable - and finally receives Ben as a guest in this attic room in the Emerson household where the two spend a couple of weeks in bliss. But Henry's inability to be truthful about his sexual preferences and Ben's open acceptance of his own ultimately causes a separation. Ben leaves and when Henry searches New York for his lost love he discovers the futility of his affair and Ben by letter advises him to return to Concord to the woods that Henry loves so dearly - and in doing so Walden is born.

John Schuyler Bishop is a gifted writer, able to weave a story from chards of missing pages of a diary and connecting those poems and letters with Thoreau's own established inclinations in a manner that makes the great Henry David Thoreau far more interesting on a humanism level that ever before. How much of the story is rigid fact is really of no consequence: the elegant manner in which Bishop makes his case has created one of the strongest novels of the year. It breathes atmosphere, poetry, history, romance, and the incredible changes that fortunately are beginning to alter the manner in which same sex relationships are viewed. This is a magnificent book on many levels and Bishop deserves kudos and acknowledgment for opening a window into the life of the brilliant Thoreau.

Grady Harp ...more

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Jun 20, 2013 Dana marked it as life-is-too-short

25 pages of info dump and then this gem:

And then he remembered how he was sure he'd seen Ben's tree grow a bit in his trousers.

And nope. ...more

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Dec 06, 2013 Joseph Longo rated it it was amazing

Involving, interesting and creative take on the missing pages of Henry David Thoreau's journals. Nice recreation of the period with viivd portraits of New York City and Concord, Massachusetts in the early1800s. The novel is inhabited by lively characters in complex relationship. Bishop paints a believable picture of what it was like being gay and in love during Thoreau's times. Very detailed and well researched. Worth the time I spent on it. ...more

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