Elyse's Entry-9-07-09

Henry David Thoreau-"Walking"

I really liked the line in the introduction to this piece, " An essay is akin to taking a mental stroll." That is what it is all about really, rehashing an event in our mind and then putting it down on paper. I am ashamed to admit it, but I am not that well read. Taking this class has made it clear to me that the essay is the genre that most captures my attention. Choosing which two to write about was not as difficult as I had expected. "Walking" was the first one I read and runs neck and neck with Barry's essay as my favorite of the three. This essay, to me, spoke more of the domestication of man as a whole than the pleasures of walking, although it of course, spoke of that too. The undomesticated man, untamed by the rules of society, is, in Thoreau's eyes, something of a marvel. He observes that "the callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness." Where Barry's tone seemed a bit melancholy, Thoreau 's conveyed quite a bit more cynicism. Perhaps for some, the life in society is safer than the unknown wilderness of Thoreau's wanderings. He muses that "we find it difficult to choose our direction because it does yet exist directly in our idea." Yet he does believe that "there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright." He, of course, chooses the path unknown and lives to tell about it. Thoreau returns again and again to this theme of the wildest parts of Nature being the most alive. Just as we cultivate our gardens in our yards, so we trim down our own wild nature by submitting to society's rules. Thoreau, through his exploration and observations on his excursions into Nature, bares his own wild soul through his writings. I love when he proclaimed that "a truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East." I could not agree more.



Wendell Barry-"An Entrance to the Woods"

I found Barry's essay to contain many of the same themes as Thoreau's but with touch a sadness thrown in, reflecting perhaps the author's own melancholy nature. He spoke of feeling haunted quite a bit, which I began to suspect was more about his own predisposition to sadness than the actual darkness of the night sky. Of course he feels what many of us have felt in Nature; the presence of those who have tread before us. I saw a great deal of myself in Barry, like in his reaction to the modern modes of transportation going against the inherent speed of our of true nature. "Our senses" , he observes, "after all, were developed to function at foot speeds." I can completely relate to feeling as if the world is moving way too fast for me most of the time. Entering into Barry's wilderness is, in his words, "a kind of death", stripping us of all we think we are in society. I got the sense reading this that the woods offered solace to Barry, a refuge of sorts. Where Thoreau sought out Nature as a daily routine away from the trappings of society, Barry seemed to need it to exorcise his own demons, to refresh his soul. When he states "I see little hope that I will ever live a day as an optimist, still I am not desperate", revealed a sensitive soul deeply touched by the beauty around him and deeply saddened by the rapid growth of technology in the modern world. A glimmer of hope can be seen in the final line of the essay , when upon departing from the woods, he declares, "What I am leaving is something to look forward to." We see not only that he will return but perhaps he will take some of the wilderness with him, like dipping into the Absolute and allowing it to infiltrate daily life.

Ben Mould's blog entry:

Seeing

Annie Dillard seems to be a remarkable character who must have been a lot of fun to be around. She starts her essay in a remarkably personal manner. He speaks at length about how she would hide pennies for people to find and all the joy that brought her. She seems to be foreshadowing her favorite characteristic of nature which is that of a system so vast and complex that crevasse of hidden treasures abound endlessly. She also the speaks at length about the solar system and the cosmos and how unimaginably huge everything is and how incredibly fast everything is moving. This this was she seems to balance her essay and alludes to the old Vedic expression “That which is smaller than the smallest is bigger than the biggest”. She continues her essay by shifting gears seemingly abruptly to speak about the revolution in the treatment of caterax and the associating psychological ramifications that ensued on the part of the patients. She seems to take such a left turn about her paper and tangents from the other two essayists and no longer seeks to describe nature of mans place in it or how nature makes on feel and seems to say that it is our personal intake of what we witness and what we are capable of handling that is the true determination of our happiness in the moment. She departs from the viewpoint that nature is the cure all to mans unbalanced nature and describes a scenario in which man must rise up to his circumstances despite any condition that he may come across in civilization or in the wild.


My blog on Ben's blog:
I too enjoyed Dillard's more fanciful tone, although this essay was my least favorite of the three. I found so many things in all three essays that reminded me of STC themes so I enjoyed being reminded of her ruminations on the Universe and its similarities to Vedic principles. I also found the psychological adjustments of seeing again very interesting and quite revealing like the girl who kept her eyes shut for two weeks after the new light flooded her new found sense of sight. Maybe it is her feminine nature that sets her apart from the other two in her more balanced approach to man's relationship with nature. Or maybe that is too sexist a statement.