Thoreau Today

Henry David Thoreau in the Literature and Culture of the 21st Century

Questions and Findings by Chris Dodge

March/April 2009

A short essay by Verlyn Klinkenborg on Thoreau's influence was published in the New York Times, February 21, 2009. In "Walking with Henry" Klinkenborg writes as if Thoreau's voice is chiding him. ("Thoreau is with me, like a border collie nipping at my heels. He is terribly hard on any self-satisfaction but his own. . . . Thoreau goads me uphill.") By Thoreau's standards, Klinkenborg writes, "I'm walking all wrong. But then Thoreau is a prig. He is often right, about almost anything. What makes him priggish is the self-rejoicing in his rightness. What saves him is the self-contradiction rampaging through his work."

From poet Donald Hall's The Best Day, the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), part of a description of things removed, in white plastic garbage bags, from the house of Hall's recently deceased mother: "decades of used-up life: Christmas presents and souvenirs of travel, decorative coasters, pretty perfume bottles dry for forty years, doilies in tatting and lace, Walden, leather boxes, letter openers, candlesticks, a sewing bag, bad paintings, auditapes, snapshots of my father at college. . . ."

Jessica Brinton reports in the Times of London, February 22, 2009 ("Who needs money?"): "If you buy anything this season, let it be one of these: a Recession Survival Box produced by the School of Life, a tiny social enterprise that opened recently to promote ideas for 'living wisely and well.' Your box, which has been compiled lovingly under the remit 'reject the common assumption that a high income is always necessary for happiness,' contains a copy of Walden, Thoreau's memoir of living in the woods, more books on side-stepping consumer culture and living for free, a Make Do and Mend pamphlet by the Ministry of Information, a water flask and mothballs."

Thoreau is mentioned in a comic strip by Alison Bechdel, dated April 6, 2005 (#463 in her Dykes to Watch Out For series, collected in a new anthology, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Houghton Mifflin, 2008). The context: a discussion of tax resistance.
"If not now, when?" Clarice asks her partner, Toni.
"Clarice, we go through this every year. We have a child to put through college. I don't want to have to worry about the I.R.S. seizing our house."
"They hardly ever take houses! And I don't think anyone's gone to jail for it since Thoreau."

Paul Theroux's travel account Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) describes a visit to the site of a painting owned by Theroux, The Ice House, Madras. The former ice house still stands, a structure built in 1842 by Boston ice merchant Frederic Tudor. "From his cabin," Theroux writes, "Henry David Thoreau had watched the Tudor Ice Company cutting blocks of ice on Walden Pond in the winter of 1846–47. Impressed, Thoreau wrote about it in his journal, as well as in the 'Pond in Winter' chapter in Walden, estimating that on a good day the cutters could produce 'a thousand tons' of ice slabs. Knowing that the ice was being shipped to India provoked Thoreau to lyricism in his journal: 'Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of . . . Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well,' and 'The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.'"

A Publishers Weekly review (November 24, 2008) of My Abandonment, by Peter Rock, describes a young adult novel told from the "engaging but limited perspective of 13-year-old Caroline, the hillbilly girl that lived in the park." The review asserts, "This is a tale of survival, of love and attachment, of mystery and alienation . . . a bow to Thoreau and a nod to the detective story."

Thoreau Yesterday

A Hollywood publicist once described Lenny Bruce as "a sort of Thoreau-type comedian," whatever that was supposed to mean. As reported in the LA Times blog The Daily Mirror:

(Press Release) "Mr. Lenny Bruce -- one of the most brilliant modern humorists and wits in captivity -- has just been added to the great lineup of stars that impresario Gene Norman will present in a modern jazz concert at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium Saturday night, Feb. 14, at 8 p.m.

"Bruce is not a 'stand up' comedian. He will bring to the auditorium all his facilities in the modern approach to humor.

"Bruce is a sort of Thoreau-type comedian. He attacks humor in a very natural sense.

"If he says 'Go jump in the pond,' he probably means it!" (signed) Audrey P. Franklyn, publicity, 8568 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

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