I finally read this, after two previous attempts (years ago)!

Here's the thing: this is not at all what I expected. I always thought it was some wonderful if slightly archaic nature writing full of observations on the weather, birds and creatures, growing things etc. Not really. It's a lot more about politics (as they were back then), protests on slavery, umbrage at modern developments ruining mankind (there's pages and pages about how the train makes people hurry and rush about), how government should or should not affect our lives, why people should be engaged in something useful and soul-lifting instead of just working to earn money, etc. He criticizes his fellow man a lot. He does mention a few birds here and there, how peaceful it is to just sit under the trees, how much he appreciates the simple life. But he wasn't far off in the woods in isolation. Tons of people visited him all the time it sounds like, really curious what he was doing out there by himself. The train ran very close to his cabin, the pond was a regular fishing spot for many, farmers and kids out picking berries walked close by, and he could hear cattle in the adjacent fields. It was walking distance to the village. He eschewed coffee and other so-called luxuries to live pretty much just off what he grew or gathered (I think): mainly his beans, and fish he caught. I thought there I would relate, there's a whole chapter about cutivating the bean plants and I'm a gardener too, but nope. It starts out about hoeing the beans and how nicely meditative that task can be, but soon unravels into other lofty topics that supposedly relate to what bean plants with their nice broad leaves made him think of but I can't make head or tails out of it.

That was my main problem. Thoreau is very much a philosopher and it either makes my mind wander, or go in circles, or I have to read a passage three, four, five times in a row and I still don't get what he was saying. So many pages of this book I was actually thinking about something else as the printed words marched through my head unheeded (so now I know how a fellow book-blogger could sing while she reads, which I didn't comprehend before). The parts I liked? where Thoreau describes in detail the ice on the pond, the air bubbles into it, the way it forms and later on breaks up in the springtime, the industry of hired people who come to cut blocks of it, harvesting for use in summer- people had ice-boxes back then, not fridges and freezers, so this was interesting to read how that was done and how it was stored to prevent melting. How mud makes weird shapes during the spring thaw (but again he turned this into some lyrical comparison I did not get). The voices of owls, a mouse that got used to his presence, the geese he observed on the pond and fish under the clear water. I liked reading how he undertook to plumb and measure the pond's depth, as people in the vicinity claimed it was bottomless, but nobody had ever really tried find out. I liked a lot of his sentiments and agreed with many of his opinions on what's valuable in life etc, but it sure was tough to wade through all the words. Philosophy and political rants are really not my thing.

Note on the stars: this is obviously one of those great books which I personally have difficulty appreciating. I didn't exactly enjoy reading it, though I do feel enriched by it. It was pretty hard to get through. If it had been easier and more enjoyable, definitely would have given it a 4.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

I was already aware that Thoreau didn’t really live the monkish life of seclusion and self-sufficiency that he claimed, but I was willing to read this semi-memoir anyway for the slice-of-life stuff: descriptions of his idyllic days in the forest and garden alone except for animals. But I only made it through 30 pages of off-topic rants before I gave up. If I wanted to listen to some old white guy bitch about modern technology and “young people these days” I’d just go to Facebook. If you want a book by a guy who really did build a cabin in the middle of nowhere, by hand, and lived there alone year-round (except for occasional deliveries of beer and TP) and who can really make you pine for the pines with his prose, get you a copy of Dick Proenneke’s One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey or the beautiful DVD version, Alone in the Wilderness.

This book contains a lot of wisdom. There are sections that are so philosophical and witty, that I couldn't put the book down, but there are also sections that are tedious and too detailed, which slowed down my reading. I found myself wanting more of the wisdom and insights, particularly in the middle. ( )

Saint Henry would be chagrined to see that the mass of common men hasn't improved one whit since the 1840s. See John Graves for a Texas version of Thoreau one hundred year's later. ( )

Timeless, beautiful, truthful. ( )