A Black Forest Walden

<p><b>Compares life today in the German Black Forest with Thoreau's experiences at Walden Pond.</b></p><p><b>Finalist for the 2022 </b><b><i>Foreword</i></b><b> INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Essay Category </b></p><p><i>A Black Forest Walden</i> is a work of philosophical reflection nature description and sly humor. In brief chapters or aphorisms the American philosopher David Farrell Krell recounts his experiences in a cabin located in the mountains of southern Germany's Black Forest where he has lived for several decades. Insofar as Krell compares his experiences with those of Henry David Thoreau who serves as both inspiration and irritation the book could be described as a critical commentary on Thoreau's <i>Walden</i>. Yet it equally reads as a rigorous yet playful and profoundly literary manifestation of where and how the mind wanders. Hence the Marlonbrando of the subtitle is not the late actor but a feral cat who frequents the cabin and comes to be an important interlocutor as if playing the role of analyst to the author. The subjects Krell treats are wide-ranging: the changing seasons environmental issues romantic love parent-child relations European versus American values higher education artistic creativity solitude and the contrast between lifestyles in a quiet Black Forest village and in a noisy contemporary United States. Forty-one black-and-white photographs taken by the author accompany and enliven the text.</p>