A Black Forest Walden: Conversations with Henry David Thoreau and Marlonbrando

Finalist for the 2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Essay Category

A Black Forest Walden 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 Walden. 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.

David Farrell Krell is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University and Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor at Brown University. His many books include The Cudgel and the Caress: Reflections on Cruelty and Tenderness, also published by SUNY Press.