Gonzaga professor will offer context for Thoreau

More fun has been made at the expense of Henry David Thoreau than perhaps any other American author this side of Jacqueline Susann. Susann wrote “Valley of the Dolls.” Thoreau, as you may know, is the guy who lived in the woods near Walden Pond.

That isn’t the most respectful way to refer to one of the great names of American literature.

So if all you know about the 19th-century essayist/philosopher is that he lived alone in a cabin for a couple of years and then scribbled a book about his experiences, then you might be interested to hear what Donna Campbell will have to say at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Auntie’s Bookstore.

Campbell, an associate professor of English at Gonzaga University, specializes in American literature. Her talk on Thoreau comes on the 150th anniversary of the publication of “Walden.” (Thoreau’s book originally was released in August 1854 under the title “Walden; or Life in the Woods.”)

In the opening lines of “Walden,” Thoreau proclaims: “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.”

The sojourn, by choice or not, is a well-used staple of literature.

“Walden” has been compared to “Robinson Crusoe,” Daniel Defoe’s 18th-century novel about a British gentleman marooned on a desert island. But that’s misleading.

Sure, as Defoe’s protagonist did, Thoreau built his house and grew his own food. But he was about as interested in adventure as Jackie Susann was in safe sex.

“Walden” is, at heart, a philosophical treatise that urges us to live life to the fullest.

Even so, Thoreau, for all his seriousness, has a humorous side. He knows a joke or two.

Consider the following quote, the last part of which sounds like Oscar Wilde:

“The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.”

Thoreau could wield an insult, too:

“What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.”

And consider this notion, which is as appropriate now as it was then: “The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that they are thieves.”

Here are a few other quotes in a serious vein from “Walden,” some of which might even be familiar to anyone who lived through the 1960s:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”

No doubt Campbell will put these quotes and more into the correct context.

No joke.

Big-time book

It’s always nice when you can write good things about a local writer, especially one who is a former colleague.

HarperCollins sent me an advance review copy of Jess Walter’s new novel, “Citizen Vince.” Don’t look for the book in stores until September. But when you do pick up a copy, expect the best.

More so that his previous novels, “Over Tumbled Graves” and “Land of the Blind,” this is a big-time book that shows Walter has the potential to be an Elmore Leonard or even a Carl Hiaasen. “Citizen Vince” is funny, serious, involving and topical all at once.

Only instead of being set in Detroit or Miami, it’s set – mostly – in Spokane. As he’s shown consistently, Walter, a former Spokesman-Review staff writer, knows Spokane as well as anyone can.

And now he’s bringing that knowledge to the rest of the country, and in the process he’s using it to create some pretty good literary mystery fiction.

Book talk

• Harry Potter Celebration, 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Borders Books, 9980 N. Newport Highway (466-2231). Note: Copies of the newly released paperback edition of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (Scholastic, 870 pages, $9.99) will be available.

• Auntie’s Book Group (“Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington (838-0206).

• Literary Freedom Book Group (“Red Water” by Judith Freeman), 1 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

The reader board

• Tom Nussbaum (“The Boy in the Book”), 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.

• Dennis Kyne (“Support the Truth”), 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.