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Walden is exceedingly complex. Chapter threads encourage coordinated reading, but I would like a Preface to Walden thread where general ideas like Thoreau's pantheism could be discussed.
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threads
I would like to see a free flow discussion on Walden. I see a single thread of thought flowing through the whole book. It gives me great hope that he self published also. TeeHee
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A free flowing massive thread sounds good, but from experience it poses some problems. Imagine that several people are making posts about something they find interesting around page 185, but the majority of members are still somewhere around page 20. Obviously, the material neing posted about page 185 will not make much sense to the people no where near that far into the book.
There needs to be some sort of system for breaking apart the book or at least for labeling the threads. We don't necessarily need chapter threads, but we at least need threads labeled so that all members can easily identify what that particular thread is about.
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It's a good question Chris has brought up, and I somehow think chapter threads might not generate the discussion that thematic or subject threads could. My own interest is in Thoreau purely as a writer, for example, an aspect of him that is sometimes overlooked. But it could also be possible to proceed from a series of illustrative quotations, chosen in advance or just posted by us all. As we read and become inspired or excited by a passage, we could offer it up for discussion.
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For thematic threads, people should suggest what they see as the big themes that interest them in Walden. With this book there are likely to be themes worthy of discussion which could involve people who only encounter the book through commentary. I am particularly interested in Thoreau's spiritual ecology, and how this relates to mainstream American opinion. His interest in native American philosophy is a related topic.
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WildCityWoman wrote:
Why do you think Walden is complex?
Thoreau tells us so:
Quote:
18.6 It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow so.
("18.6" means chapter 18, paragraph 6.)
That is, if a reader demands that the text have only a one-dimensional literal significance, then the reader will not grow -- experience the spiritual depth of the book. The first several times I read Walden, I misread it.
OK now, here's a test:
Quote:
2.23 Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.
If on your own you can make sense of this brief last paragraph of Chapter 2 in less that six hours, you're a better reader than I am.
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Thematic is good for me
That's not fair, Thomas has already started posting. Thematic is good for me as I think the main spring driving Thoreau was his hate for commerce. He hated commerce as a drug counsler hates crack cocaine. He see's what it does to the person's spirit, his family, his life. "If the angles sold messages from God to humans they would be corrupted by commerce." Take that Thomas!
Well I see I just posted my age. Is that like playing golf?
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Re: Thematic is good for me
lawrenceindestin wrote:
That's not fair, Thomas has already started posting.
You caught me, Lawrence. I jumped the gun.
It's the IWWIWWIWI caterpillar. I've been fidgeting
for days, wanting to say something, and the lady
did ask a question.
But, well, if hatred for commerce is Thoreau's
main spring, how do you explain the test
paragraph? (Hint: bottom with bright pebbles,
richest vein, divining-rod, etc.)
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Sooners
I'll deal with that you can be sure. Be sure and study allagory, metaphore and similie. We are going to have a high old time. Chris, do we have to wait until July? L
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Quote:
That is, if a reader demands that the text have only a one-dimensional literal significance, then the reader will not grow -- experience the spiritual depth of the book. The first several times I read Walden, I misread it. If on your own you can make sense of this brief last paragraph of Chapter 2 in less that six hours, you're a better reader than I am.
Tom, is there a better way to do it than on your own? The passage is a transcendental flight of fancy, and a good one. But do we have to parse everything out, consult sources, and risk losing the spirit of the man, which was anchored in the concrete and particular (but not limited to it)?
It was not Thoreau who said this, but rather his sometime mentor Emerson, but I believe Thoreau would endorse the sentiment: never read a book about a book ("The American Scholar," I think).
I think there is no worry, anyway, about reading the passage as one-dimensional and literal. I won't stand in anybody's way who likes to delve into criticism and such, but the tools to understand (even if not analytically) this passage, are in us. Or we may not fully understand it yet still know that it says something to us.
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Re: Thematic is good for me
Quote:
"If the angles sold messages from God to humans they would be corrupted by commerce."
Are these his words? It wouldn't surprise me if he got into such a mood. But I think he usually kept an uneasy truce with commerce. He appears to have accepted the railroad grudgingly as well. After all, it got him up to see the Maine woods. I guess saying more would be going too far at this stage....
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Walden
Thomas, you're worse than a Baptist quoting only that part of the Bible that makes his point.
In the context of the chapter Thoreau is simply giving the devil his due. But the whole thrust of the book and his testing experience at Walden was to determine if we really needed more than the basics. His conclusion:
Quote:
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation
because they work in commerce rather than study life.
I think we've started the discussion whether they were ready or not.
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