Londons Falling

Let us settle ourselves in freedom

Rating: 5/5
Comments:
Walden is H. D. Thoreau's return to `wildness', but with a rucksack.
It is a protest against the existing civilized world, where men are `serfs of the soil with no time to be anything but a machine.' They act as `slave-drivers of themselves'. Why don't they live `as simply as I then did' with plenty of leisure time for `a written word, the choiciest of relics?'
Walden is a retreat from status, appearance and jealousy. As Jonathan Levin states in his excellent introduction: `Walden is written in defense of the value of the individual in the social / economic machinery.'

But, Thoreau's return to `wildness' is in no way a return to nature: `Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome.' `The animal in us perhaps cannot be wholly expelled. We are yet not pure.'
Thoreau's motto is: `A command over our passions and over the external senses of the body is declared by the Ved to be indispensable in the mind's approximation to God. Chastity is the flowering of men.' (!)
His dream of personal freedom and individual autarchy (`drink water from the pond') is in today's environment totally impossible. More, Thoreau contradicts himself by stating:' if we know all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point.' This is not less than plain determinism.

Civil Disobedience
This short pamphlet translates perfectly the US dream of uninhibited freedom: `that government is best which governs not at all'. But, Thoreau clearly understands that `no government' is not a possibility, only a `better government'.
His civil disobedience (not paying taxes) is a protest against a government whose policies are illegal and immoral: `to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico.'
More, it oppresses its own population: `There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.'

Henry David Thoreau's impossible `wildness' dream with all its contradictions as well as his highly actual `Civil Disobedience' message remain a classic in US and Western literature.
Not to be missed.

a guidence for life

Rating: 4/5
Comments:
this book is stunningly encouraging.It taught me how to organize my life.But I do think Thoreau was overtly against modern utensils. In "Economics" he said it was no use to have phones,railroads and stuffs alike.He had some good reasons,but the disadvantages cannot surpass the advantages of modern living styles

A Classic Must

Rating: 5/5
Comments:
Well Walden and Civil Dis. are both amazing essays and in that matter books. The fact that they have said so much and the genius that Thoreau remains to be is absolute. As E. B. White said if anyone attempted to recapture the way that Thoreau writes it would be impossible, the book would be torn and burned. His truth on simplicity is something that I myself and all should take into concept especially in these troubled times. I have read both works many times and continue to learn something new every single time. Absolute praise to Walden especially. I have personally learned that schools actually have it required to read "Where I lived and What I lived for." However difficult the message is for anyone the fact that it is taught in schools puts it up on the scale for anyone. To put up an argument against this book is tough because it will be rebuked again and again unless you write an entire book trying to show these things wrong ( Moby-Dick ). Well anyway this is a must, I have read absolute tons of books and I have still found Walden still of my absolute favorites. So get this, it's amazing.