ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC NYQUIST

Kathryn Schulz has delved deeply into the murky waters of Walden, and written for the New Yorker a fascinating critique of the work and, by extension, of the well-loved American transcendentalist writer.

I found most of the points in her piece accurate in theme. I have never read Walden, so my opinion of Thoreau himself is limited. But when I reviewed Walden on Wheels, the memoir of a young man inspired by the life and actions of Thoreau, I picked up on the same brand of priggishness and social disconnect sanctimoniously masquerading around as self-reliance.