Expect Great Things

September 5, 2016
Dann (Lewis Creek Lost and Found) conducts a graceful, attentive inquiry into the mind of Henry David Thoreau, “mystic, transcendentalist, and natural philosopher.” Dann acknowledges Thoreau’s place among fellow transcendentalists Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, but is more interested in the experiences that led Thoreau to his oracular poetry and the intense study of the natural world recorded in his journals. This book depicts Thoreau’s scrupulous observations as both scientific and reverent, eschewing the mechanical and analytical for “a relational, sympathetic science” that saw the world as numinous and alive with spirits. It dives so deeply into the project of mapping Thoreau’s internal landscape that the outline of his outer life—his work, his relationships, even his famous experiment at Walden Pond of “the very serious business of living authentically”—seems only lightly sketched in comparison. Dann shows an ease with the metaphysical (which is typically considered at odds with the discipline of the historian), making a warm, sympathetic argument for Thoreau as a mystic and visionary and redefining his reputation as an “indefatigable measurer of trees and truth.”

October 1, 2016
A sympathetic biography of the famed 19th-century transcendentalist.Commemorating the bicentennial of the birth of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), historian and naturalist Dann (Lewis Creek Lost and Found, 2001, etc.) offers a reappraisal of the writers life, focusing on Thoreaus connection to, and celebration of, the invisible and ineffable. To support his analysis, Dann draws largely from Thoreaus journals, letters, and published writings as well as a three-volume work by Emerson scholar Kenneth Walter Cameron, Transcendentalists and Minerva: Cultural Backgrounds of the American Renaissance with Fresh Discoveries in the Intellectual Climate of Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau (1958), one of the few secondary sources he references. Dann does not differ from other biographers who examine Thoreaus self-description as a mystic, but he underscores the significance of mysticism, pantheism, and empathy to the writers personality and life choices. Based on Thoreaus admiration for Sir Walter Raleigh and Raleighs esteem for astrology, Dann asserts that Thoreau was convinced that the stars played down into human life. Thoreau articulated his sense of his own personal destiny by using the language of the stars and believed in a personal guiding star. Dann explains Thoreaus depression in 1852 as caused by a planetary configuration called the black moon." Dann also asserts that Thoreau was attuned to the ways of the faerie world, although he revealed his encounters with faeries in an understated, cryptic form of reporting so as not to incite his contemporaries derision. Although Thoreau thought mesmerism and spiritualism were idiotic, he was fascinated by the invisible fluid that formed the basis of popular vitalist theories. Despite proclaiming repugnance for the Church, Thoreau, Dann believes, identified with Christ the fellow heretic. Because he privileges Thoreaus reveries over his philosophical and political grounding, Danns argument at times seems insistent rather than persuasive, but this should appeal to readers interested in Thoreaus more esoteric beliefs. Thoreau emerges from this admiring portrait as a man richly connected to the cosmos.

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December 1, 2016

Dann (Across the Great Border Fault) is a historian and naturalist rather than a literary critic, therefore the focus of his study of Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) is on the author as naturalist and social thinker. Thoreau's prevailing themes (against materialism, the love of solitude, plain speaking, engaging with the physical world, etc.) were constants throughout his life. Dann uses extensive quotations from his subject's writings, including correspondence, journals, and notebooks; especially welcome are many excerpts from the less well-known poetry. Thoreau's love of nature is evident. Dann is especially good in detailing Thoreau's relationship with other transcendentalists, particularly his lifelong friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson. Chapters cover many unusual aspects of Thoreau's life and work: mysticism and being a seer, visions of fairies and the supernatural world, mythology, the Mormon Church, mesmerism, John Brown (Thoreau was an ardent abolitionist), etc. This book is slightly repetitive, and the many details on plants, animals, and birds could have been excised or shortened, but it's a good introduction to Thoreau's themes and interests. VERDICT For all Thoreau devotees, who will welcome the sympathetic overview of the author's full life and enthusiasms.--Morris Hounion, New York City Coll. of Technology, Brooklyn

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2016
Famous as the nature-loving visitor to Walden Pond, Thoreau felt a pull beyond nature from a different regional pondNagog Pondhome, according to Algonquin legends, to a specter called the Wanderer. In the great naturalist's attraction to this potent spirit, Dann recognizes a telling manifestation of a formative fascination with mystical realms beyond the normal and scientific boundaries of the natural. Readers glimpse this fascination in the writer's youthful love for magical and cabalistic lore, his later passion for the Arthurian Elf Queen and her elfin court, and his mature gravitation toward Native American myths. Ever watchful for irruptions of the noumenal into the physical, Thoreau believed even his dreams opened the door to fairie messengers. Especially pressed to look beyond the physical by the premature deaths of his brother and older sister, Thoreau fed his hope for immortality with intense (if idiosyncratic) readings of Christian and Hindu scripture. Eager to ratify Thoreau's radically individualistic spirituality, Dann indulges in excessively negative characterizations of some contemporary group strivings for the transcendent, in his characterization of Mormonism, even descending to invidious distortions. But in plumbing Thoreau's own singular and profoundly personal quest for the infinite, he delivers keen insights. A refreshing new perspective on an American icon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)