Walden
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Translator: Seung-young Kang
Publisher: Eunhaengnamu
502 pages.
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| >>>This book is written in Korean only. |
About This Book
Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau is one of the
best-known non-fiction books written by an American.
Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's life for two years and two months in
second-growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond, not far from his friends
and family in Concord, Massachusetts. Walden was written so that the stay
appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal divisions. Thoreau called it an
experiment in simple living.
Walden is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but a social critique
of the Western World, with each chapter heralding some aspect of humanity that
either needed to be renounced or praised. Along with his critique of the
civilized world, Thoreau examines other issues afflicting man in society,
ranging from reading and economy to solitude and "higher laws." He also takes
time to talk about the experience at Walden Pond itself, commenting on the
animals and the way people treated him for living there, using those experiences
to bring out his philosophical positions. This extended commentary on nature has
often been interpreted as a strong statement to the natural religion that
transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson were preaching.
More than a century later, Walden remains a touchstone for Americans seeking to
"get in touch with Nature," and is a major cultural icon. It has been parodied
in the Doonesbury comic strip, and emulated in Walden Two by B.F. Skinner.
The pond itself is a tourist attraction, as well as a center of controversy over
nearby development - thus demonstrating the very tension between natural and
man-made pleasures that Thoreau explored in his book.
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