Sunday, August 29, 2010

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

I'm currently rereading Thoreau's Week. I first tried to read it when I was in high school, but since I expected it to be a conventional camping story, I didn't get far. It wasn't until I was 22 or 23 that I read the whole thing. Like Emerson (but less so), he writes in an aphoristic style, evidently stringing together notebook extracts. To enjoy it, you mustn't expect to get anywhere quickly.