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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One Man's Version of Thoreau's Journal, November 28, 2009
This review is from: The Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)
By length alone, despite a questionable editing choice, this new book becomes one of the best choices for the average reader interested in Thoreau's journal. No one, including the editor, pretends this is the equal of the full journal which is roughly ten times longer. Unfortunately, the older two-volume (relatively) complete journal is in a large unwieldy format, and the complete journal currently being published by Princeton is too academic and too expensive for the average reader.
The book's introductory material mentions five previous and much shorter books of journal selections. Several of these are still available--I own four of them and a couple others which aren't mentioned. Because there is so much original material to choose from and some of the books have a specific focus, there isn't that much duplication among them. If you enjoy one, you'll enjoy them all. Given the current options, I've preferred accumulating a collection of these books to an unsatisfactory version of the complete journal.
The introduction also explains how this book's content was chosen. The primary objective was to have it read as a representative version of the full journal rather than as a collection of excerpts. The editor therefore tried to balance material among the seasons and months, including keeping one of each month relatively unabridged. Another goal was to make it readable, so there is very little in the way of notes. Entries were chosen by personal preference, not historical importance. As you read, the date appears on the left page and Thoreau's age on the right so you always know where you are both in time and in his life.
An introductory example shows some of what was cut from one day's entry and made me wish again there was a better edition of the full journal. I'm not really comfortable with such heavy editing of Thoreau's words, especially since the text gives no indication of where the cuts are, even when done within a sentence. Does this material still deserve to be called Thoreau's journal? I greatly appreciate the quantity of material presented, but have reservations about its quality. It's not that it reads poorly--if the editor hadn't explained his method in the introduction, few people would even know cuts had been made. It just feels to me that Thoreau's been misquoted.
There is no index which would have been a very useful addition. There are however several of Thoreau's drawings included in the text, including an infamous morel which had been censored from the old edition of the journal.
Five stars for Thoreau's words, but I have to take away at least one for the editing.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Consider The Turtle, April 5, 2010
This review is from: The Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)
Proust, after reading excerpts of a French translation of Thoreau's Walden, said that, "It is as though one were reading them inside oneself, so much do they arise from the depths of our intimate experience." Indeed, quibble with editor, Damion Searls', selections for this nearly 700 page one volume edition of the Thoreau's Journal -one-tenth the original size - if you see fit, but he seems to me to have caught the heart of Thoreau. Proust might well admire him; at times, one rather thinks one might be reading a translation of Proust:
"Dreams are real, as is the light of stars and moon, and theirs is said to be a dreamy light. Such early morning thoughts as I speak of occupy a debatable ground between dreams and waking thoughts. They are a sort of permanent dream in my mind. At least, until we have for some time changed our position from prostrate to erect, and commenced or faced some of the duties of the day, we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced."
The best parts of these "intimate experiences" recorded here are the words of a liminal being, seeing through to some other world by seeing into the world around him so meticulously and yet so profoundly:
"Certain localities only a few rods square in the fields and on the hills, sometimes the other side of a wall, attract me as if they had been the scene of pleasure in another existence."
"As I climbed the Cliff, I paused in the sun and sat on a dry rock, dreaming. I thought of those summery hours when time is tinged with eternity - runs into it and becomes one stuff with it."
The overall effect of the volume is something like drifting down a river in Thoreau's boat (described herein) through mysterious and bewitching purlieus, where mindscape fuses with landscape. One comes away reminded of Thoreau's contemplation of the turtle:
"Be not in haste; mind your private affairs. Consider the turtle. Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace."
This has been my experience of reading these extracts of a man who said that, "I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream." He - I along with him - was often gripped by the striking eeriness of simply being alive: "I am living this 27th of June, 1840, a dull, cloudy day and no sun shining. The clink of the smith's hammer sounds feebly over the roofs, and the wind is sighing gently, as if dreaming of cheerfuler days."
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoreau's journals, simplified, May 24, 2010
This review is from: The Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1861 (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)
While I agree you can question the editing until you're blue in the face, this is a fine, affordable way to enjoy Thoreau's journals, plus a LOT easier to use than his hardcover versions, which, by the way are difficult to find. My only wish is that it was also available in Kindle version, as it is a book that lends itself very well to "dipping into" almost at random.. I keep it near my reading chair and, even with only a few minutes, am constantly blown away by Mr. HDT's brilliance, wit, and grasp of both the natural and human state of the world.
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