Walden X 40 Essays on Thoreau

The essays often return to the same quotations and ideas, illuminating Walden's darker, more obscure passages from various philosophical and theoretical perspectives-thought experiments that read like a thick layering of superimposed snapshots that Ray has taken from different angles of Walden's pages. . . . Ray's collection of readings never resolve themselves into a single argument, always teetering on the brink of explanation. Yet its evasive technique may be Walden x 40's greatest charm, pointing the reader back to Walden itself so that she might engage in her own interrogations.