In July, we will be reading Walden.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
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In July, we will be reading Walden.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
I don't yet know who 'we' is, but Walden is one of my all time favourites. I didn't grow up on it, nor was it pressed upon me. I just love the simplicity, the independent philosophy and love of nature that it contains, even if (or because) it is fictional.
Wow - I can't believe Walden won. But I'll be gladly participating in this discussion. And maybe I'll even read though Walden for the second time this year (read it in Fall).
I'll just throw this out there for anyone interested: When I read Walden, I whisper it to myself. I don't just read silently as I would a novel or magazine. The prose and ideas and joy of Walden ask for a slightly slower pace. And I've found that a quiet whisper help me to hit that mark that makes the joy of reading Walden all the more like a summer afternoon after the appointment book has been burned.
Oh I would love to re-read this, but I don't have the time unfortunately. It's a great read. Possibly the best non-fiction work of literature that I can think of.
I'm going to give it a shot. I'll see how it goes once I have a copy :D
Hello! I'm a newbie. Been looking for a book club. Glad you picked Walden. Haven't read it since high school. Looking forward to checking it out again.
I'm very glad it won! I'll begin it as soon as possible. That's interesting about how you whisper it, Comedian. I tend to do that with poetry, and sometimes with prose. I think I'll take my copy out to the woods and read it to the dogs!
By the way, I've never joined a book club discussion before. How do you usually go about it?
hello!!I am new!I haven't read the book yet but I'll try reading it and share my opinion!Thanks for the nice forum!:smilewinkgrin:
Welcome to the forum!Quote:
Originally Posted by ladycolleen
Just post what you like/don't like, questions, or discussion points about the book. Usually the discussion follows pretty naturally after that. I'll probably post some stuff about the first chapter, "Economy" tomorrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by L.M. The Third
One of the things that I think is always under appreciated about Walden is it's humor: like Algebra or Shakespeare, people take Thoreau too seriously sometimes. Often, in Walden he makes fun of himself, makes nerdy word jokes, all sorts of stuff.
I do think that when reading Walden that we see his going to the woods as an "experiment": more than all the other nature-boy, hippie stuff that's been associated with the book, Walden is full of playful experiments with trying to live a spiritual, complete life. And it's full of failures.
I'm glad that you're joining the discussion L.M. -- High summer is a great time to take Walden outdoors and whisper it to the trees, brook, or dogs. :smile5:
How fortunate for me it's Walden. I have the book and I just got the audiotape set free from my library - they must be phasing them out. I restrained myself and only took this one and it happens to be the one we are reading - what luck!
Sweeeeet!! I've been just kind of meandering through it here and there. From what I do read of it though I love it! Count me in! I love the chapter on reading! I may be out of the conversation though if I take it with me to Guatemala.
Thanks for the explanation, Comedian. I've just been looking through the Introduction today.
I have to admit I always presumed that Walden would prove to be a rather boring and tedious read but what I read in the description about it did sound like it could be intriguing and I figured I would give it a try for this discussion and I am surprised how much I am enjoying it thus far, and I have only just started reading it.
It really is quite enjoyable to read as well as surpassingly easy to read, the only problem I have is that because the book does sometimes have a bit of a rambling feeling to it, it makes my mind start to wander if I try to read too much of it all in one siting, my attention will start to stray.
Some books, most particularly books that are written as 1st person narration just have a certain rhythm to them which causes my mind to be distracted while reading, I guess it is sort of trance like.
LOL maybe it is because it is like listening to someone talk, and I do get impatient with people when they take too long to get to the point of what they are saying and after a certain point start to tune them out.
I should be able to get the book within a couple weeks. Looking forward to the read.
I think I shall give it a shot! Hopefully would begin it tomorrow... :)
I've started reading - just a few pages in. It took me a bit to get used to his English. I must say that I am now looking at this in a different way than I did when I was a 60's hippie! He was so revered by that group. But now, as an older person with more life experience, I see it somewhat differently!
I have to say I am loving this book more and more as I read, I have to say that I find myself in complete agreement with the points that he makes about so called "civilization."
I absolutely loved his thoughts about clothes, as I found much of his thoughts so true even today, people do spend why too much time worrying about what they wear and how they look and spending ridiculous amounts of money on thier clothes.
The last few days have been busy, so I must confess I'm only half way through the first chapter. :blush:. I'm finding it a good, thought-provoking, read.
I fully agree. "As for clothing, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility... The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same."Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"To stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment..."
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."
"It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof."
"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."
There are more, but I'd better not type out the whole chapter!
I am finding his economy to be absolutely fascinating, and so much of what he says is still so relevant to today's world in the way in which people do become a slave to their luxuries and spend so much money on things of which they do not truly need. I particularly found it rather provoking when he was speaking of housing, and comparing so called civilization with "savages" and the way in which in what can be viewed as more primitive societies it is true that no individual goes without shelter while in civilization leaves many people poorer than the "savage."
I also loved his thoughts on communication. How with developing a quicker means of communicating with each other people may find they have less to say, or less of any real meaning or importance. Those ideas can be applied to social networks popular today such as Facebook in which people do spend so much time putting out such meaningless information simply because they can or because they feel the need to do so sense the means is there, while the truly important things seem to be lost.
Speaking of man becoming the slave to his possessions, I've just been visiting an uncle who is a great collector of anything which he may get his hands on. He is a slave to his house and possessions, to the exclusion of a higher life. And yet, even among the more 'sophisticated' and 'intellectual', we see a slavery to the pursuit of possession, such as Thoreau speaks of.
And, DM, the Facebook reference is so very appropriate!
Does anyone know what are some of the ideas about the “hound, bay horse, and turtle dove” in chapter one?
“The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”
All through chapter one, Thoreau is showing us the worthlessness, and even detrimental effect, of the things society often values most. Yet he discounts art and philanthropy as anything other than the fruits of what is in the heart. So, what do you think Thoreau believes is the “higher state” referred to in the following quote?
“We have built for this world a mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. … “
Based upon his overall theories and ideas, and his remarks that if a man were to jump into the Nile and drown it would be more admirable than those who slave away to build the pyramids, and his comments that he would be more interested in meeting the people who did not work on making the buildings, I think that the higher state he speaks of would be one of man who was completely free.
A man who follows his own path and does finds his own way and is not dependent upon others for means of his survival, nor one who confines himself within his walls, of which he had no hand in making himself, and surrounds himself with countless necessary items.
He speaks about for him the truest and greatest education would come from the student that labored for himself and did not just drain others of money paying for his tuition, but more the idea of a student of life and experience who contributed something rather than costing others.
So I think the higher state would be that of man who lived for himself and of his own means and by the sweat of his own brow who was not replying upon others to support him. And someone who had a complete and intimate understanding of the cost of their living.
I've always loved Thoreau's humility and humor, in addition the wisdom and descriptive capabilities.
While rightly criticized sometimes for his boasting, his humility gets overlooked. Here's one of my favorite lines from early in "Economy":
.Quote:
Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me
I cannot tell you all how much I admire and try to live the metaphor of life as an experiment, a testing ground for ideas, experiences, and feelings. But what touches me about this line in relation to the whole book is that Thoreau sees his life as really not having been lived in this spirit -- that all those "people" he was/does rail against. . .well, he's one of them.
Or this simple, but elegant word play:
here "want" means both "to desire" and "to lack" -- and that he calls this a "skill" suggest that it's not an innate quality but one that must be worded for, but the payoff is big. . . or maybe small. ;). . .or maybe just peaceful.Quote:
for my greatest skill has been to want but little
There are times where he does strike me as being a bit contradictory between the things he says and does, but I do believe there is a point within the story in which he openly admits to the contradictions.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
He does contradict himself -- but, even in saying that, I think that when we use "contradict" to describe Thoreau at Walden, we are being inaccurate. He sees his life at Walden as an experiment at living simply. And as an experiment, he's not exactly sure what the results will be. If you look at his inventory lists, he'll note something to the extent of "all of these experiments failed".Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
I guess, to speak well of Thoreau, he's not going to Walden to live simply -- he's going there to see if he can discover what living simply is and what, if any, benefit it will have on his mind, spirit, body, and pen.
I have to say he lost me a little bit in the chapter "Reading."
For one thing I did find that to be a particularly tedious chapter to read and I just fail to see where it fits into the rest of his theories which thus far have revolved around his ideas of simple living and his economy and his ideas about the way in which man is burdened by his civilization and dependent upon others, imprisoned by unnecessary items of luxury.
Speaking of being contradictory it seemed some of his ideas expressed in the "Reading" chapter were at odds with his what he had said in the previous chapter. In fact I even thought that in "Economy" he had made some critical mention about those who read instead of living life for themselves.
As well he had made some harsh attacks upon the world of Academia and standard education, and yet at the end of the chapter of "Reading" it seems almost he says just the opposite when he suggests the need for greater education.
I am not very far into this yet, but one of the things that bothered me in Economy is how little value he seems to place on labor. He says, for instance, that some people have "no time to be anything but a machine."
I think of, perhaps, a carpenter who loves his work and expresses himself through his work. I find this carpenter's work to be of great value. It is labor, but not the labor of a "machine" at all.
Or of the homemaker who spends countless hours doing things like cooking, cleaning, etc., but who loves doing these things for her family. That work is not the work of a "machine," but of a woman loving her family and expressing this love through the work she does for them.
I guess he covers this when he speaks of his audience as being those "who are discontented" and not those "who are well employed." I assume the contented homemaker and carpenter would not be his audience. But, I still feel like he is devaluing labor.
I am enjoying his humor. I didn't remember much humor from the first time I read it. For example:
"The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortable warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode." (Economy)
Or this one - from the section in Economy where he is mocking a farmer who says that you cannot live on vegetable food alone:
"...walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle."
The way I say it, when he speaks of labor he is thinking primarily of those who are slaving away simply to support the wealthy or to earn more money for themselves so that they themselves could then become chained to luxury items.Quote:
Originally Posted by ladycolleen
For example in speaking about labor he also spends a great deal of time talking about the Irish who worked upon the railroads, and those were not people who were working out of a labor of love, they were slaving away for underpay at work that often costs them their lives and they are doing it for a service in which when complete they themselves will not be able to enjoy because they won't be able to afford it.
He also talks of those that dedicate themselves to building houses, temples and tombs for the wealthy.
People who do not actually enjoy their own life but instead sacrifice themselves so others can have things of which they don't need.
He also talks about those that collect a bunch of extra stuff only than to become a slave to that stuff as when talks about having something just so that you must spend the rest of your life dusting if off, when you could have lived just as well without it. And when he refuses the mat someone offers him because he did not want than to have to take the time to always be cleaning it off once he had it.
Dark Muse-
Thank you for your reply. And, I do agree with what you said. But, Thoreau also seems to have a bias against manual labor in general. For instance:
"Most men...are so occupied with...coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that." (Economy)
Man is capable of more than manual labor, but manual labor in itself can be a noble occupation.
It just bothered me to read these sentiments right at the beginning of this book.
My impression is that he is against working in general. I do not think he would see any occupation in which a person is chained down to others, or chained down to their own greedy desires as being "noble" he is brutally critical of the wealthy and merchants as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by ladycolleen
He believes in completely free and independent living in which a person lives purely for themselves. Because he also says that he would not advise anyone else to live the way he lives either, because he thinks each person needs to individually choose their own way, and so he would not want to be the means of another choosing to live in a way that is not born purely from their own desire and choice.
He starts out with the example of manual labor, but I do not it as simply an attack upon labor, because by the end of the chapter her pretty much tears down every institution and occupation of the civilized world. He sees it all as being interconnected and all of it as a way of keeping people as slaves and preventing them from truly thinking for themselves of behind independent individuals.
But rather as being trapped in this cycle in which they feel as if they have to work in order to by the stuff they are led to believe that they need.
For example in the case of the cabinet maker, while I don't know if Thoreau would "approve" of the trade, as well he seems to be generally against trade in general and those concerned with making a profit, but I tend to think he would have more respect for the craftsman who made furniture because it is what gave him pleasure in life, then he would for the more industrialized labourer who saw only the profit and worked himself to death in work that was meaningless to him.
Am going to start it tonight!:smile5: am very much looking forward to it having read the remarks so far.
Thanks again, Dark Muse for your thoughts. I haven't gotten very far yet, so I will reserve further comments until I read more.
But his thoughts so far do remind me of something that I used to say to my mom when I was a teen in the 60's. I used to say that everyone works so hard, at a job they don't like, in order to buy enough food, to keep them alive, so that they can go to work again at a job they don't like.
I know it sounds depressing, but it is how some people live- at least those who do not like the work they do.
I am curious does anyone know Thoreau's religious beliefs?
He seems to be critical of the organization of the church, but does not appear to be an artist seems strongly influenced by Eastern philosophy.
This with this experiment in living simply off the land and away from civilization makes me think of transcendentalism.
I don't think he has any particular religious beliefs. He's much more a student, more entertained by the questions than the answers, than he is a proponent of any particular belief. Even transcendentalism, something for which he is associated, is only a passable label for he beliefs at Walden. I think that you can see at Walden pond that Thoreau seeks to discover what living a spiritual life, in the most practical sense, means.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
I've read Walden numerous times and enjoy it no less every time I do. I am completely beguiled by Thoreau's philosophy of self reliance, solitude, contemplation and being close to nature, and by his fearless dedication to it. But more than that; I love how he gets his thoughts across. The chapter Sounds where he is listening to the owls and letting his imagination run wild has to be one of my favourite sections of prose ever written. I find the whole book inspiring because it speeks to the rover in me, it feeds my wanderlust and it scrathes my itchy feet.
Thus far Sounds and Serenity are my two favoirte chapters in the book. I agree that the prose in Sounds is truly quite remarkable and was wonderful to read.Quote:
Originally Posted by RaoulDuke
I'll let you in on a little personal fanboy-dom of mine. I own four copies of Walden. All of which I have read many times. In the chapter "Sounds", mentioned above, I have underlined the line "I rejoice that there are owls" in each copy. And next to each underline, I have annotated as follows:
- "Me too! I remember the Great Northerns in the Wyoming nights"
- "Pray. We are blessed".
- "Thankful for everyday miracles. I should read this line everyday"
And, last, (with apologies to Scher)
- "Yee haw! ****in' a right".
I loved "Solitude", but I've got to confess that I was a little bit disappointed in "Sounds". Reading by a river in the Yukon, listening to water rushing over rocks, the occasional splash of fish, or the chatter of a squirrel, I was expecting something to parallel and enhance the experience. Yes, there were beautiful parts of the chapter, but I think I need some help appreciating the long exposition on the railroad. At one point he seems to be mourning all the labor, without a higher cause, put into the railroad, and the next he is praising the industry of the workers, etc.
I was, unfortunately, a bit late in starting my reading of this book, so pardon me for being a bit late in responding to some posts.
I think you're being too literal here. Thoreau had to engage in manual labor to support himself at Walden Pond, both for wages and manual labor to get firewood, catch food, etc etc. Also remember that the Lowell system for manufacturing textiles originated perhaps thirty years prior to the publish of Walden. People were underpaid and advancement was non-existent. Job security was only guaranteed as long as consumer interest was high. While not a direct response to this economic structure (which was reflected in other industries, just not as prominently), Thoreau seems to comment more that Man should not engage in jobs that restrict him from gaining an understanding, either of himself or Life in general. After all, he does comment that "the fall from the farmer to the operative is as great and memorable as that from the man to the farmer." While, in the strictest, most literal sense of the text, you can call it a distaste of manual labor, Thoreau is just warning Man not to labor himself to blindness.Quote:
Originally Posted by ladycolleen
You have to remember that, while eventually edited (posthumously, my copy said) by family members and publishers, more than anything else, Walden is a compilation of thoughts from his experiences at Walden Pond. While some "contradictions" are there, I tend to see them as Thoreau presenting the vices of his world, not just to justify his actions but to, although he claims not directly, implicitly guide Man towards finding himself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse