On Thoreau's Walden--a Book Review

On Thoreau’s Walden—a Book Review

Recommended by Ms. Sophia Chen

"When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again."

So begins Henry David Thoreau's Walden, or Life in the Woods.

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, naturalist, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings.

Walden is not a novel, a narrative poem, or a play; there is no clear story line, no plot line. Nor is it autobiography, although much of it is based on Thoreau's life at Walden pond. Yet this book presents his transcendental belief that abstract, spiritual reality is thoroughly embedded in physical reality, rightly seen. Thoreau uses the concrete world to suggest unsayable truths.

Being an empiricist of his transcendentalism, Thoreau lived in and looked into Nature for ultimate Truth. In his Walden Thoreau explored the great truths of Nature and experienced a spiritual transformation. Thoreau’s Walden experiment demonstrated how carefree a man can be when he is living in much the same way as a Chinese Taoist, or a Taoist-saunterer. On the one hand, Thoreau’s roaming in Walden Pond can be compared to the big bird’s soaring in the sky in Chuang-tzu, in which spiritual transcendence is coupled with the perennial Tao; on the other, to a return to Nature, where the artifice and depravity of society cannot reach. Both Walden and Chuang-tzu tried to reach the conviction of the entity of the natural world and God, or the realization of the significance of Nature’s essential role in realizing man’s spiritual transformation. In Walden Thoreau sees things in the Taoist perspective. He is cultivating balance between nature and soul, primitiveness and civilization, spirit and matter.

Walden intends to provoke its readers into thought. It is Thoreau’s desire to create moments for his readers to perceive the essence of real, over-all life. What Walden conveys to its readers is an intensity of response to life. The final sentences: "There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." -- show the coming of moments--awareness.  Walden is a book written very directly to its readers, and it invites its readers to respond to their own lives independently. Walden reminds its readers that their lives can only be completed by themselves.