The Thoreau You Don't Know

Robert Sullivan's previous best-seller was Rats, so he has taken a definite step up in subject matter.

Here he provides us with the 1,423rd re-consideration of Thoreau. You would think that the world doesn't need to take one more walk around this American monument, but Sullivan's book is a worthy treatment of the American icon, and Sullivan achieves that by treating Thoreau not as an icon but as, well, a guy. Who did some stuff and wrote some things.

Those who write about Thoreau tend to fall into one of three camps. 1) He was a pure, unadulterated genius, forsaking ordinary life for deep communion with nature. 2) He's an overhyped sham. 3) Wasn't he that guy who lived in the cabin?

Sullivan steps over all three of these boxes and treats Thoreau as if he'd just discovered him for the first time. He is occasionally ingenuous, being surprised by facts that even casual Thoreau scholars already knew. But he humanizes Thoreau, treating him as neither genius or con job. He puts many of Thoreau's achievements in perspective and in context, so that even things we knew about Thoreau make a bit more sense.

Sullivan is ultimately most interested in Thoreau the environmentalist, but he pays attention to the writer, the worker, the citizen, and most of all, the man. In bringing Thoreau down to human scale, Sullivan makes him both more impressive and more accessible. There are no shocking new revelations about Thoreau here, but in a breezily-written slim volume, Sullivan lets us see Thoreau's accomplishments as part of the bigger picture of his life, while also connecting it all to the modern world as well.

Not the shocking new view of Thoreau that some PR suggests, but a solid, readable book about an important American voice. Well worth the read.