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jake12203's review against another edition
3.0
“… read each work of work With the same spirit that it’s author writ” (Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 233-4) is an important quote that I heard after I had finished Walden.
I found myself very frustrated with the constant extrapolation and narration of life, with the idea of “simplify, simplify, simplify!!” The latter being the suggestion of Thoreau.
Had I known the quote from the beginning before I dove in, I may have found this to be a more enjoyable read, still finding value in Thoreau’s words and suggestions for life.
This part of the text has no plot, and that’s what I was looking for during the reading.
As I read Civil Disobedience, however, I found it to be much more pleasurable. I enjoyed the criticisms and the suggestions of Thoreau to be radical but reasonable. It was something I enjoyed thinking and mulling over, myself.
I found myself very frustrated with the constant extrapolation and narration of life, with the idea of “simplify, simplify, simplify!!” The latter being the suggestion of Thoreau.
Had I known the quote from the beginning before I dove in, I may have found this to be a more enjoyable read, still finding value in Thoreau’s words and suggestions for life.
This part of the text has no plot, and that’s what I was looking for during the reading.
As I read Civil Disobedience, however, I found it to be much more pleasurable. I enjoyed the criticisms and the suggestions of Thoreau to be radical but reasonable. It was something I enjoyed thinking and mulling over, myself.
jhitch's review against another edition
1.0
Oh my lord. This is awful. This wasn’t some profound musings of a great philosopher. This was the insane ramblings of a drunk truck stop republican. What a god awful read.
kimball_hansen's review against another edition
2.0
Alright Thoreau. Enough of that blasted Pond already. I don't understand how/why he goes on and on about the dang thing. If I didn't know any better I would have assumed he had fornicated with it (Kinda like what hag [a:Elizabeth Gilbert|11679|Elizabeth Gilbert|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1440718929p2/11679.jpg] does with her Italian food - see my review on her book). I've read each of these two books twice now and I'm just simply not a big fan of Thoreau. Perhaps I just misunderstand him. Some stuff is alright but for the most part, naaaa. I think he's extremely pompous and a complainer of society and didn't do much to contribute to it (Or at least attempt to change it. And back in the Olden Days it was actually possible since the population was so small). Even his friend Emerson did more. Why couldn't he take chapter out of his book? Afterall, he only bummed off his land for a few years. Or better yet, Benjamin Franklin. Now there's a great guy. I wonder how much of his beliefs/ideas are because he's upset from doing hard time in a federal prison. Or maybe he had some other traumatic incident happen to him as a youth to embitter his poor, tortured, restless soul. I need to read a good bio of him by [a:Walter Isaacson|7111|Walter Isaacson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1192222433p2/7111.jpg] if he's done one.
I do want to go visit the pond though. Looked neat on Google images.
I liked the bits of Latin (whatever language it was) that he'd speak throughout the book. Too bad Latin died. That was a coolo language.
I do want to go visit the pond though. Looked neat on Google images.
I liked the bits of Latin (whatever language it was) that he'd speak throughout the book. Too bad Latin died. That was a coolo language.
bigenk's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
A formative book for me in high school that was still good but not quite as powerful on a re-read over a decade later. I think Walden has a mistaken identity. Lots of people view it as a work of nature writing, and while Walden pond and the surround environment play a role, they seem to be a means to an end for Thoreau. This is a deeply philosophical work that has much more to do with Thoreau's opinions on American society and the 'quietly desperate' human soul that he sees in the western man.
The writing is at times long winded and baroque in a way that makes reading tiring over time. It's not the type of book that you can pay half attention to. Thoreau goes off on long tangents about incredible dry topics, like measuring the depths of Walden pond or telling which years the water level was particularly high, for example, that I found pointless, dull, and distracting from his actual messages. Some of the time he uses these dry topics as an analogy for his point, but other times they are simply left there without explanation. Because it's age there's some pretty casual racism involved as well, even though Thoreau was an abolitionist. It seems that those views didn't quite make the jump to his opinion about Native Americans. Thoreau sometimes clutches his pearls over things like the railroad that seems downright silly almost 200 years later. What I'm saying with all of this is that it's not a perfect book, not by a long shot.
However, I think it's an excellent book with a lot of substance to chew on, regardless of whether you agree with Thoreau or not. When Thoreau's writing is on topic and lucid, it's some of the best I've ever read. He has a habit of making extremely memorable and beautiful quotes, which I suppose do well within the context of a high school English class. He has a clear and concise vision for what he sees has moral failings in society, and uses his time at Walden as a personal example of how things could and should change for the better. Unlike his fear of the expanding railroad network, a lot of his views feel applicable even today. Thoreau could see even in the middle of the 19th century that American values created a lot of suffering for the working class and the poor. He saw the writing on the wall of where things were headed should the status quo not change, and wrote Walden to attempt to 'wake up' individuals to hamster wheels they are living in.
There's an inherent irony to Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Thoreau himself. He was a privileged white man of his age, and yet felt socially outcast from his peers.Civil Disobedience was written after one spending one night in jail, for which his aunt bailed him out. It wouldn't fault anyone for seeing these kinds of ironies and struggling to take Thoreau or his writing seriously. Yet I do think that within Walden there are some seriously valuable ideas that are worthy of some critical thought. I'm sure I will return to this work in the future, as it's the type of thing that rewards repeated explorations.
The writing is at times long winded and baroque in a way that makes reading tiring over time. It's not the type of book that you can pay half attention to. Thoreau goes off on long tangents about incredible dry topics, like measuring the depths of Walden pond or telling which years the water level was particularly high, for example, that I found pointless, dull, and distracting from his actual messages. Some of the time he uses these dry topics as an analogy for his point, but other times they are simply left there without explanation. Because it's age there's some pretty casual racism involved as well, even though Thoreau was an abolitionist. It seems that those views didn't quite make the jump to his opinion about Native Americans. Thoreau sometimes clutches his pearls over things like the railroad that seems downright silly almost 200 years later. What I'm saying with all of this is that it's not a perfect book, not by a long shot.
However, I think it's an excellent book with a lot of substance to chew on, regardless of whether you agree with Thoreau or not. When Thoreau's writing is on topic and lucid, it's some of the best I've ever read. He has a habit of making extremely memorable and beautiful quotes, which I suppose do well within the context of a high school English class. He has a clear and concise vision for what he sees has moral failings in society, and uses his time at Walden as a personal example of how things could and should change for the better. Unlike his fear of the expanding railroad network, a lot of his views feel applicable even today. Thoreau could see even in the middle of the 19th century that American values created a lot of suffering for the working class and the poor. He saw the writing on the wall of where things were headed should the status quo not change, and wrote Walden to attempt to 'wake up' individuals to hamster wheels they are living in.
There's an inherent irony to Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Thoreau himself. He was a privileged white man of his age, and yet felt socially outcast from his peers.Civil Disobedience was written after one spending one night in jail, for which his aunt bailed him out. It wouldn't fault anyone for seeing these kinds of ironies and struggling to take Thoreau or his writing seriously. Yet I do think that within Walden there are some seriously valuable ideas that are worthy of some critical thought. I'm sure I will return to this work in the future, as it's the type of thing that rewards repeated explorations.
zaphod46's review against another edition
4.0
Civil disobedience was great. I certainly enjoyed parts of Walden, but others were a little too dense. The collected writings in the back were hit and miss; some awesome and some boring.
michellel123's review
2.0
Delivered as a lecture on a theory of government. Several memorable quotes, but very bound to the US context.