A review by duffypratt
Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau
2.0
I think I might not be cut out for travel/nature books. Thoreau's writing is brilliant, and, having grown up on Long Island, I love the beach and ocean. So this should be a very good fit for me. And yet I found it sometimes inspiring, and at other times a bit of a chore.
I'd like to think that the repetitions in the book are meant to echo the rolling and crashing of the waves. But instead, I tend to think that the book is just not as tight as it could have been, and is just somewhat repetitive. There are some great things in here: the Shipwreck, the description of the Lighthouse, and the Oysterman come immediately to mind. And I'm impressed at how much walking Thoreau did, and how much he got out of his walks. It makes me think that there's something to the meditative aspect of long walks. But that doesn't mean I want to read about every detail, even when the writing is brilliant.
One thing that comes across pretty strongly is how much louder our world is than Thoreau's was. He constantly impresses the reader with the roar of the surf. I've lived by the ocean, and I don't often find it a roar at all. Usually, its quite soothing. Of course, I've also lived in apartments just above Broadway in New York, and in other cities. And we now live with constant noise and music, so the presence of the ocean noise doesn't interrupt silence any more. We don't have that much quiet time in our lives at all anymore, and most people shun silence. For a naturalist like Thoreau, my guess is that silence was more the norm, and the incessant sound of the ocean made a big impression on him.
At the close of the book Thoreau dismisses barrier beaches as being nothing more than a sandbar. The barrier beaches are what I grew up with. The Long Island beaches, the Jersey shore, Assateague Island, the Outer Banks. I love them all, and I can't abide someone dismissing them. Think of an island that continually gets wiped out at one side by the surf, and renewed at the other end, an island where the land is never sure, even though the island persists. And then think that an ecosystem grew up to thrive in just such an environment, with all sorts of life specifically adapted to just this kind of ceaseless change. And Thoreau simply dismisses this different wonder, I guess because its not his native Massachusetts, or because his long walks hadn't really taken him there. I'm actually a bit surprised at this kind of provincialism from him.
The other laugh I had at Thoreau's expense is his prediction at the end of the book that Cape Cod would never become a fashionable resort area. Oh, if the Kennedy's had only known.
I liked this considerably more than A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (which felt more like several months), but nowhere as near as much as Walden. My guess is, if there were no TV, if I hadn't grown up near the beach, and if this were the only way to vicariously experience it, I would be much more impressed with this book. As it is, I found the writing remarkable, the subject matter intrinsically interesting, but the book as a whole rather dull.
I'd like to think that the repetitions in the book are meant to echo the rolling and crashing of the waves. But instead, I tend to think that the book is just not as tight as it could have been, and is just somewhat repetitive. There are some great things in here: the Shipwreck, the description of the Lighthouse, and the Oysterman come immediately to mind. And I'm impressed at how much walking Thoreau did, and how much he got out of his walks. It makes me think that there's something to the meditative aspect of long walks. But that doesn't mean I want to read about every detail, even when the writing is brilliant.
One thing that comes across pretty strongly is how much louder our world is than Thoreau's was. He constantly impresses the reader with the roar of the surf. I've lived by the ocean, and I don't often find it a roar at all. Usually, its quite soothing. Of course, I've also lived in apartments just above Broadway in New York, and in other cities. And we now live with constant noise and music, so the presence of the ocean noise doesn't interrupt silence any more. We don't have that much quiet time in our lives at all anymore, and most people shun silence. For a naturalist like Thoreau, my guess is that silence was more the norm, and the incessant sound of the ocean made a big impression on him.
At the close of the book Thoreau dismisses barrier beaches as being nothing more than a sandbar. The barrier beaches are what I grew up with. The Long Island beaches, the Jersey shore, Assateague Island, the Outer Banks. I love them all, and I can't abide someone dismissing them. Think of an island that continually gets wiped out at one side by the surf, and renewed at the other end, an island where the land is never sure, even though the island persists. And then think that an ecosystem grew up to thrive in just such an environment, with all sorts of life specifically adapted to just this kind of ceaseless change. And Thoreau simply dismisses this different wonder, I guess because its not his native Massachusetts, or because his long walks hadn't really taken him there. I'm actually a bit surprised at this kind of provincialism from him.
The other laugh I had at Thoreau's expense is his prediction at the end of the book that Cape Cod would never become a fashionable resort area. Oh, if the Kennedy's had only known.
I liked this considerably more than A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (which felt more like several months), but nowhere as near as much as Walden. My guess is, if there were no TV, if I hadn't grown up near the beach, and if this were the only way to vicariously experience it, I would be much more impressed with this book. As it is, I found the writing remarkable, the subject matter intrinsically interesting, but the book as a whole rather dull.