Book Review: “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
The original digital detox douchebag didn’t have a selfie stick as he documented his dedication to live simply, but the book feels like it could have been written this morning live from a Brooklyn coffee shop.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is difficult placing into words. How do I review this? The book is a super whiny diary written by that Portlandia guy who wants to know how the chicken he just ate was raised on the farm. He means well, sidetracking himself into obnoxious.
“My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.”
A great uncle of mine who was a role model to me declared Walden up there as a fav book and was so happy that I read it at 14. He loved bragging about living simply, from the hard decisions of a Connecticut home, city condo and the struggles finding a beach condo in the right part of the right beach in the right city in Europe*. He is the one who taught me to contradict my other side’s great uncle, who told me money belonged in the bank, by introducing me to hardcore foodie-ism, ordering vegetarian tapas like no tomorrow with the worst portion sizes I’ve ever had and scary prices in any time period. We all know a Henry David Thoreau. He might be your douchebag brother telling you about salts in Thai cooking as if he grew up in Thailand. Your architecture professor who was great and super mean to you. Or you. Don’t we all have a touch of Henry David Thoreau in us to be human?
* A wishful problem I have yet to have as someone who doesn’t own ONE home in April 2024.
Away we go, hearing about how tough the new guy in town is. Henry David Thoreau builds his own house. He grows stuff. A tech bro before his time, he had to tell us how much everything costs. Of course.
We didn’t have flip phones to detox from iPhones in 19th century America, thus HDT busted out hatred for conveniences like why anyone would need telegram service from Maine down to Texas when nobody has anything of value to say, or the post office.
“For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage.”
E-mail fanatic me knows snail mail and e-mail are THE best. You pour out your soul, or business spirit, uninterrupted, no one misinterpreting what you say. Henry David, is that Henry-David like Mary-Kate Olsen in one solid first name/stage name or Henry with the David excluded? I don’t know. Henry David, or HDT, we’ll call him in this review, probably never had people writing him heartwarming notes and salon style opinions because of statements like this.
“Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it.”
“Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.”
He hated newspapers.
“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.”
As a not-old-but-not-Gen-Z woman with tea every morning, I am very offended, HDT. You are unfriended. We had so much in common with our disdain for reading useless articles. Our friendship was almost there!
He loved books. I agree with him for the most part. Probably all marketing. HDT wouldn’t denounce books for everyone to say he said in a book not to buy Walden, right?
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
“I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans.”
Why would he read? “I only read my own books,” I can imagine him saying.
It gets pretty arrogant.
“Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript.”
Yeah, because everyone sitting around in America is fluent in ancient Greek. Loved my Sanskrit class in seventh grade. ;)
New clothes were a waste of money to him. He could’ve said that like I did. No, he devoted what, 10+ pages to it. OK.
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
“I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”
A fair point. Any career opportunity giving priority to what you look like over talent and job execution, outside of work as a runway model, for something shallow like needing new clothes probably isn’t a very respectful place to be.
“He Sounds Mean” :(
HDT kind of does, my readers. Half of the time he starts making sense. You want to travel back in time inviting him out for a good meal together until he begins rambling about really rude things.
Be prepared for time period accurate viewpoints about Native Americans being savages and black people. Slavery? Absolutely mentioned. Awkwardly. Walden isn’t on book ban lists in the USA, likely because HDT was either not LGBTQ or not out as so. The fury if he were to call a man handsome and shared a 19th century kiss on the cheek certainly would have landed him in trouble in 2024. His work was taught as an optional reading assignment in my 2001-2002 class. Have to love censorship! Only LGBTQ people get banned! Back then, I didn’t think about how weird these racist passages were. Now, I’m not saying to ban the book. But nobody said, “This is a time capsule into racism. Learn from it. What can we gain from how people were seen then? What stands up today from HDT’s book? What doesn’t? Do you agree or disagree?” Then again, most of my teachers outside of STEM-y stuff and music were more interested in talking on the phone in class and gossiping in the hallway as we sat there watching VHS movies like Bad Teacher, not being sarcastic, so I would be really confused if one day any of them taught class and cared about the students.
Should you read it? Yes. Knock yourself out. I wouldn’t call it a fun read. Somewhere in the middle between boring and thrilling. You feel like putting it down. Sometime after breakfast, you read it again because you want to see how much more annoying he gets. His statements are the worst of my Mugatu of Zoolander, diabetic-headached-and-nausea mood swing ridiculous. Only I don’t write them down in a book for eternity. He did. He takes everything seriously. Guess that’s the difference between me and a 19th century tech bro.
Probably read it because if you bust out “I just read Walden over lunch identifying with its 19th century viewpoints on existentialism and consumerism as the ultimate mistake,” you probably sound smarter and fall into line for a job promotion. Or an easy A+ in your AP English class, taught by some man gossiping on the phone for 30 minutes of the scheduled 45 minute class. So definitely read it and sound intelligent. Be sure to use words from the thesaurus nobody has used in a good two hundred years when you do.
