I was first exposed to Walden and Henry David Thoreau, like many, during high school. And like many, tripled the amount of ink on its pages, underlining, circling and annotating its margins. I make it a point to reread it every handful of years.
Simple as it were, Thoreau’s goal was to see if he might not live by himself in the woods. Well, that’s probably the short version he maybe told curious inquirers anyway. The lessons shared with Walden, and immortalized in American literature canon, are deep, yet tantalizingly simple still: “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.” In what pursuit could be more urgent, more noble?
Thoreau questions conventional precepts of modern (mid 19th century suburban) society, from pantaloons to the value of money. He is quotable, deliciously quotable. Succinct and profound, he writes: “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.” An image of skinny jeans is conjured… or maybe top hats to keep it period-appropriate.
A contrarian, he cautions the reader: “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor. The Ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindu, Persian and Greek were a class in which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.” He critiques the low hanging fruit of Concord’s well-to-do and consumerism (it’s 1840’s equivalent!), but maybe surprising to some, he also reserves condemnation for the common farmer for his “willful” acceptance of a type of indentured servitude. Both are summed up: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called reservation is confirmed desperation.” Regardless of station, he pulls no punches when screaming in prose: “Hey guys, you’re all doing this wrong.” The one exception is a French-Canadian woodchopper which he describes in detail and with such admiration as to make him sound cartoonish. He goes about chopping wood for subsistence, not working more than he needs to, content with himself and his surroundings. This may be the appropriate time to mention that some scholars believe Thoreau was gay so this “elevated man” may have been (in part at least) an object of desire rather than a perfect image of Man. This one will likely remain a mystery.
Walden ebbs and flows between the philosophical and the natural, effectively positing their interdependence. The reader is initially hit hard with rebukes of convention and society, then settles in for in-depth observational commentary about the animals, plants, climate and, of course Walden Pond. Thoreau, in painstaking detail, describes the natural phenomenon of his surroundings. It is the workings of a person with patience and attention to detail. The reader gets goading into believing a passage is strictly experiential, scientific, only to be struck in the head — Bam! — by the depth of some interconnected insight about man, life and how we should live it.
Thoreau takes time to discuss the hue of the water. It’s green, like Caribbean green at some angles. Look the other direction and it becomes azure. Look below at your feet and you see its translucent, crystal clear to the bottom. It’s really quite magical. To leave this point out would be a disservice to Nature.
As a matter of fact, I must disclose a few tidbits about Walden Pond. If you find yourself in the neighborhood, I wouldn’t stop by on a Saturday in July expecting “rustic tranquility.” You’ll instead be welcomed by a sea of humanity and an overly crowded swimming hole. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but it’s a popular spot only a handful of miles outside of Boston so be mindful. Furthermore, the Thoreau Society put in a massive building (think wood façade, modern hip style) across the street. It is thoroughly unnecessary. It costs an entrée at a nice steakhouse to park. OK, OK, I’m done. I won’t fully go down the “If he could see it now” road, but you get the idea. One interesting factoid is that Walden is a very popular training pond for triathletes and other long distance swimmers. It’s big, flat and long. I would suggest you coincide your trip with these folks, i.e. dawn and dusk.
The final chapter of Walden is, well, pretty fantastic. If you haven’t been inspired to read the book yet, maybe just google the last chapter and read the pdf. I like to reread these words from time to time:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
And of course my favorite:
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
