December 23, 2013
In this uneven biography of Henry David Thoreau, Sims (The Story of Charlotte's Web) succeeds in his ambition "to find Henry" rather than "admire the marble bust of an icon," though the portrait that emerges is far from flattering. Focusing primarily on Thoreau's life before he earned renown with Walden, Sims depicts his subject as a spirited young man with a keen eye for observing nature; a devoted brother to his older sibling, John; a freethinker who defiantly rejected religious orthodoxy; and a teacher appreciated by his students because he refused to dole out corporal punishment. At the same time, Thoreau comes across as feckless, unambitious, irresponsible, and incapable of living the life of an independent adult but for the charity of his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sims has culled scholarly sources to recreate the early 19th-century landscape of Concord, Mass., and its active social and literary scene, but Thoreau is not always at the center, and in some chapters, not present at all. Consequently, the portrait he paints of the young Thoreau seems sketchy in places. Though he writes with great sympathy for the Bard of Walden Pond, readers may finds themselves agreeing with Nathaniel Hawthorne's assessment of Thoreau as "the most unmalleable fellow aliveâthe most tedious, tiresome, and intolerableâthe narrowest and most notional." Agent: Heide Lange, Greenburger Associates.
December 15, 2013
Delving into the observations of people around Thoreau, such as family, other transcendentalists and townspeople, as well as the famed writer's works, Sims (The Story of Charlotte's Web: E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic, 2011, etc.) aims to flesh out this uniquely American genius. An ecstatic observer of nature, an admirer of the Native American ways, practical builder and idiot savant, Thoreau was both a local boy schooled in the marvels of the natural scenery of the Concord River and a Harvard-educated scholar; he was erudite yet mocked for his homespun ways. With parents who seemed to have been extremely understanding of their son's unconventional proclivities--his father had made a good living manufacturing pencils; his mother was a vocal opponent to slavery--young Thoreau tried his hand at teaching, like his other siblings, but quit due to the fact that he could not whip the children. Tramping about with his beloved older brother, John, Thoreau also grew more intimate with the "calm and lyrical revolutionary," Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had moved into Concord with his wife and family in 1835 and suggested that the young freethinker keep a journal. While Emerson had a profound effect on Thoreau, the younger man also touched the poet as having "as free & erect a mind as any I have ever met." Their deepening understanding encouraged Emerson's other proteges, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, to overcome their initial criticism of Thoreau's uncouthness, and his generous mentor allowed Thoreau to live in his home and even build a shack on his newly purchased acres around Walden Pond, where Thoreau would reside for two-plus years. Building his chapters with deliberate, sometimes-tertiary detail, Sims creates a sensuous natural environment in which to appreciate his subject, as the "quirky but talented young man named Henry evolve[d] into an original and insightful writer named Thoreau." Ably directs readers back to the primary works of Thoreau and his contemporaries.
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February 15, 2014
It's the boy who loved to walk in the woods, ice skate, and sing, and the ardent reader who studied the classics at Harvard and nature's wonders with equal diligence that Sims (The Story of Charlotte's Web, 2011) brings forward in this surpassingly vivid and vital chronicle of Thoreau's formative years. Exceptionally smart, peculiar looking, imaginative, and upright, Thoreau, who craved both solitude and conversation, was surrounded by people, including his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, like him, chronicled their daily lives, providing Sims with a great bounty of primary sources. As Sims portrays a solemn boy nicknamed the Judge, we gain fresh understanding of Thoreau's choices and convictions on his way to becoming a seminal environmentalist and civil-disobedience guru. We see Thoreau quit a teaching job in protest against corporal punishment and go to jail rather than pay his poll tax, suffer heartbreak and tragedy, accidentally burn down the woods near his beloved Walden Pond, experience an epiphany in Maine, build his famous cabin, and turn himself into a world-altering writer who continues to enlighten and astonish us.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)