But is it any good? Despite what you may hear from his critics, Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods is not some sepia-toned memoir, nor is it a scientific exploration of the natural world. Instead, Thoreau describes, in page after page, a vivid exploration of the mind and its reflection upon the natural world. At one end of his personal journey he fought to bend his will, control his animal tendencies and live out an ascetic life. At the other end, he gave in to nature’s primal beck and call. Pulled between the two extremes of the natural order, Thoreau was able to explore his inner limits, or in his own words, out in the wilds he was able to experience ‘earth’s eye[s]; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.’ For those who choose not to gaze into the natural world (for every one of us who is not Read more…

Still relevant? Walden; or, Life in the Woods, a collection of Henry David Thoreau’s writings on the experiment of living alone, is a book of the highest praise. It speaks across an almost two hundred year gap in time to impart important lessons about humanity’s role in the natural world; and although the ideas are much, much older than Thoreau, the account given in Walden is decidedly impactful, especially today, as the human race’s migration into dense urban environments seems less like a long-term trend and more like a permanent development: one that has not only left much of the countryside depopulated, but also alienated generations of humanity from ways of life that were considered familiar just a handful of decades ago and the norm not long before that. If you are unfamiliar with the book Walden; or, Life in the Woods simply know that Thoreau set out to discard the trappings of society and Read more…