Walden by Henry David Thoreau (Book Review)

Walden
By Henry David Thoreau
Published by Beacon Press, 2004
Print Price: $10.95

First published in 1854, Walden seems very contemporary to me, what with its reaction against the approaching age of technology and media that Thoreau was trying to get away from. In our day and age, it would be said that his goal was to "get off the grid". He wanted to live simply. To see what was essential to our daily lives. To strip it to its bone. I'm sure in this endeavor he was influenced by  Hindu and Buddhist thought that he was reading in translation at the time. He constructed a cabin by himself and lived in it for two years, alone except for visitors that came by from time to time. But don't think he was a secluded hermit. He walked into Concord a lot and heard the town gossip and visited with acquaintances and friends. But always he would return to his quiet cabin by the pond. He planted beans, he fished, and used most of the money he made from his beans to buy rice. His meals were as simple as his daily life. He didn't HAVE to do anything. He could go on long walks, he could read, he could work in his fields. He answered to no man. He was free. He could get up when he wanted to. He could go to sleep when he felt like it and not before. Kinda sounds like paradise to me.

He was never really lonely. In fact, he wanted to be alone. If he felt the need to talk, he could walk into town. Thoreau also inevitably ran into others in the woods such as woodcutters or hunters. At other times, random people would stop by his house and enquire what he was doing living there and who he was. What WAS he doing? I don't even think Thoreau really knew.

I really enjoyed the first 2/3s of this book. Reading about how Thoreau built his cabin and his critques of then modern society, technology, and even the news media were spot on in his day and even more so now. In one passage, he states that there is no sense in reading the newspaper because its basically the same headlines everyday, just variations on a theme. In fact, he says people are the same way. I can't imagine how he would deal with our 24 news cycle.

He also writes about the Fight Club theme of the things we own ending up owning us. That we live in a world of possession when in actuality, it is us that are possessed.

As long as Thoreau was writing about the vanities of his society and their wrong headed focus on technology, materiality, and gossip, the book was really good. I think towards the end of his stay at Walden he began to lose himself and got bored. There's almost a whole section devoted to looking at air bubbles in the ice of the pond and then measuring its depths. Then he switches to wholesale descriptions of nature with no context, centering, or insight into its deeper nature. He seemed really in need of a television, internet, cellphone, or some other modern convenience to pass the time. To me, in the end all Thoreau really gained out of his stay at Walden was material to write a book.

This work could have been whittled down to about half its size. It's worth a read but as soon as you get to the part about the air bubbles, just walk away because the book is over. If not in body, in spirit.

My Grade: C