How to comprehend hard books like Walden?

<p>Yeah, you are completely right proletariat; I've already found those spots out which make it a lot easier to comprehend and get straight to the point. I cannot understand many of his ramblings though so I just skim the passage for the points. And it is nice to see so many connections to previous chapter in every chapter because he tends to keep repeating some themes over and over again.</p>

<p>Also, we are required to keep logs and respond to quotations and try to connect themes. I find a lot of specific quotations (Usually a sentence to a couple long) and I'm wondering if I should jot them all down on paper and respond that way. I usually have 60-70% quotations and the rest are my responses. Is this a good format or should I write more about them instead? I find that the quotations speak more words that I alone.</p>

<p>I think that this quotation is meaningful but I don't quite understand it:</p>

<p>"Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts."</p>

<p>What is Pilpay & Co. ?? A company that slaughters animals or makes food products? And I don't really get where he is going here. These animals are not simply our neighbors but our food, our way of living. Is he just trying to create irony?</p>

<p>sparknotes......lmao</p>

<p>For me at least,Walden is a very,very complicated book.Not only for the style,neither only for the vocabulary ,but mainly for the subject.The whole idea of the book is complicated ,the very theme it deals with is a deep and hard one.
Others have said,that Bronte sisters or Frankenstein are heavy stuff.I, for instance, find Walden far harder than these , the only difficulty in those are related to the vocabulary apart from that those books are kinda easy to get,but Walden is surely different.
What happened to me is much like what happened to the guy who said he had read the introduction and found that quite interesting, but when he came to the work itself he could barely understand 40 % of what was being said.I don´t know what to do,at the very same time i feel somehow Walden reading is going to change my life,for it deals with something that has always interested me deeply whareas when i read it i get the horrible sensation im not getting anything out of it, or if i am, im not getting it all,what an awful frustration! lol
But somehow,Henry David Thoreau is such an incredible,exquisite writer that when i read him,his style alone captivates me ,marvels me .The book is beautifully written,apart from it´s elaborate,sophisticated philosofical concept ,it is indeed a wonderful piece of writing.</p>

<p>Underline sentences you don’t understand. This helps in 3 ways: one, they “stick” in your mind better, two, you can review them easily later and try to connect them to the rest of the text, and three, you can use them as a reference if you are absolutely stumped and need to ask someone who would know (aka your teacher).</p>