Website review: Thoreaus Walden
Someone discovered this in Literature
•7 reviews since Apr 13, 2006
literature, thoreau
•thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html
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11saga11 rated 8 weeks ago- Walden - an annotated edition by Henry David Thoreau - 1854
- gavinski rated 5 months ago
- I first read Walden about 8 years ago while spending some time in a lovely, lovely valley in the interior of Brazil called O Vale do Capao, and it had a profound effect on me, as did the valley itself. I'd go for long walks on the surrounding plateaus, not a soul in sight, just taking in the air, the view, and the incredible sense of aliveness. I had a similar experience while doing a few silent Vipassana retreats - walking through the woods at 5am for a break from the morning meditation as the dawn arose with only nature for company. Ahh... Walden is well worth a read. Here are a few passages to give you a sense of what Walden found in his hermetic time in the woods: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life... This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen -- links which connect the days of animated life. Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.
- trill42 rated 5 months ago
- "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." Whether or not you agree with that or anything else he has to say in Walden, you might still appreciate Thoreau's eloquence. To LordMortis: I read an article or two about irony's death a few years ago. I meant to send my condolences...
- LordMortis rated 12 months ago
- Nothing against the book, but does anybody else see the irony of putting this on the internet?
- kosznai rated 17 months ago
This time - I promise - I'll make time :)
- Syncopate rated 19 months ago
- When [a person] has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. -- From "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau From the eastern end of "Walden Pond", June 2005, with Thoreau's cabin site and the road to the left, the train tracks to the right, and the beach area in the distance, but not visible in this light - just before it started to rain. Photo by Richard Lenat
