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So, Thorea decided to live alone in the woods for a couple of years. He needs a lot of space from other people (preferably he'd like them so far away that he can't hear them talk), he has no interest in impressing people, he wants to live simply and without clutter to distract him, and he doesn't understand the concept of buying things to impress. Fashion confuses him - why would people wear new, fashionable clothes, for instance, when wearing the same old clothes is so much more comfortable? He gets quite indignant when tailors no longer make the same kind of clothes that he is used to wearing. He describes everything in intricate detail - from the time he spent lying on his tummy on the frozen pond, inspecting the details of the bubbles, to the various financial costs of every aspect of his lifestyle, to the tiny details of a battle between red and black ants that he observed. He loves water and bathes twice a day in the pond (when it's not frozen). He likes to be among people sometimes, but not so much to interact with them. He's happiest interacting with the 'half-wits', because they are simple and honest. Oh, and in 'The Duty of Civil Disobedience', which was at the end of my copy of this book, he talks about how he is only happy to submit to authority that he agrees with and trusts as wise, and he was so opposed to paying taxes that he was happy to be sent to jail, and was quite annoyed when someone paid on his behalf.

So I'm reading this book thinking 'Gosh, this man was oh-so-obviously on the autism spectrum'. Seriously - the whole way he writes, starting with tiny details and building up to a conclusion, lacking generalisation, spelling things out to the reader. Everything he said made perfect sense to me - his thought processes are so very similar to mine and to other people I know on the autism spectrum, and fit with the various studies that show how the autistic brain works. Now, I hasten to add, as this seems to offend some people, that I am not saying this as a slur on Thoreau or his talent - because I don't think being on the autism spectrum is a slur. It doesn't lessen a person in the slightest - it's a different way that the brain processes information, and has strengths and drawbacks, and can make fitting into society and accepting society's rules quite difficult. So Thoreau found a genius way to create a lifestyle that fit his way of thinking and experiencing life, and analysed it in great detail to explain why this lifestyle makes more sense than the norm.

Incidentally, I found a blog where a guy is spending a year writing posts about Walden, and in one post, he spectulates how it would have worked if Thoreau were a woman - that rather than have lots of curious visitors, she'd be seen as the madwoman in the woods and avoided. Which I think is very true. It was something I was thinking about as I read it - wondering how it would have worked, if I, as a woman, had lived in America at that point in history, and done the same.