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Title: Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, Michael Meyer ISBN: 0-14-039044-8 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Isolate, Nonconformist
Comment: Thoreau lived for two years and two months at Walden Pond. He said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. Henry Thoreau asked hard questions.
He related that when the Masschusetts Bay Colony was founded, earthen houses were built. They were convenient and suitable and they had the advantage of putting everyone in a position of equality and not making the poorer inhabitants feel discouraged. It distressed Thoreau that a good deal of the money spent for shelter and dress was for show, uneconomical.
He farmed organically because he was only a squatter. He found that by working for about six weeks he could meet all of the annual expenses of living. He claimed that memorable events transpired in the morning.
Thoreau went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately. The sounds of the railroad penetrated the woods. Visitors were frequent during three seasons. In the wintertime basically he had only himself for company and some of the animals.
In any season, the woods were surprisingly dark at night. Because he had no helpers or animals to assist him in cultivating the fields he felt that he ws more intimate with the beans in his beanfield. Songs have suggested that husbandry is a sacred art.
The scenery of Walden was on a humble scale. The first ice was especially interesting. He reported seeing fox, jays, chickadees, and red squirrels in the the winter.
In CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE he asserts that in a government that imprisons unjustly, the place of a just man is in prison. Thoreau underwent an overnight jail stay when he failed to pay a poll tax.
Rating: 3
Summary: Ho hum
Comment: Isn't it a little bit incongruous to desire to detach yourself from society, seeking self-reliance, and then write a book about it? Just an observation...
While Thoreau is a curious individual - sort of a poor-man's G.K. Chesterton - he always seems to come up short. The Virtue of Civil Disobedience reads more like self-satire than a serious attempt at political philosophy. And while Walden is rich and fulfilling, it is ultimately just a vehicle for Thoreau to make baseless claims predicated upon his treasury of tidbits and odd knowledge.
Had Thoreau been blessed with living in the modern world, he could have just written "Living by a Pond on Your Own For Dummies" and saved himself (and us) a lot of trouble.
Instead of "Civil Disobedience," I recommend anything by Lysander Spooner (particularly "No Treason")
Instead of "Walden" I recommend "Two Years Before the Mast." It's both more relevant than Walden, and a heck of a lot Closer To Nature.
Rating: 5
Summary: The book that started it all?
Comment: Compared to books such as "Voluntary Simplicity" by Duane Elgin and similar books, one realises that many of these ideas are nothing new when one reads Walden by Thoreau. In fact, what strikes me is that we as a Western society have not overcome many of the issues pointed out by Thoreau 150 years ago. Thoreau left Concord MA "disdainful of America's growing commercialism and industrialism", the slavish materialism of that society then. One wonders what he'll say if he would see the extend today - in the post Coca-Cola society. But then Thoreau was a man who clearly stepped to his own drum. Becuase of slavery, he refused to support the state on moral grounds. How would his views have been tolerated today?
I am not luddite, but my favourite quote from the book is this: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing to communicate". Does this say something about the Internet, newsmedia and our contemporary information overload, or what?
I liked the introduction and footnotes of Meyer. Just enough to provide context and explanation, but never intrusive. This book is as relevant today as it was during Thoreau's lifetime. Highly recommended.
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Title: Selected Speeches and Writings : Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Lincoln ISBN: 0679737316 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 18 February, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Three Centuries of American Poetry by Jr. Robert D. Richardson, Allen Mandelbaum ISBN: 0553375180 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 02 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Larzer Ziff ISBN: 0140390138 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ISBN: 0553210092 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 1965 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: Billy Budd and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) by Herman Melville ISBN: 0140390537 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1989 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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