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Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism

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I've been reading Thoreau criticism for well over twenty years now, and I have never been as excited about a critical study of Thoreau. Robinson nails what is most important in Thoreau and then convincingly uses that insight to trace the arc of Thoreau's career. An astonishing achievement, indeed. If you have the time or interest to read only one critical study of Thoreau, this is the study you will want to read. An added bonus is the unusually low price, particularly for a critical study by a university press.

I'm finding out, by reading a fair number of scholarly books on Thoreau, how each author has a somewhat different understanding of Thoreau's interests and intentions. Of course, no one would wish to write what someone else had already written, but I also suspect Thoreau was such a unique individual that he can't easily be fitted into our preferred categories.

In this book, the specific emphasis is on Thoreau's most complex and rewarding relationship--his on-going discourse with the natural world itself. It traces Thoreau's disappointment with and estrangement from the world of men, and his simultaneous exploration of and integration practically into the landscape itself. Thoreau's books become a record of this experience as well as a ground-breaking path to such a relationship with nature.

This book is also an extended literary analysis, an in-depth, point-by-point discussion of Thoreau's writings. It is certainly well done for what it is, and should be of great interest to dedicated Thoreauvians, aspiring naturalists and intrepid English majors.

Like Shakespeare said, brief let me be. Ok, this book gives the reader an insight into how Thoreau thought and reacted to the many stimuli he encountered in his journey through life and how this influenced his writings. It gives you an understanding of why he wrote the way he did. This is, after all, essentially why we read Thoreau in the first place: to understand the man and see life through his eyes and mind.