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I thought Walden was a profound and great book, and still do.

HOWEVER, I love your review because it does voice many of those concerns I have reading it. I have a hard time distinguishing his writing from the actual realities of what you have so well noted.

Still, there are some beautiful passages and observations about nature that I really appreciated, yet there are parts that, as you have noted, that I have always bothered me.

Great review; I don't have to agree, but your insight, I think, is valid.

Yes, Emerson will be so much better. No worries. Thoreau was a fraud. Emerson wasn't.

Yeah well at least Thoreau acted out what he preached. Getting arrested for resisting a slavery tax and helping the underground railroad. Emerson just spouts off little nuggets of wisdom but didn't join the abolitionist's movement until near the end of the Civil war

I think what a lot of people are missing from this book is the importance of the arguments raised by Thoreau. It is fallacious to attack him for not living what he preached or living off of the people that he "judged." To look at the book this way is committing the fallacy of Tu quoque. Instead it would be beneficial to understand what he is getting at by looking at his arguments which may or may not be profound. Therefore though these are accurate complaints about Thoreau as a person your review is invalid. Very insightful though and brings some good concerns to the table.

Danie wrote: "Yes, Emerson will be so much better. No worries. Thoreau was a fraud. Emerson wasn't."

Hi Danie,
I just started reading Thoreau (Walden). However, your comment made me curious about Emerson (of whom I had never heard before). Could you recommend a book or bundle of his?

Thanks!
Wouter (The Netherlands)

I was just bored to tears. I didn't want to finish reading it at all. Just not my type of book. I hate not finishing a book, but it was like torture. I just didn't care what happened in the book, unfortunately.

There were some great lines in there, but I'm sure someone compiled all of the great quotes from this book. I can read them separately.

As my favorite English professor once said, "Great men have great faults." I had the same issues with the book when I was in my early thirties, but the older I get, the more I realize that we all embellish things to make a story better. And boy, did he make a great story. I think he thought that he was doing what he talked about. He certainly lived more simply than most people, and he made me really think. That is the greatest gift.

I'm not finished with this book yet, but I'm kind of on the fence. He makes some great points in here and the way he words it really makes the points more profound and worthwhile. Unfortunately, most of what you said I agree with, so it's hard to fully emerse myself in this book. This is a book that's hard to fully appreciate at my age, I understand, but I don't think anyone can appreciate his 15 pages of rambling on and on about how much the bricks he used to build his house cost. And then he would out of nowhere make a comment about the state of society. My friend, Travis, though also commented on the way he "lived by himself" not a couple miles from the nearest town and would randomly meet people in the forest and talk to them (although it's debated whether those people were real or he just came up with them to make a point, which would have been a little hypocritical.)

The thing about "Walden" that a lot of folks don't realize is that it was written as a philosophical exercise, much like Rousseau's "Emile." In that sense, the ideas are worth examining and testing. It should not be read as a self-help manual, which I think that a lot of people do (especially young cynics).

I agree with your (Katherine's) statement that intent of the book is a philosophical exercise and that he wants us to examine the ideas and test them but what do you mean by saying that people use it as a self help manual? Why are these people seeking help and how would the book provide that help? It seems to me as though if you do really accept and live by his ideas it doesn't help your social standing and ability to survive in society. Are they looking for help to break free from society?

Alexander wrote: "I agree with your (Katherine's) statement that intent of the book is a philosophical exercise and that he wants us to examine the ideas and test them but what do you mean by saying that people use ..."

I think that a certain type of person does read it and think "I must live my life this way in order to truly be free because society and community are false and keeping me from being my true self." It's a Romantic ideal - I think an extreme example of this is Christopher McCandless, the subject of John Krakauer's book "Into the Wild."

In Walden Thoreau said not to do what he did, that each person must find his or her own way. This kind of negates the "self-help" idea some people have mentioned. I like the way Katherine calls it a "philosophical exercise." It was a book written carefully and deliberately over a period of 7 years after he left the pond. It was not a personal account; it was an attempt to relay the experience of transcendentalism. But there are more ideas in the book than most people realize and they are definitely philosophical, so Katherine is right. People who get hung up on the Simplify your Life idea or the Communing with Nature idea have missed the whole point.

Great points. While I have been reading Waldon, I can't help but wonder if someone tried this today, would they been titled "slacker" or "leech"? To be utterly honest, he was totally dependent on the society he shunned. Still, I respect his desire to record the experience. I have tried not to read too deeply into the man, but the words he uses to explain his self-induced lifestyle make it difficult to see him as anything but self-absorbed.

Just be glad you didn't start with Emerson and have your expectations raised to that level before reading this.

I'd like to point out that the second sentence in the Introduction to Walden says, "Although Thoreau's experience over the next two years, two months, and two days could hardly be considered a wilderness adventure, it did nevertheless constitute a significant departure from the norm." Thoreau's goal was never to go on a wilderness survival adventure. He only seeked to find a peaceful place where he could write. So, having said that, I deeply disagree with your immature statements regarding Thoreau and Walden.

You might appreciate this essay, Amanda:

these are some heave words you said. living alone and living by your own in wilderness are completely different things.

Anyone who says, "your review is invalid" either a child or a narcissist.

I just started reading it, and I agree that there are no earth-shaking revelations, although he did succeed in boring me to death. I think you will find Emerson to be much better.

Exactly!

In this case I would say the Cliffs Notes are much better than the book.

Yes.

Rosie Tighe: "Anyone who says, 'your review is invalid' either a child or a narcissist."
That was funny. Rosie invalidating the review of the reviewers.

You’ve truly missed the entire point of the book

While I believe that you don’t give him enough credit for his self-awareness, he definitely calls himself a squatter and also admits upfront that he isn’t really going for the total alone in the woods experience you seem to have expected. Rather he was seeking deliberate solitude for time to think and more self awareness and self control over his interactions with the town. You are also not the first to criticise him. Ezra Pound and many literary writers have rejected the book for similar criticisms of its loftiness and split representation of the people and culture in which he lived. From one side of his lips is the praise for the simplicity of his company and from the other a harsh judgement on anyone who can’t deeply read and translate Latin and Greek. Not to mention the criticism of the closed off approach to industrialism. Again, I can also reference that he admits the positive quality in industry, but again deliberately chooses not to subscribe to all of it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It helped me wrap my brain around what I was thinking about the book.

I live 12 miles from the nearest village. Going within doesn't require complete isolation, I don't think. It's made easier by allowing yourself to feel a world away from society, which I do and it is very uplifting. I doubt the author would worry about any sense of having laid claim to new ideas, only have taken joy from sharing his thoughts and experiences with the wider world as they happened. I'm uplifted by this book and saddened to read these very commonly found reactions to it. Don't strangulate art with negativity, it's too important. Imagine how different all our lives would be if everyone had this notion. What great art, music and stories we'd be without.

Amanda, like others have said, the point wasn’t to live completely isolated and self-sufficient, but rather to explore and examine what is really necessary for a full and satisfied life. He argues that trinkets, fancy clothes, a plush job, and all the other accoutrements that people are certain they can’t live without are unnecessary. Sure, he knowingly veers into hyperbole at times, and not without a sense of humor. But that doesn’t mean his criticisms of society and social norms don’t hold value.

Don’t read this as an attempted proof that you can live completely isolated from society, but rather as proof that much of what society values is overrated and unnecessary, and we all might be a little better off if we could get a little space from our socially-engineered “needs.��

Agreed. Well said!

Like him or not, Thoreau was very influential; his ideas have been repeated, watered down, misunderstood, and imitated for decades, by thousands of people. That's why the ideas don't seem "fresh" to you, but that doesn't somehow make him derivative.

I'm not arguing with your opinion or saying you can't dislike the book -- I'm not taking a stand for or against it. Just a friendly suggestion that a different metric is needed when reading historical works, especially those that are wildly popular or regarded as classics. The ideas will often have become cliche, and often a misunderstanding of the original source will replace the original meaning. A great example of this is "Uncle Tom," which has a popular modern understanding that conflicts greatly with the actual literature that created the character.

It takes a special effort to be able to read an old book with "fresh eyes," so that you can actually see the work on its own terms. This can be difficult, but it's important to remember that anything else is not actually a judgment on the work, but on society and its misconceptions.

Again, I'm not saying that you are wrong or that this book is a masterpiece or anything of the sort. Your comment about the ideas being unoriginal just leaped out at me, as it's a problem I've encountered myself many times when reading older works. To return to Uncle Tom's Cabin, by my modern standards, the work is fairly racist, but that doesn't mean it wasn't an incredibly important moment in Abolitionist thought in the US at the time. It would be silly for me to say "this book is bad because it's racist and thus harmful to black people." Its overall influence in the lengthy scope of history is difficult to judge, but it definitely wasn't super problematic *at the time*.

When Walden came out, there weren't 1000 magazines about simple living and a tiny house movement. It may also have preceded the current, unusual trend in US culture to revile the poor. There's been speculation in this comments about whether Thoreau was a moocher, not truly "independent," and that he received handouts from the people he criticized. But if you look at history in a broader sense, giving to the poor has generally been seen in a much more positive view than it is now, and indeed there's often a nobility or other positive aspects assigned to the poor. Being a strange/solitary poor person was enough to get you official patronage at many points in history, or to have an important role in society... there was an official job where a regular joe got to insult the king and got paid for it! Our current relationship with the poor is sort of a historical anomaly, and it's impossible not to have a completely different reading of Walden than people would have at the time, without being aware of these trends and taking them into account.

Of course, that's all a lot of work, and no one is obligated to do so, especially if you're not particularly interested in that work. That happens to me all the time, and in those cases I just say, well, this book that is lauded as a classic by generations of scholars seems like a pile of crap to my modern eyes, so I will just assume that I don't get it, and move on with my life. It's a far greater leap for me to authoritatively state that all smart people who like the work are wrong and the artist was a fraud, because then I'm saying that I understand everything about the work and its historical context (without doing any research) and am smarter than everyone who likes it, indeed, the entire tradition of literary criticism is entirely wrong, and I alone am able to definitively declare that. I'm not the emperor of literature, so that seems a little far-fetched.

I mean no disrespect to anyone in this thread, just being a pain-in-the-ass devil's advocate because that's all I can do these days. A pleasant afternoon to all!

I couldn’t agree more ! So judgey !!! I felt like he didn’t have any friends because he was so stingy with his money and dwelled on boring small details so he just looked down on everyone to feel better about himself. The only thing this book made me want to do is spend two years in a noisy hostel in the city to see if I could come up with some other better philosophy about humans and economy etc.

To keep it simple, I just think the book sucked in almost every aspect. One of the most boring books I have ever read as well. Very disappointed.

Recently read this for my environmental and literature class and as one student said, “It’s like a how to be poor manual when you’re not.�� That’s a very forthright and fixed claim, but I agree. I can go into details as others have (lived close to the city, returned after 2 years, etc.), but I won’t. I agree that for his time his ideas were revolutionary (because they were radical), and he did push the modern environmental movement forward (as in encouraged environmentalism), but I see his book as more of a journal of his all over the place thoughts and think it is important to not be impressionable throughout it (he is a good writer).

Hm I liked the book very much but I understand what you are saying. It’s hard to understand a life where you can do whatever you want without spending money. And he did have to become dependent on those peoples in order to live “his way of life��, yet he still managed to judge them.

Exactly how I feel after 50 pages in. If you read real this after any of Ayn Rand’s novels you will be face palming yourself repeatedly before the first chapter ends.

Dear lady just say it you don't understand his lingo.

Yes, Thoreau reminds me a bit of my friend that got rid of his car, and criticized others for even owning cars, yet repeatedly asked me to loan him my car, pick him up to drive places, and make sure to drive him home short distances if the weather was ever unpleasant.

I mean, some of his ideas are nice to be reminded of, but they are already mantras repeated in many places in society today. “Don’t obsess over material goods and adornments��, “usually you require less to be happy than you think��.

You’re just going against the grain of reading comprehension.

You do realize he lived with Emerson...Read Emerson's Essays--talk about powerful--I particularly like the Essays--Compensation, Self-Reliance, and The OverSoul

"To believe your own thought, to believe what is true is true in your heart of hearts is true for all people....that is Genius..Trust Thyself" Emerson

You don't get Walden. I feel so sorry for you.

"Love is the wind, the tides, the waves the sunshine, it can warm without heat, it can heat without fire, it's power to move is unimaginable" Thoreau "Walden "

Thoreau was probably interested in Diogenes. You should look into him.

Katherine is right--Thoreau was a Yogi--Exploring the hidden meanings of Nature and the Universe existentially and philosophically--He heard a hidden song that attuned with his Soul and senses

Yes

I agree with your analysis. Bombastic and self absorbed. And so critical of others.

This is the review I would have written if I were this articulate. I did mark it as a 2 (really it’s a 1.5 for me.) There’s nuggets here and there and I guess I’m glad I read it since its “such an important piece of American literature�� (I guess��) but it was such a slog.

I felt the same about this book. I have always loved Thoreau’s writing and you find some of that when he writes about nature in Walden - but I couldn’t get past his self-importance and judgment of others in this book. It was disappointing.

The best description that came to me was that he was "arrogantly living a simple life".

I have to agree...I tried so hard and I just couldn't stand another page.

“Basically a squatter��
Seriously? 🙄🙄🙄

I read about 37% and I agree so much 😬