Date of Review:

07/21/2008

Published Work:

A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England

Reviewer:

Get Lost Books

Source:

Getlostbooks.com

Review Excerpt:

This is an intriguing addition to the ever growing genre of literary guidebooks. It comes as part of a new series that includes Dorothy Parker’s New York and Steinbeck’s California. This particular volume is an exploration of the lives and geographies of the 19th century Transcendentalist movement. Different New England literary and cultural landmarks are highlighted in the context of the ideas and intellectual activity that occurred there. The chapter on the commune Brook Farm is particularly absorbing. This 19th century attempt at a ‘back to the land’ lifestyle fitted in with the Transcendentalists’ spiritual and somewhat mythic ideas of the human connection to the earth. The movement failed for many of the same reasons the hippy communes did: the inability of people to share the workload and truly co-operate with each other, and the difficult balance between the hard labor that farm work requires and the space needed to write and create. It is incredibly inspiring reading about prior attempts at creating imagined or intellectual idylls and ‘actual’ egalitarian utopias, especially in the context of the current political climate. “There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.” (Emerson). I imagine that traveling with this book would infuse the places mentioned within with meaning that you just wouldn’t get from reading a mere commemorative plaque.

Link to Full Review:

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