Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau

by Andrew Blauner (editor)

From twenty-seven of today's leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden



Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan - Kristen Case - George Howe Colt - Gerald Early - Paul Elie - Will Eno - Adam Gopnik - Lauren Groff - Celeste Headlee - Pico Iyer - Alan Lightman - James Marcus - Megan Marshall - Michelle Nijhuis - Zo� Pollak - Jordan Salama - Tatiana Schlossberg - A. O. Scott - Mona Simpson - Stacey Vanek Smith - Wen Stephenson - Robert Sullivan - Amor Towles - Sherry Turkle - Geoff Wisner - Rafia Zakaria - and a cartoon by Sandra Boynton

The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the author of Walden, "Civil Disobedience," and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today's leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them--and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning.

Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau's Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau's footsteps at Maine's Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau's influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte's Web; and there's much more.

The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Nature, Anthologies, Philosophy

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 2021

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We live but a fraction of our life. Why do we not let on the flood, raise the gates, and set all our wheels in motion? He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Employ your senses." -- Henry David Thoreau

Well, one way to live a fraction of your life properly is to spend it reading this book, especially if you're part of that large family of Walden lovers (or smaller family consisting of those who enjoy his other books, essays, notebooks, poems).

It's an eclectic mix, thanks to all manner of present-day writers taking different angles on Henry David and the outsized influence he played in their lives. Thus you get essays on apples (Thoreau preferred wild ones -- even crab apples), small houses (yes, Thoreau's 10 x 15 "cabin" was the inspiration for today's "tiny house" movement), politics, environmentalism, love (supposedly H.D.T. was smitten with R.W.E.'s wife), solitude, weather, economy, writing style, philosophy, Eastern religions, laziness vs. industriousness, etc.

All in all, it's amazing how Thoreau strikes people in different ways and for different reasons, but it all appears well-reasoned, in the end, and will leave you thirsty for revisiting his work, especially if it's been a few decades (in my case, with Walden) since you last read it.

Highly, meet recommended.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The anthologist Andrew Blauner has assembled 27 original essays on the influence of Henry David Thoreau. Though unfamiliar with all but a few of the contributors, I was impressed by the essays. And was gobsmacked by the intelligence and breadth of insight shown by some of them. As you might expect, most of the essayists write about how they relate to Thoreau's example in living and being attentive to the natural world around us. Famously, Thoreau "lived deliberately" in his time and place. He studied and recorded the nature he observed, and most of the essays reflect on how his attitudes apply to our time, to what he's still able to teach us. My favorite essays--like Alan Lightman's or Will Eno's--dive into the purest philosophical interpretations of what Thoreau was actually saying. All are able to see him in a personal way. Rafia Zakaria uses him to help her find solitude. Stacey Vanek Smith, a reporter on modern economies, says Thoreau wrote about the economy of his day while also seeing lives as nature. "For all our drilling and extracting and constructing and pillaging, Thoreau saw us as just another expression of a divine, living earth, like the fish and the loons and the bubbles in the ponds." Pico Iyer is a longtime resident of Japan who even finds him appropriate to Kyoto. A couple of essays inveigh against the impact of modern recreation on Walden Pond. Several express worries about the ways Thoreau's world and ours is being altered by climate change. Ice is twice a subject: we're told how much Thoreau loved skating on the frozen ponds and rivers around Concord, and Tatiana Schlossberg remembers how fascinated he was with the harvesting of Walden Pond's ice for sale in the South and abroad before she sadly tells us Walden no longer freezes over.

To read the essays is to learn something you didn't know about Thoreau. They're full of ideas about and ways of looking at him. I think it's probably true to say there are as many Thoreaus in the book as there are essays. And some are so beautifully written they'll take your breath away. If you're interested in what Thoreau stands for, an acute sensitivity to and curiosity about nature, and if you're interested in trying to live deliberately in the world, you'll be intrigued by what these writers have to say. This is a book to savor and to return to.

[Kennedy Snead · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this anthology! I’ve been wanting to dive into Walden for awhile now, but I thought it best to wait for spring. This was the perfect motivation with each essay uncovering something beautiful about Thoreau. I feel like now I can crack open Walden with a good perspective on both the content and his life story!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is amazing, and quite nice, the diverse ways that Thoreau touches people. It is still best to read Thoreau and soak in his beautiful prose, but it never hurts to see what others having to say about him.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of the understanding of the singularity of place there comes a parallelism within the beholder’s soul; it is through observation the contours of the nebulous self can come clearer, almost within reach. Lauren Groff

Thoreau is looking at ways to cultivate not bushels of beans but modes of perception, new ways to tune to the frequencies of the world that nourish our humanity, that connect us to a deeper world by deepening our connection to our individual selves. Bicyclists, the poet Michael Donaghy wrote, “only by moving can balance, /only by balancing move.” So a reader searching Walden for particular answers or even destinations finds only a consideration of the continual effort necessary for the balance that enables a good life’s forward motion. Robert Sullivan

I sigh a little at the lovely essays here, and the myriad ways of looking at Thoreau’s work. I didn’t read Walden until much later in life, and so it didn’t set me on my path, but I pilgrimaged to Walden Pond and swam in its waters anyways, so obviously I heard and knew. A life lived deliberately. Not in quiet desperation. Those words were meaningful, as I saw so many quiet desperations, so much anger, sadness, using substances, doing crazy things, just to feel SOMETHING, ANYTHING. An artist formerly known as Brian Andreas who creates whimsical art with bits of wisdom, or whimsical wisdom art, wrote once that a fan wrote him a thank you note saying that Andreas reminded him that he was still alive with his work. The living, sleepwalking dead can be awakened, and kept awakened by the “infinite expectation of the day, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep.”

It may be trite, but the movie The Matrix helped me awake, the lyrics by Rage Against the Machine at the end: “networks at work, keeping people calm… Who I got to, who I got to do to wake you up? To shake you up, to break the structure up/'Cause blood still flows in the gutter. Wake up!” All of it combined to just stop sleepwalking, to go out and seize my life, breathing words and fresh air, greeting the day and the night with joy, feeling its electricity and elasticity, “a segment of the rainbow.”

Travelling the country, challenging my mind and heart and body, learning how to be “rapt in revery,” feeling the truth of “not time subtracted from life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.” Annie Dillard wrote a Thoreauvian book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and did a similar thing, although more focused on theology and seeing, trying to encompass both the microbes and the heavens in her soul. She wrote, “spend the day. You can’t take it with you,” and spending the day is an art.

I try to practice a made up deep mindfulness in imaginary thoughts I have invented; partly since the children of the world are less imaginative and creative and I need to know how to teach them, and partly for the feel of it, the actual step outside of the monkey mind into saturated time. So the feel of Walden Pond on my skin in Massachusetts, and the feel this week of a canyon stream in Utah on my skin at the same time; I can see the cloud formation in the Walden sky and the cloudless electric blue sky in Utah; I can feel the heat of the sun in summer in New England and the autumn desert sun’s near blinding brilliance; and I can hear the splash of cold new England water, and the soft murmurings a snowmelt, spring fed stream in the desert. I floated on my back on the pond, and I waded and laid on the rocks in the desert stream. I did not linger in either waters, but I did linger at the desert stream longer; watching the lights on water sparkle and flash, breathing the last of summer, cherishing the vivid world. My siblings were with me at Walden, and my dogs only in Utah. And the feel of the water on my skin is the same.



Lauren Groff
The work of the soul tends to be sideways, looping, errant.
The gift of close reading translates into a gift of perspective. Thoreau can look at Walden and see not only the subtle changes in the place as the seasons progress, he can see the layers of humanity upon the land, the past, present, and future existing all at once.

Look hard enough at the humble things that surround the body, Thoreau crows in his work of generosity and genius. Look at a pond no more miraculous than any other pond in the world, which is to say infinitely miraculous, look at your own ponds whichever shape they take, look deeply, through time, and we can all- even you, paltry worried creature of the 21st century- reach through the general then into particular and then into the stuff of self. Read so closely that the landscape you’re in or the book you’re reading becomes you. It is through such constant, intense reading that you can touch the edges of your soul.

Pico Iyer:
At boarding school in England, as we struggled through another passage of Xenophon on some ancient battle, I secretly imbibed the American gospel of the future tense of Emerson and Thoreau. The world was full of old wisdom, both writers sang in harmony, but it took on new meaning in new bottles; what each of us has to discover is a forward-looking perspective, suitable to the fresh possibilities of right now. Theirs was a vision that could arise only from a young, relatively unhistoried country predicated on freedom. The “optative mood” to which Emerson fashioned psalms didn’t feel like the dusty grammatical terms we inhaled in our Greek-English lexicon copies.

The Buddha, as Thoreau knew well, had only one lesson, ultimately, to teach: how to wake up. And especially wake up to the properties of the mind, using our understanding to make friends with reality and loss and possibility. The fact that nothing lasts, is precisely the reason why everything matters: impermanence is a cause not for grief but for grateful attention. Tune yourself to those forces much larger than yourself-most evident in the turning leaves and the racing clouds- and you’ll never forget you are part of a great turning planet. Sit still- this is the heart of Thoreau’s message- and you can be most deeply moved.

It's impossible to read Walden without realizing that our great laureate of being alone is also our greatest hymnist to the possibilities of human connection. Thoreau stepped away from the world only so that he would have more to give back to it. By gathering himself in quiet, he recovered an intimacy and a depth that were the riches presents he could give his people.

Alan Lightman:
I live less than a mile from Walden Pond. Some days, but not often enough, I manage to pry myself loose from the rush and heave of the world and take a quiet walk around the pond. In the winter, the air is crisp and sharp; in the summer, soft and aromatic. In winter I am usually the only one on the trail. In the spring, I listen to the calls of blackbirds and chickadees and kingfishers and red-tailed hawks. “Our life is frittered away by detail,” Thoreau wrote. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.” I want to recover what I have lost, what all of us have lost. I want to live with simplicity. I want to live in the slow world.

Dr. Kyung Hee Kim of William and Mary has concluded that creativity has decreased among all Americans since 1990 and the decrease is most severe for young people. There has been a significant decrease in children’s ability to produce unique and unusual ideas and to think in a detailed and reflective manner. Children have become less emotionally expressive, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, and less unconventional.
The mind needs to rest. The mind needs periods of calm. Such a need was described as early as 1500 BCE in the meditation traditions of Hinduism. I believe that I have also lost something of my inner self. By inner self, I mean the part of me that imagines, that dreams, that explores, that is constantly questioning who I am and what is important to me. My inner self is my true freedom. My inner self roots me to me, and to the ground beneath me. The sunlight and soil that nourish my inner self are solitude and personal reflection, the nourishing solitude that Thoreau wrote about. When I listen to my inner self, I hear the breathing of my spirit. Those breaths are so tiny and delicate, I need stillness to hear them, I need slowness to hear them. I need vast, silent spaces in my mind.

Robert Sullivan:
I still see Thoreau’s book as a complicated but subtle and often hilarious 114,00 word piece of art. To me, Thoreau’s book is not a prescription but a performance, a series of rooms created with rhetoric that shifts and changes interior spaces. Likewise, I see the reader of Walden as a participant in the artwork, in a way similar to that of those millions of people who over the years have shown up at the pond. Like a great poem or painting or a sculpture that arranges forms and movements in a manner that affects participant’s sense of beauty or calibrates their view of the world, Walden, when it works, changes you are you move through it. You are a little different when you pack your things, close it up, and walk away.

Kristin Case:
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” He says “paint a picture” and not “write a book,” but of course he means that oo, and as a writer himself, means it more. It was always life, and not writing he as after. What does it mean to try to tell our life, to take it in and put it back out again in these little black marks? It is a tender question: what is shareable?

I heard a grief-note especially in what he says about writing: “A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.” Like the tracks of field mice, our words testify both to our lives and also to our deaths; they are relics before the fact, monuments to our eventual disappearance. Actually breathes. We take the words of others into ourselves and put them out again. We touch the life of the past, the life of the dead, all those little threads.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays from a group of authors is always going to be uneven. Some will be objectively better-written and some will connect more with certain readers. But ooof, this collection was especially so. I picked it up from the library as part of my preparation to teach Walden. Thoreau has never been my favorite, though I acknowledge his significance to the American Literary Canon, and I was hoping that hearing from authors and scholars who found him personally meaningful would help me understand why he is beloved, not just important.

Some essays were engaging and focused, giving interesting biographical information about Thoreau or thoughtful criticism of his works. Others were rambling and naval-gazing to the extreme, using Thoreau as the flimsiest of excuses to talk about their mental health crises and gender transition, or their feelings about politics and BLM. A great author speaks truth in such a way that future generations will continue to find it meaningful and relevant, but that's not an excuse to try to make the author say things he never said or stretch their works so far that they are distorted beyond recognition.

Certainly not a book to own, but I did find some of the essays valuable.

[Vivian Valvano · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have any attachment to Thoreau at all, I recommend that you read this book. The 27 essays herein each respond to Thoreau in a unique way. I forced myself to read the book over several days - no more than two essays per day - in order to give myself time to reflect. I wish I had had the strength to limit myself to only one essay per day! That would have allowed for even more savoring of the content. I plan to reread from this collection until the day I die. I am not going to summarize or comment on any individual essay here. I adore Thoreau. This is one of the very best books that I have read concerning him. I am overwhelmed by its effects on me. This is, now and forever, one of my precious books.

[Jeff Zell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of the essays in this book. Every one had a different reaction and response to Thoreau. Several of the authors did not care for Thoreau when they read Waldon in high school or college, but appreciated him later. A few of the others discovered him anew during the COVID lockdown. Others report on how Thoreau forced them to think about economic realities and American life. A few reflected on how Thoreau taught them how enjoy the natural world and to look deeply at what is around them.

[Charles Bookman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry David Thoreau took seriously the question of how to live, and wanted that question asked and answered in practical, material terms. Thoreau wrote this about his approach to living. “The cost of a thing…is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.” In “Walden” and in his Journal, he marks certain ideas, projects, or experiences as worth the while. Working for wages is not worth his while, while walking and observing nature is. The essay writers in this collection expand on the many activities that Thoreau thought “Worth his while”, his deliberate observing and tinkering, his relentless restless spirit and inquisitiveness, his civic activism and effort to lead a deliberate life. I did not expect to enjoy this book, but the essay writers, from Adam Gopnik to Rafia Zakaria are insightful and entertaining. If you like the essay form and are interested in Thoreau or the Concord transcendental circle, pick up this book. You won’t be disappointed. Read more at Bookmanreader.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Rounded down from 4.5 stars]

This engaging, informative, thoughtful collection finds contemporary writers reading and discussing Thoreau (and not just Walden). As with any anthology, there is a mix of styles and subjects here and there are a couple of clunkers, in my opinion, but overall the writers are engaged with their subject. Many provide interesting historical details and I particularly enjoyed the writers of color who find something to relate to in Thoreau's theme. Recommended.

[M Soltis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of essays by contemporary writers reflecting on the works and life of Henry David Thoreau. I leave this collection wondering why more people aren't talking about Thoreau! Each essayist addresses different aspects of Thoreau which show that the relevancy of Thoreau's life work is more important now than at any time since Thoreau lived. A must read for not only Thoreauvians but anyone concerned with the state of our world.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook edition, read by several voices. An amiable set of memoirs and commentary, from which I'm taking away confirmation that T was a thinker and writer worth the knowing, that he wasn't at all the idler many have made him out to be....and that Walden Pond as a concept may be life changing but as a place is well worth the avoiding as it's been thoroughly commercialized.

[Robin Gustafson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this anthology from several different writers reflecting on Thoreau. Having so many different perspectives was valuable in looking at Thoreau and his writings through multiple lenses. I listened to the audio version via Hoopla.

[Stevie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating biography -- very insightful with a novel understanding of Thoreau's character & personality.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays by readers of Thoreau is just what the doctor ordered for me. Thoreau seems to have discovered social distancing 200 years after his birth! A must read for Thoreau addicts.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting collection of essays.

[David Provost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some excellent insights into how other essayists view Thoreau and his writings, especially "Walden".

[Bob Peru · Rating 4 out of 5]

as is the case for any anthology, it’s a mixed bag. 13 good essays (a few really good). the rest ok. one sucked.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for a true Thoreau nerd! Many essayists weighed in on how HDT influenced them.