He can be wordy and bombastic, reminiscent of the radio disc jockey Chris on the 1990s television series Northern Exposure. Other young readers find Thoreau pompous, way too much over the top. Some who discover Thoreau in their youth, like this reviewer, are left amazed every time they pick up one of his works.
This is especially true of young adult readers. Thoreau will make your mind soar or leave you cold.
Readers who have opinions about Thoreau tend to have strong opinions. In his 1851 essay “ Walking,” Thoreau tells readers, “We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure.” And there is probably no American writer who understood this aspect of human nature better than Henry David Thoreau. We spawned in the oceans and learned to run on the savannas. We are not meant to sit still for too long. The Covid-19 shutdowns and quarantines have reminded us of something important about ourselves. In this essay, she explains the literary tradition that treats dogs as guides to wildness and the more-than-human world in order to argue that, if we pay proper attention, dogs' sensory capabilities in particular can point us toward the invisible wild dimensions of the natural world.Thoreau statue and replica cabin, Walden Pond, Concord, MAīy Jim Baggett | Archives Department, Central Library
She proposes that bringing a dog as a companion may enhance the wildness of a walk, despite the ways that dogs can work against many of Thoreau's values by functioning as distractions and added responsibilities.
the ways that such a Thoreauvian walk might take shape in the suburban and urban environments where most people live in the contemporary United States. This essay takes as its starting point the challenge posed by Henry David Thoreau's 1861 essay "Walking," which suggests that even the shortest walk around the neighborhood should be approached as a quest for wildness, a quest that must be taken up in such a "spirit of undying adventure" that the walker must be prepared "never to return." The author draws on her personal experiences to explore.
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