Walden | Comfort Classic | Journal

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”

 

Thoreau lived at Walden Pond from July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847. Walden was published in 1854.

Pond near my house

For the last few years I’ve returned to Thoreau’s Walden many times. Sometimes I read it from beginning to end, sometimes I listen to the audiobook. Other times, I read only a chapter, or the things I’ve highlighted. Themes, excerpts, and the work as a whole especially come to mind when I visit my parents’ home and take a walk around the forest and the local pond. I am trying to figure out what is it about Walden that makes it what I call a “comfort classic”—a classic I re-read to make the world feel right again. This entry is really meant to read like a personal reading journey entry where I log notes and discuss them.

In the first section ‘economy’ Thoreau points out all that is wrong with society, which frankly has not changed, if anything it has only worsened (particularly discussing student debt from the Universities). He points out all that is wrong, and all that we should aspire to be. He writes:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

The mass is quiet, that is what makes it awful. They have the natural consequence but they do not know how to express this quiet desperation.

“What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be a falsehood to-morrow.”

“One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.”

“Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me”

“Are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change.”

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.”

Thoreau also mentions how impractical the anxiety to be fashionable is (in terms of clothes, household furnishings and objects).

Earlier I mentioned that certain things have worsened since (like fees, rent, etc). I wonder how Thoreau would react or write about (in the middle class West) people spending the majority of their time on the Internet indoors.

“It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies…birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots…many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box.”

There is something in Walden, particularly in the beginning that strongly reminds me of things I’ve seen or heard recently but figured Thoreau said it first. Most of the discussion of your things owning you was strongly ringing of Fight Club (not the book but the movie).

I think what I like about his writing is that he goes from contemplative and philosophical writing to the mundane and every day speech all in the same sentence. Thoreau wrestles with social constructions that have ones seemed natural and a part of our existence.

I like imagining Thoreau walking, and thinking, and just tapping into some of his thoughts on literature and what he sees, to me, is a very idealized pastoral scene so Walden has become my comfort classic.

If you were to compare what some of today’s styles and trends are: eating organic, growing your own food, travelling and reconnecting with nature, hiking, etc. This sort of ‘hippy’ or ‘bohemian’ lifestyle is often divorced from the intellectual now. I realize that Thoreau did all these things back in the 1840s and combined it with the intellect. His chapters on “reading,” and “where I lived and what I lived for” are imbued with literary references and discussions. It is akin to books like Ex Libris or the genre we all love so much recently ‘books about books.’

“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself.”

His every thought is an allusion or a reference to a literary work from antiquity to his contemporaries. Through the voices of other literary giants and describing the sounds around the pond, Thoreau shows how you can be surrounded while completely alone in a contemplative state.

Every section of Walden has its own charm. There are so many YouTube channels for instance focusing on cooking, growing your own things, and budgeting. Thoreau writes about all those things explaining in detail how he did it. I sometimes imagine 19^th century readers reading this the same way millions of us subscribe to channels online now. I enjoyed reading about his budget, savings, and spending when it came to building the house and investing in clothing, food, and farm supplies. It’s both personal and distant, it’s doable and also impossible. Most importantly it brings me to a good place mentally because I think about nature, and what the natural realm means.

 

 

 

Hunger by Roxane Gay | Book Review

“This is a memoir of my body”

Hunger is my first Roxane Gay book and my introduction to the author. She emphasises in the first chapters that this book is not a diet book, or a self-help book.  This book does not justify morbid obesity as healthy, nor does it provide excuses as to why the author is not thin. Gay definitely emphasises the great shame that comes with being overweight from the pressures of society and beauty standards, to the health distresses, and the many side-effects of being obese. The author specifies that this book is a memoir or a history of her body. Alongside, she writes reflections and thoughts she has had about weight in general. As I was taking notes for this review, I kept wondering: how could I possibly criticise a book that is the history of a person’s body? It feels awfully personal,  especially when the author is so pleasant and such great company. The best I can do is tell you what it’s about.

Roxane Gay discusses in the early portions of the book the most traumatic event of her life (and body) where she was physically violated by a group of young boys at the tender age of twelve. The humiliation and trauma alone resulted in her silence for years to follow. The shattering experience and undoing of her world would have been subject to discussion. It would be her word against theirs—she would have to experience the judgement passed on women who come forward as rape victims as they are immediately questioned, doubted, and accused of lying. Women who step forward to report a crime, and instead of being aided, supported, and promised justice, they are discussed as if their testimony is debatable. Gay writes that even “the medical community is not particularly interested in taking the pain of women seriously.”

What follows is a series of chapters focusing on the struggles Gay had with weight as she used her body as its own fortress. She writes:

 “I could become more solid, stronger, safer…if I was undesirable, I could keep more hurt away.”

She describes the experience akin to being trapped in a cage where you are safe, but cannot move freely.

“The frustrating thing about cages is that you’re trapped but you can see exactly what you want”

For years the author struggled with trying to become conventionally attractive, and simultaneously trying to protect herself. What I found particularly uplifting was her description of the refuge she found in books. Certain books she said “offered a vocabulary” for her to understand what happened to her and gave her the knowledge/relief that being raped was not her fault.

She also focuses several chapters critiquing television shows like The Biggest Loser, and Revenge Bodies, the conversations in the medical community, and the way society as a whole perceives overweight bodies in discussion, books, and mainstream media.

Most importantly, she writes about her family and the people around her who claimed that they only bring the topic of weight up on a constant basis because they ‘care about her.’ No one focused on her Ph.D., on her books, or on her successes.

“I became resentful that the only thing anyone ever wanted to focus on was my body…People project assumed narratives onto your body and are not at all interested in the truth of your body…your body is the subject of public discourse.”

What I find particularly interesting is that Roxane Gay took the history of her body and critiqued the people who put her body in public discourse, under observation and discussion, as if it was a text, and in the process, she wrote this book which is in itself a text.

I hope that people who read this book don’t go in with a closed mind, and prepared to judge. I hope readers come to this text willing to understand the story of one person’s body.

I would also recommend two non-fiction companion books to this:

The first is a philosophy-heavy text by Elaine Scarry called The Body in Pain – in this book Scarry writes an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces that confront it: literary, political, medical, religious. It particularly focuses on how physical pain destroys language, and how every individual experiences pain differently on a personal level, where pain can never be shared, described, or conveyed in its entirety.

The second is Dr. Gabor Mate’s book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. He is the first doctor who worked with heroin addicts, alcoholics, and overweight people and asked the question: why don’t doctors take a moment to understand WHY some people are more susceptible to addiction than others.

I found that Roxane Gay’s personal narrative in Hunger provided the most perfect story to support the philosophy-heavy Scarry book, and the medical book by Gabor Mate.

Many thanks to Harper for sending an ARC for early review. Hunger will be published on June 13, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Roxane Gay’s other Works:

• Difficult Women (fiction/short stories)
• Bad Feminist (Non-fiction essays)

Links to Some of Roxane Gay’s Lectures:

•  TED Talk: Confessions of a Bad Feminist
• An Evening with Roxane Gay

February Reading Wrap-up

In the month of February I began my month by reading five poetry books, four of which I wrapped up individually here. The fifth I will feature as an independent book review in the near future. These are the novels I read and/or listened to in the month of February:

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

3.5-4. Mary Yellen is a 23 year old who lives on a peaceful farm when her mom dies. She is forced to move in with her aunt Patience and terrifying uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn (which is a real 18th century Inn, made famous by this novel– the structure still stands). Jamaica Inn has a bad reputation mainly because Joss Merlyn hosts evenings with pirates and bad company. Mary stays at the Inn for her aunt. What follows midway through the novel is a romance with an unexpected character (won’t spoil it). The atmosphere of this novel is very Gothic, mainly due to the night time pirates and the fog-covered moors by which the Inn is surrounded.
Du Maurier is an excellent storyteller. Her descriptions, the atmosphere, character depth, and language uses are absolutely flawless. I will definitely read Rebecca in the near future. What I did not enjoy was that Jamaica Inn (published 1936) tried very hard to sound like Wuthering Heights (1847). The two works are almost 90 years apart and I think Du Maurier could have really accomplished more in her novel if she would have used the tools and writing techniques developed in that time for an atmosphere suitable for her contemporary audience (we’re even past the Jazz age at this point). In addition, the romance which begins half-way through the novel feels very forced. The relationship is not developed nor explored and feels unnecessary, which is why the second part of the novel really lacks substance and the narrative takes several directions after the half way point. This is a shame because it really takes away from the great atmosphere built in the first half. I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes Gothic novels, and pirates! Also I would count this novel as straddling the line of a “classic” and “mainstream literature from that time.” It’s not too heavy but it’s well written. I will definitely read more by this author.

Lincoln the Bardo by George Saunders

4 Stars. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Saunders said that he was so moved by a story he heard 20 years ago about Abraham Lincoln holding his dead son’s body in the crypt that it inspired him to take the short story long and write his first novel. With this excerpt from history, Saunders then explored the concept of the Bardo, which is a Tibetan word meaning “in between” or “transition”–the Eastern concept of purgatory. Saunders appropriated the Bardo for this narrative so that if one had any unresolved issues he/she would have to resolve them to move on. Willie Lincoln (the son) is stuck in the Bardo and there are many voices around him of other people from across the ages who are not aware they are dead, or what’s keeping them there.
In content, I couldn’t help but compare this story to Dostoevsky’s ‘short’ story “Bobok” which is about a man walking through a graveyard and overhearing conversations of the dead. Stylistically it reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland.” I will say, that in this novel Saunders is definitely more focused on style and exploring a very detailed moment (death of Willie) and a very specific concept (consciousness in the Bardo). Academics are going to love this book I’m sure. It’s very “focused” and has room for a lot of discussion. Also if this is ever performed on stage it would have a very Samuel Beckett feel to it.
Personally, I listened to it on audible on a train ride exactly the length of the audiobook. I would STRONGLY recommend the audiobook because Audible got several actors for the different voices and it really comes alive (Nick Offerman is awesome).
All in all, I’m not sure if DURING the experience of listening to it I was intrigued or really into it but after it was done I couldn’t stop thinking about it as a whole. I recommend it to anyone who is into different experimental styles of writing, Beckett, T.S. Eliot, and again strongly recommend it in audio format.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Squirrel friends have perfect timing

4.5 Stars. My heart’s a mess right now. At first this book reminded me of The Iron Giant and Coraline with echoes from the Deathly Hallows‘ “The Tale of the Three Brothers” but then it grows into something more, a book about healing, and by the end I just couldn’t believe how well it was crafted. This book was so well written. The book is about a young boy named Conor whose mother is dying of cancer. He is visited by a monster who is also a giant Yew Tree at night (12:07 precisely) and tells him three fairytale-like stories with a highly atmospheric description and a twist. That’s all I can say about the summary without being too spoiler-filled for those who have not read it yet. What is particularly magical about the way this really depressing story is told is the use of language and metaphor (and sometimes allegory). This is a book I would teach and discuss at length. It’s highly memorable and I expect it to haunt me forever. Here are just some lines that stayed with me:

“there is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between” (70).

“And if no one sees you…are you really there at all?” (163).

“But there are harder things than being invisible” (171).

“You must tell the truth or you will never leave this nightmare…you will be trapped here alone for the rest of your life” (204).

A Hermit’s Cookbook: Monks, Food and Fasting in the Middle Ages by Andrew Jotischky

4 Stars. I really enjoyed this book. It’s a great non-fiction read. I never thought someone would look into the eating habits of medieval monks and it’s a topic that absolutely fascinates me. Jotischky not only looks at habits and behaviours around food in relation to faith, but also at where each item would be cooked, the kinds of ovens, and sometimes includes recipes as well. He also contrasts monks in various locations and contextualizes eating habits according to what those people would have access to. Overall it’s a very history-heavy text and I would recommend it to anyone interested in history, and the medieval period, or the history of eating/food

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

3 Stars. I can’t tell if it’s because this book has been so hyped up that I came to it expecting more. The IDEA of this novella is fantastic. Teens who have been to different worlds like Wonderland, Underland etc. return to this world and can’t go back so they go to this “school” that’s kind of a rehab facility. It’s mental institution meets fairy tales. It sounds amazing right? The metaphors and allusions are great. Some characters had such potential. The idea is Golden. Even the book cover design is so alluring that you want to pick it up and read it. BUT the way the story is told is absolutely awful.  I gave this three stars for the idea. I wish that someone could re-write this because the idea is so good. I’m so angry that such a good idea with such great potential wasn’t given the chance to be fully explored. There is a chance I read it at the wrong time, in the wrong mood, and it piled up on top of the built-up expectation of how good it’s supposed to be. Maybe I’ll re-read this after a while and see if I feel the same way.