Walden
If I start to read a book, I almost always will end up finishing the book. I don't recommend starting this book because it's really not worth the effort. This book dealt mostly with feelings and poetic imagery (but not the composition that poetry usually employs) and such books usually confuse me as this book did. Thoreau does make a statement to the effect how he is affected through nature by "the artist who created the universe and me", and I suspect he wants to affect the reader similarly. I have no problem with someone who wants to drop out of society and do his own thing as the author tried to do for two years. I think there is no better path to happiness than for a person than to buy a single wide trailer in the middle of nowhere (or a cabin on a lake) and become authentic to their self and remove them self from the idle chatter and in the words of Volaire "il faut cultiver notre jardin" (the last words in Candide, and it can be translated as "I should cultivate my garden", a very appropriate sentiment for this book).
There are random gems of true brilliance sprinkled in this book, but the problem is the author is always within the social sphere and just can't get out of it, he has no concept whatsoever for the appreciation of real solitude, doesn't know what alienation within a group really means (he's constantly always disturbing his solitude by seeking out others or having them find him). He also uses too much poetry, longs for the simple life before trains, loves Homer, poets who visit him, dead poets he's read, transcends logic by embracing the universal, necessary and certain, and a host of other things for which a neuro-diverse person might have a hard time following.
Even with all the negative things I can say about this book, I enjoyed some of his incredibly wise perspectives on the world and the last chapter of the book. But overall, I have a disconnect with this book because it deals with feelings, emotions and intuitions.
