Ugh that was a tedious read but at least not too long. The only reason I didn't abandon it is so I could say I've read Walden. But I really don't understand what the big deal is. This isn't even a philosophical treatise on solitude and life off the grid. It's mostly just Thoreau describing the nature around him. In painful detail. In a holier-than-thou moral-high-ground tone at that.

Maybe it's a huge revelation for those who have never set foot in a forest or lived in the country? But if you're looking for a book about how to live off the grid or stay in the present moment I would rather recommend a how-to self help book on the topic rather than reading some old dude's description of how he was doing those things.

This took me like six years (exaggeration) to finish. It was atrociously boring, contradictory, and Thoreau was a snobbish ass. I did read an essay that posited that Walden could be read through the lens of Thoreau being neurodivergent, perhaps autistic, and this did make some of his thoughts about his fellow man make a bit more sense, as well as his desire for seclusion. I'll also, reluctantly, overlook the fact that he spends over 300 pages talking about how self-sufficient he was when his mom was doing his laundry and making him food because he never learned how.

But he is classist at the same time as romanticizing the isolation and scarcity of poverty. He is an intellectual snob at the same time as desiring AND insulting a purely intellectual life. He exoticizes and degrades and dehumanizes indigenous people for being "savages". He contradicts himself, his arguments are hypocritical, rambling bits of nonsense that were only palatable because I read them as satire.

He gets two stars because the later parts of the book, where he's mostly just describing his surroundings, are pretty. But this was a slog to get through that I wouldn't have read at all had it not been a gift ten years ago that I've still not felt okay getting rid of.

So beautiful!!

I've tried to read this book over the course of a year, and now, 3/4 of the way through, I'm giving up. I want so desperately to enjoy this book due to the wisdom that is still relevant today. I find it interesting that his criticism of education, and our pursuit of ownership and status that requires a relentless pursuit of work is relevant today. His thoughts on minimalism and living simply completely resonate with me. However, the wisdom is scattered throughout his constant ramblings about the sounds of nature, every chirp in the forest, and every little detail that he notices happening around him. While I think that sitting back and enjoying the simple life is important, conveying that in the most minute detail does not make for an enjoyable read. If you are going to attempt to read this book and garner the important wisdom within, let me save you some time: read the first three chapters, the chapters on visitors, and the very last chapter. The rest is mostly ramblings by a someone who's spent way too much time making his daily journal into a book.

A very conflicting book.
An equal balance of meditative and beautiful prose, boring and self-indulgent descriptions of nature (the "pond" chapters are near-unreadable) and bizarre but interesting digressions where I really have no idea what the author was getting at.
Thoreau is no Emerson, but this is still a good read (if you skip a few chapters here and there).