1839+and+2003+AH


 * 1839 / 2003." The New Yorker 79:39 (15 December 2003), 70ff **

This article describes a trip taken on the Concord and Merrimac rivers by John McPhee and an old friend of his from college. Their journey is paralleled with a trip taken by Henry Thoreau and his brother in 1839, recounted in Thoreau’s book “A Week On The Concord and Merrimack Rivers.”

This article provides a lot of information on Henry Thoreau and his writing style. It is also characteristic of McPhee with his reference to obscure information that his reader probably wouldn’t have heard, like when he gives a little bit of golfing history related to a golf course along the river as they pass by it. McPhee does explain some his references though, like Major General John Stark, who said “Live Free or Die,” and whose monument was subject to Thoreau’s criticism.

A big focus of this article is Henry Thoreau. It’s interesting that McPhee decides to recap a novel by another writer. Paralleling it to his own, contemporary, story effectively keeps it fresh to modern readers. He is able to retell a story and educate us on (what I’m assuming is) an important writer. We get a biographical information about his education and early career, as well as stylistic information about his tendency to go off on philosophical tangents. McPhee estimates “A Week On The Concord and Mermicack Rivers” to be 90% digression, and 10% narrative.

I had expected a central theme to be how polluted and damaged the wilderness has become since Thoreau’s time, and while this is partially the case, it was not to the extent that I would had expected. Thoreau had referred to “the current of commerce” after getting caught in a convoy of canal boats. McPhee explains that those water ways were very important for industrial America in that time. Obviously, there has been a great deal of development since the 1800’s but I found it interesting that the “current of commerce” has just transformed in to Dunkin Donuts, Budweiser breweries, airports, and golf courses. Thoreau apparently didn’t even consider his trip in 1839 to be a trip in to the wilderness, even though he couldn’t hear the highways hidden in the distance like McPhee.

[|-Adam Hodnett]