Without going into particulars I'll just say I'm more sympathetic to Thoreau's ideas than his prose style. Bit of an uphill hike for me to finish this one.

I think there's enduring value in Walden, along with the wider oeuvre of Thoreau and Emerson. It's good to be reminded that the material and social excesses of modernity are strangling me. I've seen other people get strangled without even putting up a fight - probably cause they didn't read Walden. Hoarders, for instance, rarely have any shelf-space devoted to the transcendentalists.

Oh, and if you talk about Walden to other people be prepared for people who don't read to say stuff like, "Um, actually, did you know that his mom delivered food and laundry to him multiple times?" Don't be mad at these people. They're suffering too.