Walden Book Review

 Walden by Henry David Thoreau

1854

Memoir, Nonfiction

The time I heard of Walden was in a book series called The Mother Daughter Book Club. When I was in elementary school, it was one of my favorite series and followed mothers and their daughters as they read classic books together from middle school to high school. As I’ve gotten older and started to read classics, I’ve casually picked up some of the books I first heard about in this series as a kid, Little Women being my favorite example. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be a review about how Walden was a life changing book.

Walden is my first DNF of the year. While I think the book has a lot of interesting ideas from Henry David Thoreau, some of which are still relevant today, I found the read incredibly boring.

The book is written by Thoreau and chronicles some of the life lessons he learned by living off the land in a cabin on Walden lake in Concord, Massachusetts. The novel is written in first-person, which helped to make the book feel a lot more modern than its mid-nineteenth century publication date. Thoreau critiques society’s focus on fashion, trends, newness and upgrades, mortgages and owning land to push for self-sufficiency in the America he knew. These ideas were certainly interesting to read about in a different context than today.

Thoreau may have had some genuine critiques of society and other people, but some of his writing came across as pretentious and judgmental. I think this is one of the first times I’ve read someone’s writing and thought “Man, this guy really thinks that he’s the next best thing.” My primary example of this is when Thoreau stays with a farming family for a night. He describes their poverty in great detail and looks down upon them for choosing this life, rather than acknowledging how many socioeconomic factors come into play (which I know is modern, but still.) Also, he calls the family’s baby a conehead, which I personally felt was completely unnecessary?

The reason I stopped reading this book was because I got to the point where I felt like I didn’t need to read any more. I will give Thoreau credit for all of the hope he has for the next generation, but I just felt like there were other books I could read, get the same message, and actually enjoy. I was shocked to learn this is a required reading in some American states.

Rating: 1/5 While I truly did not have a good time reading Walden (maybe I shouldn’t have thought this could be a beach read?), I think that anyone interested in nineteenth century American life might enjoy Walden. If anything, I would tell potential readers that this is a book you have to be in the mood for.