Judgments of Henry David Thoreau (2015)

A couple of years after this essay appeared Jedediah Purdy published something of a response in The Nation:

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/thoreau-radical-se...

I think you can disapprove of the man and it sounds like it is correct that he was disingenuous with backing his message with action, but isn’t it conceivable that the message was still worth something and that the message still speaks to us?

I feel this article is more of a critique of character than it is that of Thoreau's writing. I stumbled into Walden in my 30s and figured I'd continue my classic exploration. After a month of trying to get through the first few chapters, all I could tell myself was that I hated this book, and couldn't figure out why in hell people were praising it. I wanted to make sense out of it, get a grand picture: I wanted to extract the wisdom Thoreau was surely pouring through the pages! I was miserable, my experience was horrible. Reading felt forced, the text itself dense and unenjoyable. After some thought, I resolved to just get through the pages, and not try to make sense out of it, just cruising through. From then on, the pages and the words took on a different meaning - it wasn't about an idea to be extracted, but about simply enjoying the words on the pages. The moment I stopped trying to make sense out of the book, I started enjoying the words on their own, and they turned out to be the most beautiful friends through my reading.

"Walden" is my favorite book to this day. If you try to analyze it, you might get lost in the weeds - I feel this is what happened with the author of that article here - there's a story in it: Don't focus on it, just let your mind wander and enjoy the pure, humble beauty laid bare throughout.

The author has the merit of having actually read Thoreau rather than taking him for granted because of his reputation. However, am I going to get rid of Two Weeks on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers because I know that he has limitations? No.

There are only flawed authors. The question is what the author provides that one can't as readily find elsewhere. For Thoreau, the answer I think is, A fair bit.

The submitted title was the HTML doc title ("Why Do We Love Henry David Thoreau?"), which is a perfectly legit choice for an HN submission. But it seems to be having a baity effect, so I've changed it to the least baity substring of any of the titles options above. Please let's react to the actual article now.

What would Thoreau be doing in his cabin today? Back then he did a little surveying as gig work (in between support from family and Emerson). In the late 1990's I pictured him as a freelance web designer. Would the Thoreau of 2020 be dispensing wisdom from a hut on Bali, doing a little drop shipping on the side?

That read as if the author went through everything they knew about Thoreau and took the least generous interpretation they could for each case.

blows my mind no one ever brings up the walden storylines from doonesbury. it touches on everything we are still debating to this very day.

It's silly to judge a man died 153 years ago using contemporary values. Walden is one of the few books I read so many times that I lost count.

Essentially we like him because he was like us: hypocrites? As the article says he was full of him self. He was a liar. He didn’t live on his own. People cared for him out of their own pocket. Those who love home do so because they want to be like him: a lying moralist that hypocritically says that we are better than you so listen to us. I hated him at 14. I hate him now.