Helpful Hints: Reading Walden

From "The Walden Express" http://thoreau.eserver.org/waldenxp.html:
"This is not an easy book, especially at the beginning. Usually, it's best not to spend too much time on individual sentences, pondering the meaning of each phrase. Walden is the classic "more than the sum of its parts," and it's easier to pick up the overall meaning if you take care not to get caught in the details — just keep reading. But not too fast! Try to "listen" to the words, to catch the tone, the color, the sound. Henry Thoreau loved words and writing and ideas. He put a lot of his life into developing his ideas and writing them down, and much of the time he never expected to get a lot back, except for the joy of his work. If you listen carefully, the joy is still there."

Excellent advice from Mark Bitman on dealing with the novel's structure and language can be found at:
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/thorcrit.htm