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Thread: Walden

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    Senior Member ctg492's Avatar
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    Walden

    Please tell me your reviews, Good or Bad and why.
    I felt I would bond with this book, theory every aspect. I mentioned I am planning a trip there also. I have studied each topic or reference brought up. If it is a Greek God, I spend the evening studying that. I do understand the era of which this was written, savages and slavery mentioned. That has been the best part of this for me.
    I am having a hard time with the judgement Thoreau casts on just about everyone. I feel I must be way off base since this is such a piece of American history. I even searched for reviews to find out if there were others that felt this way. I think he was the original slacker, sure if someone lets you live for free on their land, pays your tax so you can stay out of jail, free fuel, you can survive on little. So he lived this for two years, then he had spent enough time on this life and had others to live I read.
    What am I missing?

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    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    Hi CTG492: I read this book so long ago that it isn't very fresh in my mind, but I think your criticisms are pretty valid from what I recall. I don't think I would have particularly liked to hang out with HDT. That doesn't mean he didn't have anything good to say though.

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    Senior Member ctg492's Avatar
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    Some vary valid points he brought up. Interesting how so long ago yet many of the same issue we deal with as individuals and society. Seems semi like No Impact Man, Colin Beavan except Colin is living it still as best he can while still living in society.

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    I read that part of why he was considered a slacker at the time was that his family made its money by some invention in how to make graphite pencils that could have been easily duplicated and was thus kept secret. His frequent visits home were so he could work the family business of pencil making, but he couldn't talk about it. As for the tax paying, he was content to stay in jail to make his point, but a family member was too embarrassed for him to stay there so she paid the tax (and probably drug him home figuratively by his ear...).
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    Senior Member ctg492's Avatar
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    True and it much easier to play poverty when you are highly educated as he was, when you have family and friends, when it is self imposed poverty vs poverty. Sometimes people want of what they are not, poor to be rich and rich wanting to...well not sure how to phrase it but live as he did to see other side knowing one can return.

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    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    You are so right, voluntary anything as opposed to involuntary will always be an entirely different experience.

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    I love love love Thoreau. So he was a slacker, if noone else seemed to mind much, then what's wrong with that? It's badly needed to counteract "the work ethic" IMO. If Emerson or Thoreau's family were really peeved at it, they never let on as far as I know. And the world is better off from his slacking and writing, than from more diligent pencil making. If trade secrets are how his business made money, it seems to me utterly mundane and commonplace.

    I don't think anyone anywhere sees Walden as a story of involuntary poverty. There are plenty of stories about involuntary poverty, mostly about how much it sucks.
    Trees don't grow on money

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    Senior Member ctg492's Avatar
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    ApatheticNoMore, that is why I asked to hear others thought thank you. I think it was voluntary poverty, choose this as an experiment of life. That is a great project. I just wonder why he was so judgmental of the rest of the world really. Given that he was going back to it.

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    Senior Member kib's Avatar
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    I kinda lost my faith when I read that he was originally named David Henry Thoreau but he thought Henry David sounded better.


    So anyway ... for my money RW Emerson was the better man, but I try to look beyond HDT's personal life to his message, which does resonate with me as long as I don't think about who did his laundry for him during this time of self sufficiency (Mommy.)

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    Don't you think 'Mommy' was the one who cared if his clothes were clean? More than he did? And, since he was doing the family work supporting them, perhaps it was her way of paying him back a bit.

    I think that his observations on living in poverty from an educated point of view in the (from memory of many years ago...) Bakers Farm chapter are echo'd today in the line 'Broke is just passing through, poor is a lifestyle'. He contrasted their shack that leaked and was almost inhabitable to his own, which he took care to show was nothing that just a bit of work could change. He even attempted to show the father how to catch fish, but he was so set in his ways, even though he was unsuccessful, that he couldn't see how simple changes could improve his lot. His observation that the child was young enough that it didn't know if it was the son of a King or of the couple before him shows he thought that the poverty mindset was learned, not an ingrained character trait. At times I hear the song 'don't have to live like a refrugee' (where's my spell check???) when I'm looking around feeling sorry for myself. In truth, most of my 'problems' are from a lack of motivation to get off my a$$ than from any external 'the world is against me' issues. And that is what I took from that chapter.

    I found him to be judgemental, or mostly just making observations, across the board. He was equally appalled by all classes of folks. Mostly, as he said in the introduction, because the people all blamed outside forces for the unhappyness, not seeing that the solution was within their grasp if only they would look up from their complaints long enough. He says, if you are happy in you life, this book is not for you.
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