Walden - Thoreau
I listened to this book mostly on my phone while walking my dog. I don't know how true this is anymore because it's been so long since I've tried, but I used to have very limited patience for reading flowery poetry or any long descriptions of scenery. None of that bothered me here much. Perhaps it was because I'm different or this book is better than others, but it's like that it is well suited to an audiobook. And the reader was a bit hammy. I listened to the free version read by Gordon Mackinzie.
This is the account of two years spent living in the woods near Concord Massachusetts from 1846-48 (might be off by a year). I think there is a popular impression that it's a survival guide or perhaps a boast that Thoreau was living independently off the land. That's not really the case. He is pretty clear that he goes to town often, gets visitors often, and purchases food like grain to make bread he also never asserts complete independence as an objective. Another criticism from a poster in another subforum was that they had a hard time getting through some boring parts having to do with the accountings he made for expenses on his house and for the beans he grew. Perhaps that is boring, but I wonder if sections like that give people the wrong impression that he's trying to demonstrate his independence. That's not what he's doing. The accounts of expenses isn't meant as a political statement or as a survivalist's guide. It's poetry.
This is not primarily a political book. It's more philosophy and poetry than politics, but this is the politics forum and I did read it with politics in mind. Thoreau, in this book, is very anti-state and individualistic. His most direct political position is as an abolitionist and is briefly jailed in the course of the story for not paying a tax for reasons he attributes to a protest against the fugitive slave act. In the story he does encounter a man fleeing slavery and in outside of this narrative he did harbor and aid people in those circumstances. Individualistic as he is, he's not anything like an anarcho-capitalist as he's anti-capitalist and really anti-economics altogether. He's not anti-social in the sense of being misanthropic, he's just anti-materialist (colloquial use of materialism) which is more religious/philosophical than political. He's very anti-practical. All of this I sympathize with very much. In the recent political season I've been immersed in the concerns of the world at the moment, but my general outlook in life has been more along the lines of acting locally and occasionally thinking globally.
There's a lot to think about in terms of a person's relationship with nature and society. One's obligations to others and to one's self. I think it's a fair criticism and one that would be used disparagingly by critics but accepted without insult by Thoreau, that his outlook is profoundly irresponsible. Personally and for most people in the world I think an important missing aspect of life is illustrated. It's not all of life, just an aspect. I accept that some people have a hostility towards this. A pretty clear recent illustration is the book/movie Into the Wild. The hostility is hard for me to understand. Not everyone should be reckless all the time, but I'm very forgiving of people who do something like this where they get past the expectations other people have knowing full well that people will think they are foolish, self-indulgent and self-righteous. In practice the idea of going Walden is pretty appealing to me and I really think it's likely to take up some part of the last quarter or so of my ambulatory life. At the moment about one fourth of the time going Walden, one fourth walking the earth like Kwai Chang Caine and half with the wife and kids sounds like a good recipe for retirement. Some of that will probably have to involve earning some money, but there are a lot of ways to mix that in.
There's also a lot to think about in terms of what in society led to romanticism and what its impacts were. I'm thinking about that and have put a couple things on my reading list which may help me figure that out a little better.
I think the writing, organization and poetry of the book is really excellent. It's clever and randomly funny. It's informative and to me inspirational. I know people will hate this book and really intensely hate Thoreau and getting to the heart of why is something I'm going to think about a lot. For now this article at New Republic describes how so many people, even the uber-lefty-cultural-elite (even Garrison Keeler), love to hate Thoreau. Is there a need to look around and see someone as the smug hypocrite?
https://newrepublic.com/article/1231...-david-thoreau