Travel, friendship and mourning
Read the river journey as an elegy for John and as a workshop for the digressive essay form that Walden would later refine.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Written largely at Walden and published at the author’s expense in 1849, the book is also an elegy for John, who died in 1842. It sold poorly: in 1853 the publisher returned more than seven hundred unsold copies, and Thoreau joked about owning a library mostly written by himself. Thoreau retells a boat journey made with his brother John in 1839, arranged as seven days on the water from a Saturday to the following Friday, although the trip itself lasted about two weeks. Around the narrative he weaves essays on friendship, poetry, religion, local history and fish, quotations from many traditions and verse of his own.
Following the arguments
Friendship : A long digression in the Wednesday chapter treats friendship as an exacting ideal that requires both closeness and distance. Religion : The Sunday and Monday chapters set Christian scripture beside Hindu and other sacred texts and criticize narrow observance, which offended some readers. Rivers and history : Dams that block migrating fish, canals and memories of frontier wars make the rivers a record of colonial history and of a changed landscape.
Continuing the reading
Follow the frame of the seven days first, then read the Wednesday essay on friendship and compare the book’s digressive form with the tighter design of Walden. Written largely at Walden and published at the author’s expense in 1849, the book is also an elegy for John, who died in 1842. It sold poorly: in 1853 the publisher returned more than seven hundred unsold copies, and Thoreau joked about owning a library mostly written by himself.
A Week shows Thoreau learning to weave observation, memory and reflection into a single fabric of prose.
Your turn to think.
- How does John’s death shape the way the journey is told, even where he is not named?
- What do the digressions on friendship, poetry and scripture add that a plain travel narrative would lack?
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