🍃🌿🌱🐞 Stacy's Idea Garden 🐞🌱🌿🍃

Before I picked up Walden, I read a bunch of critical reviews that said it was boring. I expected to disagree with these reviewers, but oh boy, they sure were correct!

Who likes this book? Anyone who is doing anything slightly different from what the rest of society does (maybe people who follow veganism, or really avowed anarchists, or anti-natalists). Broadly, I think people who like this probably have some strongly-held concept of moral cleanliness, and maybe believe goodness comes from making sacrifices to conform to this notion. “There can be no black melancholy in him who lives in the midst of nature” - really?

I’ve always thought that the most significant way in which Thoreau was different from others is that he was an abolitionist. I don’t think other unconventional opinions take nearly the same amount of moral courage, nor was his abolitionist stance discussed in Walden itself. For that reason, I find both Walden and it’s fans to be very underwhelming.

I read this book while I was alone in rural thailand. It really made me think about how, as a gainfully employed westerner, I have the same kind of broad social safety net that Thoreau had while living by Walden pond. It was a good reminder about what obnoxiousness looks like from the outside.

Review: 1/5 stars, I don’t understand what’s special about this