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A review by atxspacecowboy
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
1.0
I have always wanted to read Walden as some of my favorites quotations are found within:
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
"It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."
Buuuut... I also always had some unknown-sourced, deep-seeded reservation to reading it as well.
...turns out my instincts were correct.
Thoreau was the most pompous, ignorant, pseudo-intellectual, holier-than-thou, arrogant @ss!
I am 1 year older than he was when he wrote Walden, so I have a similar frame of reference on life with regards time on the planet.
Not when I was younger and stupider (yep stupider) and surely not when older and wiser, would I have made such outlandish and asinine statements as he does in the book.
"Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young."
"I have lived some 30 years on this planet and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable even ernest advice for my seniors--the have told me nothing."
WTHell? Is he serious? And no I'm not spinning something completely out of context. The book is rife with examples of how superior he feels he is to the rest of humankind.
I do not understand how more people aren't utterly offended at his criticisms and tone. He alienates (and more often insults) people who: read the news, read fiction, rent a home vs build one (but only with their own hands), own more than 5 dishes, listen to music or drink alcohol or coffee, to name a few. Basically everyone.
He pontificates on how man will (insert something most people do here) and how that is so (insert insulting remark here). He never includes himself in the corrections that need to be made in humanity. On the contrary, he uses himself as the example of the ideal.
Speaking of his lofty view of himself, he ACTUALLY wrote:
"Sometimes when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the Gods than they.
...I do not flatter myself but if it be possible, they flatter me."
Nuff said.
Read it.
You may not agree with me.
There are some gems in it.
...stuck in a pile of horsesh*t.
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
"It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."
Buuuut... I also always had some unknown-sourced, deep-seeded reservation to reading it as well.
...turns out my instincts were correct.
Thoreau was the most pompous, ignorant, pseudo-intellectual, holier-than-thou, arrogant @ss!
I am 1 year older than he was when he wrote Walden, so I have a similar frame of reference on life with regards time on the planet.
Not when I was younger and stupider (yep stupider) and surely not when older and wiser, would I have made such outlandish and asinine statements as he does in the book.
"Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young."
"I have lived some 30 years on this planet and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable even ernest advice for my seniors--the have told me nothing."
WTHell? Is he serious? And no I'm not spinning something completely out of context. The book is rife with examples of how superior he feels he is to the rest of humankind.
I do not understand how more people aren't utterly offended at his criticisms and tone. He alienates (and more often insults) people who: read the news, read fiction, rent a home vs build one (but only with their own hands), own more than 5 dishes, listen to music or drink alcohol or coffee, to name a few. Basically everyone.
He pontificates on how man will (insert something most people do here) and how that is so (insert insulting remark here). He never includes himself in the corrections that need to be made in humanity. On the contrary, he uses himself as the example of the ideal.
Speaking of his lofty view of himself, he ACTUALLY wrote:
"Sometimes when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the Gods than they.
...I do not flatter myself but if it be possible, they flatter me."
Nuff said.
Read it.
You may not agree with me.
There are some gems in it.
...stuck in a pile of horsesh*t.